Kyle Maynard. Dude doesn’t have arms.

With my recent thread on Reddit i’ve felt an urge to return to writing my little guide on weight loss. Here’s the ending section, may it motivate you to turn some stuff around.

Inspiration and character building

I know most of this will be fairly contentious which is why I left it for last.

I firmly believe that in order to succeed in life, and especially in weight loss or a consistent workout plan, you need to become indifferent to all the negative influences surrounding you and introduce positive influences. This does not necessarily entail a hiding or removal from the world, but training in becoming indifferent to it, and developing a love of what is good; you must love and cultivate what is beautiful in yourself and reject what can degrade or destroy you. For the former, I would recommend studying the philosophy of Stoicism. It’s a practical virtue philosophy for life which focuses on developing indifference to factors outside of your control and developing a joyful life of service to those around you. It’ll help you not get angry when you have setbacks in your quest to lose weight and improve your health, to see those setbacks as what they are and to focus on what is within your power to change. Stoic wisdom will help you confront feelings of inequity, inadequacy, betrayal, attack and misfortune. Your desires for irrational things and for things not in your best interest will evaporate and be replaced by a love of what is good. Start with Epictetus (the Enchiridion) and then check out his discourses, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Shakespeare also serves this purpose.

I also think it would benefit you to commonly think on the greats who have come before and try to imitate them. Our societies overwhelmingly pay worship to whores, weaklings, criminals, addicts, and charlatans in two thousand dollar suits. Instead of doting on those who drag us down look to the bad asses whose sacrifices and virtue allowed for this system of abundance and waste we now squander.

No one is more bad ass than James Stockdale. Dude was shot down over Vietnam and tortured in Hoa Lo prison for seven years. When they tried to use him on Vietnamese state TV as a propaganda piece he scalped himself. They broke his legs a ton of times, and he refused to betray his country. When they tried to force him to give a confession he slit his wrists. All the while he upheld the military chain of command amongst his fellow prisoners, instilled in them hope to continue fighting in their own way and served as president of the Naval War College following his release. Whenever you bitch about “but I want to eat that pizza everyone else is” think of Stockdale in a puddle of his own shit and piss, alone in the dark, with broken legs. Is your life really that hard?

Warriors like that should be your inspiration and your role models. The classics are a good place to start. You will find powerful role models in stuff like the Iliad, the Bhagavad Gita, Odyssey, and Aeneid, and historical heroes in accounts such as Plutarch and Livy. Cato the Younger and Cincinnatus, such god damn bad asses. Think on the historical founders and mythic heroes of your civilization, and strive to imitate their action, persistence, service, love and good. Find some dudes who you can look up to, and who make you swell with feelings of admiration. Men have been blown up before, crawled on their bellies until they could drag themselves on their knees, until they could walk for a few moments, falling and cursing, until some bloody years later they could lift cars and run without end. Be proud of being like them, and of living with no apologies for your own manliness. Surround yourself with others who appreciate the good life, health, restraint and other virtues which are important for the heroic, self-realized man. You should be proud of your friends, not have to apologize for or rationalize their selfish, destructive behavior. Banish the negative, destructive and unhealthy where possible, and where not possible, become indifferent to it.

Begin a regiment of meditation. Meditation doesn’t imply merely thinking about random things in a dark room – rather it instructs a deliberate process to examine and transform our thoughts. Two suggestions: Stoic and Theravada Buddhist techniques. The former involves an action on waking. Think of all the things that could go wrong today. Maybe you could crash your car. Maybe someone will make fun of you. Maybe they will bring cake into work. How will you deal with this? How will you NOT deal with this? This allows you to prepare and anticipate the worst things that could happen, and then develop a plan to confront those things. If someone brings a cake into work and all your weak, pale co-workers are ingesting it, you should be prepared not to. Do not allow events like this to suddenly ambush you, otherwise your instincts, rather than wisdom, may prevail. And while instincts help us survive, they do not often help us flourish. In this way we can prepare effective strategies to confront our problems rather than confront them recklessly, and we also are less shocked when misfortune befalls us, allowing us to deal with setbacks in a more sober and less hysterical way. You will see the scale go up some days, and for seemingly no reason, maybe even after a huge effort in the gym. What is the response? Not shoving cake in your mouth, but instead thinking about things rationally. Buddhist meditation is a bit more technical, but do look up Mindfulness and Loving Kindness meditation, as they are immensely rewarding.

You no longer know anything for sure. Go on YouTube and watch some TED talks, every fucking week. Open your heart to positive change and new directions. The same old doesn’t work. Throw out the past. That girl/guy who broke your heart isn’t going to fall into your arms one day. They are fucking someone else, loving it, and think you are disgusting. Hard truth: you might be. But not for long; now you’re in training, like a Spartan, like Batman in the Dark Knight Returns after a period of painful exile. Don’t ever look back. Charge forward. Force yourself to smile and buy some new clothes. The future is open now, not closed to darkness and hopeless. Keep watching those TED talks. Don’t buy anything from any “gurus” but listen to them all, and what appeals to your reason, experiment with. Some won’t work, but some will. Hey, your life just substantially improved because you’re now thinking about things in a novel way. Plan. Schedule. Act.

There is a cult of failure in western culture. A cult of excuses and of emasculation. You’re leaving this cult behind and it’s going to be scary. It’s scary, but you’re about to take control and feel good for the first time in so many years. Imagine waking up and feeling amazing, and knowing exactly what’s going on and where you are. This isn’t a fantasy, it’s now. And you’re now a force for good in this world. No one can stop you but you. All those laughing, stupid motherfuckers are dead wrong. And all those like you want to see the light at the end of the tunnel just as badly and NEED YOUR SUPPORT. Find them online, at school and on the street, cling to them, and move mountains together. Believe in them and by doing so, believe in yourself.

Go out in the world, grab it by the neck, shoot your gun into the mouth of doubt and do what you want.

A quick post – writing during my lunch hour at work.

In mid June 2011 I began a weight loss journey at around 440 lbs. I have to admit that during that time I was filled with hopelessness and expected nothing to work. At the beginning of my journey I began a diet log at Sherdog to track my progress and keep myself publicly accountable, as well as hopefully receive some guidance from warriors.

The original title of the log was “437 to 250.” The latter weight I thought would be impossible to achieve given my history and yet I aimed for a lofty goal to underscore my conviction.

This past week I achieved that goal and am now down to 245 – having shed about five pounds in a single week. That’s 192 lbs (lost) in about 619 days – not bad. But I’m not done yet. Onward and upward (or downward?) to 220. I am confident I can accomplish this, plus complete my body recomposition, greatly improving my functional strength, flexibility and aerobic health by the end of the 2nd year of action. In order to challenge myself today I signed up to train in thai boxing under some demanding and elite coaches once a week, which will supplement my regular, weekly powerlifting sessions. Hail iron!

Here’s to all who reach their goals -but more importantly: strive to reach them and value the path. To the odyssey from uncertainty, to sacrifice, to redemption! You can accomplish anything if you reject the negative and irrational and cling to the virtuous.

A conversation between Thom and I on Google – thought it may be interesting to some. Previously wrote on these topics here.

Chris: I’m butt hurt about Sam Harris because he tricked a huge audience into doing Buddhist meditation and never identified it while talking about how useful it is.

Thomas: Didn’t he make a joke about it during the speech?

Chris: I don’t like militant atheism.

Thomas: About how that’s what he was doing?

Chris: No he never IDed it, probably so people would do it. I don’t like atheists who reject everything to do with religion.

Thomas: I thought he was like “this is the only way I can get a room-full of atheists do to mindfulness meditation” or something? As a joke.

Chris: If I could flip a switch and replace all atheists with Buddhists I would – almost certain he never IDed it, he made a few jokes about how meditation could be bullshit.

Thomas: Yeah Harris is fucking insane after reading his lying book and hearing him talk about LSD all the time and shit. He’s probably gonna kill himself.

Chris: Why do you say that?

Thomas: Just seems unstable.

Chris: My main article of butt hurt is that he has no plan to replace religion and attacks it constantly. He and Dawkins have the same problem.

Thomas: We should have polytheism but as a knowledge that it’s not literal so we could still have holidays and festivals – that would be so sick.

Chris: Some people need to be told how to behave, because: they lack the interest or more importantly and more immutably, the ABILITY, to create their own moral code/social concept. It also begs the question: is it healthy to have such a society which lacks an awareness of the sacred or ritual? Even so if everyone did have the ability and desire?

Dawkins/Harris assumes everyone is like them and has the ability and interest in making a sophisticated inquiry into morality and ethics to create a working culture. It’s absurd.

Thomas: Yeah – agreed.

Chris: There are millions of stupid people who need to be told how to behave, just statistically speaking.

Thomas: Harris at least does have a model of society, but it’s inaccessible to the vast majority of people in my opinion.

Chris: Now.. that doesn’t mean that they can’t live good lives. You can be stupid, be told what to do, and still be good. Also… another problem with them is that they attack the logic of religion but religion has “accidents” which accompany it.

i.e. They don’t come from the logic, or the canon, they come as attachments which have nothing to do with it but can be actually useful to people. People aren’t Christians in the doctrinal sense, if they were they would be stoning women to death for being in the presence of men while menstruating. But it’s irrelevant because the “functional”/provisional religion they live can, in theory, be beneficial in and of itself.

Thomas: The problem is how to consolidate the usefulness of religion with the adverse effects: abortion rights being an issue, gay rights being an issue, prohibiting certain kinds of useful scientific research, etc.

Chris: Well I would say, create a new religion. I don’t think religion can be destroyed; it is an integral part of basic human biology.

Also: “Religion” is a bit of a tautology, because it doesn’t say anything; Confucianism can serve the same role as a religion. You just need some way of ordering society in a coherent manner and establishing a spirit of the people. In fact I would say Confucianism is arguably the best replacement for religion, in whatever variant or name you want to call it. The making sacred of relationships is critical – and that won’t happen with atheists; most contemporary atheists are shit bags.

Thomas: That’s why it would be great if aliens attacked us. It would simultaneously disprove the existence of god, force us to band together, and we, as earthlings, could align our values against those of the aliens and create a useful system of morality.

Chris: Well take Star Trek for instance. It’s essentially a communist and atheistic culture. However: the prime directive and the duties of federation citizenship have replaced religion. Point is, something must replace it – you can’t ad-hoc a civilization on an individual basis.

Thomas: Yeah most atheists are too amoral/nihilistic/existential.

Chris: Yeah I can’t stand them. I prefer stupid Christians honestly; at least they consider if they should be doing something at any given time.

Thomas: Atheism of peace. [inside joke]

Chris: In my eyes atheism for most people is a lazy excuse to be a self-centered twat. They realize that the metaphysics of religion is nonsense so they throw out all to do with it. Yet take something like contemporary worship of ancestral gods. I see value in worshipping old gods, not as metaphysical entities but as exemplars of mythical virtue and to gain wisdom associated with the story of that myth.

Thomas: Yeah.

Chris: Dumb people can think those gods exist – whether or not they do is irrelevant in my eyes. It’s not important.

Consider ancestor worship in Confucianism: the relevance is not that those ancestor spirits exist, it’s that you are meditating on death, your duties and the passage of time, while taking account of your lineage and your dedication to continue that traditional virtues of one’s forefathers.

Found a really potent passage while revisiting Pierre Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life which more or less sums up my philosophy of life. The passage, from Philo Judaeus, a first century Jew writing in On the Special Laws, is also arguably the most pithy portrait of not only Stoicism but also the spirit of Hadot’s title.

Note: Paragraphs added – the original text, like all Greek, was one block.

Every person – whether Greek or Barbarian – who is in training for wisdom, leading a blameless, irreproachable life, chooses neither to commit injustice nor return it unto others, but to avoid the company of busybodies, and hold in contempt the places where they spend their time – courts, councils, marketplaces, assemblies – in short, every kind of meeting or reunion of thoughtless people.

As their goal is a life of peace and serenity, they contemplate nature and everything found within her: they attentively explore the earth, the sea, the air, the sky, and every nature found therein. In thought, they accompany the moon, the sun, and the rotations of the other stars, whether fixed or wandering. Their bodies remain on earth, but they give wings to their souls, so that, rising into the ether, they may observe the powers which dwell there, as is fitting for those who have truly become citizens of the world.

Such people consider the whole world as their city, and its citizens are the companions of wisdom; they have received their civic rights from virtue, which has been entrusted with presiding over the universal commonwealth. Thus, filled with every excellence, they are accustomed no longer to take account of physical discomforts or exterior evils, and they train themselves to be indifferent to indifferent things; they are armed against both pleasures and desires, and, in short, they always strive to keep themselves above passions … they do not give in under the blows of fate, because they have calculated its attacks in advance (for foresight makes easier to bear even the most difficult of the things that happen against our will; since then the mind no longer supposes what happens to be strange and novel, but its perception of them is dulled, as if it had to do with old and worn-out things).

It is obvious that people such as these, who find their joy in virtue, celebrate a festival their whole life long. To be sure, there is only a small number of such people; they are like embers of wisdom kept smouldering in our cities, so that virtue may not be altogether snuffed out and disappear from our race. But if only people everywhere felt the same way as this small number, and became as nature meant for them to be: blameless, irreproachable, and lovers of wisdom, rejoicing in the beautiful just because it is beautiful, and considering that there is no other good besides it … then our cities would be brimful of happiness. They would know nothing of the things that cause grief and fear, but would be so filled with the causes of joy and well-being that there would be no single moment in which they would not lead a life full of joyful laughter; indeed, the whole cycle of the year would be a festival for them.

Running across little gems like this is why I am a scholar and student in the classics. You will not find such nourishment in our contemporary tracts, which rather fixate on base psychology, suspicion, and nihilism. Still these old words are as true now as then. To echo Marcus Aurelius: everything is as it always was, a familiar procession of the soon to be dead, forever replaced and refreshed in common forms by cyclical nature. Value this fragile but precious existence as the festival it is.

Strangely while your parents and the parents of your parents probably use Facebook more than their children do and sing praise to their glorious idol Netflix amidst the corpse-like glamor of LCD light, gaming has remained a maligned topic. Not amongst the young: no, in that demographic gaming has become widespread and nearly normalized. However in the popular media and amongst the formal and businesslike, gaming is demonized as not only a waste of resources, but is also blamed for inciting domestic violence and mass shootings and for providing a wayward path to squander precious opportunities. As a young person it’s all too common to be chastised by elders for “doing nothing all day” as they spend hour after hour on their smart phones stalking lost loves on social media websites. I am here to refute the notion that gaming is toxic and to defend it as an institution. I credit a great deal of what I know with that hobby, and it also recently landed me an excellent job. Please forgive the meandering nature of this post; it’s as much a memoir as it is an essay.

First, a problem exists in defining gaming. For me gaming only entailed playing something like a Nintendo or Playstation for a few years of my childhood. Chronologically speaking what the activity of gaming formulated as, and what it means today as an adult is a deliberate activity in which I build a computer, configure it with software, engage and contribute actively in online communities and play and modify computer games. I have a contempt I respectfully hold near to my chest for the gaming experiences on “consoles” such as the Xbox, Playstation and Wii. The experiences these platforms offer is formulaic and requires little effort to acclimate to or excel at. They rarely offer opportunities for learning or self-exploration and the products often pander to the lowest common denominator. If you want to demonize gaming for being a waste of time, one could make a compelling but caveated argument against console gaming, but that’s not my quarry and herein I hope to distinguish the difference between these two categories. As a point of order I also engage in and recommend gaming of a non-electronic type in the form of tabletop and “pen and paper” games, as I have covered previously here and here.

So what’s in PC gaming? This is a difficult question to answer succinctly. At it’s most elementary and pedantic PC gaming involves playing games on a computer. However in practice gaming is an entirely different activity and often involves commitment to organized online communities, posting in forums, building and configuring computers and developing online friendships with people from all over the world which can and often do turn into offline ones. PC games differ from consoles in that they have a steeper learning curve, which enhances long term enjoyment at the expense of initial ease of access. Another distinguishing factor perhaps more relevant to this discussion is that PC games  typically allow modification by the user. It is this ability to modify computer games that is at the heart of my interest in them: to build new worlds, new technologies and design new systems, and then see how others interact with my creations is a ever renewing joy and my real satisfaction in this enterprise. It is the same gratification an artist, writer or musician is privy to and not that of a foodie, adrenaline junkie or gambler.

Gaming is to me a learning tool; a way of accessing a world of knowledge at a survey level and exploring it in a fashion which is non-linear and thus markedly more intuitive. In this sense gaming was a perennial companion during my schooling and helped engage in an intuitive way with the subjects which interested me. If one games with these goals in mind, not mere instant gratification, gaming can empower rather than strip our lives. I never made a conscious decision to game in this manner. Rather this method was a natural calling, in part deriving from how I was introduced to computer systems and the initial barriers one had to surpass in the early days in order to access the fun stuff; If you didn’t know MS DOS, bulletin board system telephony, boot disks and memory management you didn’t get your “cake and eat it.”

Furthermore, the earliest PC games were actually designed by hackers, you know smart people, and the games tended to be the sort of thing smart people wanted to play. There was no demand or need to cater to children, and thus the games were forged complicated, mentally engaging and technically challenging. This trend has decreased in recent years with the commercialization of PC gaming and the reduction of self-owned studios. Even so a niche market has existed all along for those of my heart, and most recently “indie” (see: good) game development has seen a monumental burst in activity, threatening the markets of major commercial producers. Services like Steam and Kickstarter have been at the center of this rebirth: the former allows for effortless publishing of independent developments while the latter is a crowdfunding website which has given developers an avenue to appeal directly to fans in order to make their projects a reality.

Down to brass tacks: what do I look for in a game?

• Complexity – if it takes me a shorter time than a month to “master” than chances are I won’t be interested. I require significant mental stimulation in order to be entertained and I shy away from systems which lack a believable and rich simulation of whatever the game is portraying. I prefer systems which have wikis dedicated to them and require significant self-study in order to understand; this keeps the mind sharp.
• I need to be able to learn something – the range of what I have learned from games is insane, from learning realistic police procedures to how to find water and triangulate my position from landmarks. Asking questions, being a humble observer and committing to full immersion into a topic is key. I also enjoy being an educator and sharing what I have learned with others by creating multimedia, instructing seminars and developing my own documentation.
• An online community I can get involved in as a hobbyist – gaming is not an isolated exercise for me. My enjoyment comes in working in coordination with other hobbyists to achieve sophisticated simulations, planning and executing large social events and in becoming students of a certain topic together. Plus it’s fun to get to “meet” people who you never would normally.
• Building or modification capacity – the allure of a game rarely lasts for very long, but the enjoyment can be extended while simultaneously enhancing your skills and knowledge if you become a designer, developer or “modder.” Most of the games I play nowadays are lukewarm fun in themselves, but what keeps me around are the long projects I contribute to, both by myself or as a member of a team amongst other hobbyists. As I alluded to before, nothing is more exciting than spending tens of hours on a modification, unveiling it to the community and watching other gamers interact with, adopt, expand upon and enjoy it. These projects can pay dividends if you are seriously dedicated to your science, as I will explain soon enough.
• Good clean fun – I’m not interested in games where you just run around mowing people down mindlessly, especially if it has realistic graphics. This sort of twitch, instant gratification notorious in the Call of Duty franchise is not only dreadfully boring but has no value outside of the orgiastic act: what can one learn or develop from such an experience outside of a normalization of violence? Don’t get me wrong: I do enjoy realistic simulators of warfare, but cannot tolerate arcadey treks through seas of numbing, simplified, mindless violence. On the other hand abstract mindless action can be fun sometimes as a change of pace, but it’s not what keeps me in gaming or motivates me to spend time in it as an institution or hobby.

I’ll often be asked why I’m wasting my time playing games. Well, I’m not. If I wasn’t being constantly stimulated on a mental or social level I would not bother being involved. Pong is my anti-game; merely keeping my hands busy and my eyes moving like a rat on a treadmill is not a sufficient cause to devote my time.

Here’s a (very) abridged list of what I have learned or have been inspired to pursue from gaming:

• Land navigation and map reading
• Information management, retrieval and manipulation skills, particularly in high intensity environments
• A survey in history
• World religions and mythology
• An interest in science (damn space games), which eventually lead to an interest in philosophy
• Web development
• Sound, video and graphic editing at an advanced level
• Scripting and programming – leading to my current job
• How to interact and accommodate different people, particularly people of different countries and ESL speakers. What non-gamer routinely speaks with people from ten different countries on a daily basis?
• Geography, foreign cultures and governments
• Basic physics, aerodynamics, flight dynamics and piloting
• Provisioning and responsible financial planning
• Operational and strategic planning
• Computer hardware, telephony, networking and electronics
• Basic concepts of architecture and urban planning
• Creative design and direction – insomuch as applying writing to media production
• Time management, collaborative work in complex projects, synchronization of efforts, team communication and leadership
• Google Docs, surveying, data mining and analysis
• Music production/mixing
• etc etc etc

And here’s the kicker. I am starting a salaried, full time job with great benefits essentially doing what I do for fun in my free time. How? I am a skilled developer and a “name” in the community who put in the time needed to master the art while simultaneously enjoying myself. Where is the evil or folly in that? While I would not say that this is a realistic career path for all – what is true is that if you become a scientist, academic and magnet in service of a complex game, network with the heads of the community and have the genuine skill to make cool stuff, you may do well. And at the very least you will have enhanced the leisure time of those you engage with while also learning some useful skills and knowledge. The magnets of every niche gaming community prosper and give back in this manner of redeemable generosity.

Gaming is more than about just having fun in the same way a roller coaster gratifies; it is more than a good feeling which enters and leaves like an opiate, dissipating into the ether. No, gaming is a discipline, hobby and lifestyle that enhances our lives, helps us harness real world skills and bolsters our technical competency in the information systems which have come to dominate our lives. To belittle and reduce those who partake in such an activity is the mark of ignorance and denies to the self a great facet of living in the electronic age: such fascinating and mysterious activities would not have been possible just three short decades ago.

This is the preface to a work-in-progress guide I am writing on weight loss for the morbidly obese. It is entitled “my hopeless struggle” which is a play on the working title of the guide, “A Guide for The Hopeless: Weight Loss and Rebirth for the 300+ Pounders“

Before we dive into the guide proper you might be interested in my path to lose weight. It’s pretty simple: I was born fat, have always been fat and if my weight were mapped throughout my life it would be an ever increasing plot. My mother is obese and obesity or at least pudginess runs in the family (it’s how our ancestors survived famines and the Black Death in old Europe I guess). My father’s family is a mixed bag: some are a bit on the chunky side but there are no hugely overweight people. Growing up I remember constantly being hungry, uncontrolled kitchen grazing and lots of junk food. Bad food habits and habitual overeating was also forwarded by my father, who having been raised by a traditional Italian mother, believed in food as an experience, as a reward and as an expression of affection. My father insisted on always eating more, and the more was often pasta and starches. I was pretty active as a kid – I played outside a lot and on the weekends did “manhunt” and “wrestling” with friends, which was a lot of high intensity sprinting, circuits and stress positions. Compared to peers outside of my circle of friends I was probably less active, as I was and still am interested in technology, gaming, scholarship and craft; yet I would have been considered an athlete in comparison to most of today’s kids!

Other than a few times in which my pediatric doctors advised me to lose weight by eating less (fat) and exercising more, I was never cognizant of just how big I was becoming. I never weighed myself, did not have access to a full body mirror and was reassured by those around me that I would eventually “slim out” as I grew up. Side bar: this is a lie – metabolic disturbances and weight gain you accrue while young will be very difficult to work off later on and parents allowing this are committing child abuse in my opinion. I knew I was fat but not until I began to weigh myself consistently (just in mid-2011) did I realize the depth of the problem.

I had a shit load of medical issues, all of which were complications of my diet and undiagnosed. I would get winded after going up stairs and it took no less than ten minutes to recover. I got shin splints after walking for more than a half mile. My vision was often blurry in the morning after I eat my bagel, cereal and margarine (a sign of diabetes and abnormal blood sugar). I was constantly tired and experienced daily crashes after meals which left me irritable and unable to focus. My skin was dry and flakey. I often developed heat rash in the lower extremities during the summer. Speaking of summer, I could not operate in temperatures over 80 F for very long before become miserable or fatigued. I avoided going to some places because I couldn’t fit physically. My painful activities with the opposite sex were often restricted to the dreaded friendzone. I had tooth decay. My heart would often chug violently and one time I even called an ambulance because I thought I was having a heart attack. Constant heartburn and indigestion. Stomach ulcers. Headaches and withdrawal symptoms whenever I went extended periods without certain foods. My flexibility was horrible – I could not raise my legs very far without experiencing horrible pain and stiffness. I actually could not sleep on my back at one point, as the weight put a lot of pressure on my lower back and made me toss and turn all night. The list goes on and on.

It was for these symptoms, not for my size (which I had trouble perceiving) that I first tried to lose weight. My first attempt in middle school was with Herbalife, a snake oil supplement brand and severe calorie restriction diet that my mother seemingly lost some weight employing (regained later). But I did not have the money for an extended course and my sporadic consumption of the initial one convinced my mother not to further her economic support of that regiment. During high school I was vegetarian and even vegan for a time, and only gained more weight. I tried calculating my energy needs using basal metabolic rate calculators and formulas, and took nutrition and conditioning classes in college, furthering my lifelong interest in medicine, nutrition and conditioning. It’s indeed an ironic thing to be the most educated person in a room when it comes to medicine, biology and nutrition and yet be the unhealthiest! I experimented with various things but could never find a solution, and when I failed, would become depressed and apathetic. I simply stopped caring and resigned to the seeming impossible situation I was in.

In spring of 2011 I finally got fed up with being fat and started religiously following the common conventions for losing weight and good health and following the nutritional guidelines forwarded by the US government: a lot of whole wheat carbohydrate, a small amount of fat, a relatively small amount of protein, cut out the soda and juice, avoided salt, fruit, decreased my calories to just my basal metabolic rate and increased my physical activity. At one point I was doing an hour of boxing a day and weight lifting on a weekly basis. I tried this regiment for two months. Then the totally incomprehensible happened: I still did not lose any significant weight. The breaking point came when I went to my new and current doctor one day (for an infection in my leg, probably a complication of my obesity), they had to weigh me during processing and my weight was higher than the scale could support, greater than 350 lbs. The last time I had been weighed was in high school and I was 340 or so then, so this alarmed me. I got home, and bought a scale online that could support up to 440 pounds, thinking that I would probably be a few pounds heavier than 350.

The scale came and I weighed myself for the first time in about ten years. I stepped on, the scale creaked and the number flashed onto a vibrant blue LED with big black text. I was 437 pounds. My heart literally sank and I felt like I was just informed of my impending demise. I got dizzy for a second and collapsed on my bed, staring at the ceiling. How did it get to this point? How was I this big? Why didn’t anyone help me? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why did all those fuckers lie to me? How could I be so stupid? Is the scale broken? How is this possible? All these questions raced through my fat head and I broke out in a sweat. I had always told myself that if I ever got this heavy I would just stop eating or otherwise find a radical solution to get rid of the weight. I vowed then and there, to myself, to go online and find something that would work – because obviously what the government was forking out wasn’t working for me.

The first place I went was the internet forum Sherdog, a mixed martial arts, combat sports and functional conditioning community. I had gone there before to talk about boxing gear I was buying in the months before and knew of the existence of a nutrition sub-section which I had yet browsed. My experience in the other areas of the forum convinced me that they might have some clues on how to lose this heavy burden: the forum was seemingly inhabited by boxers, mixed martial artists, powerlifters, trainers, competitive athletes and other individuals who could demonstrate results. Browsing through the nutrition forum I ran across a few threads focusing on low carbohydrate diets, ketogenic diets and intermittent fasting. A common feature theme in all of these threads was success stories by formerly obese dudes who sounded like they were in a situation similar to mine. Reinforcing the anecdotes were scattered links to medical journals and posts by forum “authorities” – well respected veteran posters who were personalities in either the sport training or martial art community. I read all of these threads, most of which spanned dozens of pages of discussion, and determined that the ketogenic diet probably had the most starkly contrasting results for the obese. I didn’t read too far into it, or conduct any research, as I figured it was just another nutritional concept which wouldn’t work for me. But as I was depressed and hopeless, I decided to try it out of complete desperation.

So what’s in a ketogenic diet? This book will cover that, but a grossly simplified definition for sake of conversation would be a diet in which only a small percentage is comprised of carbohydrate, the majority consists of fat and a moderate amount consists of protein. The mechanism is that the body burns its own fat for energy instead of glycogen, the latter of which is converted through a process of carbohydrate metabolism. I didn’t know much more than this basis and the success stories swirling about my head and decided to half-ass it to see if there was any truth to it. I stopped eating all carbohydrates except a few grams in cheese. My miserable diet consisted mainly in deli meats and cheese, some eggs, a lot of water and some peanut butter and a miniscule amount of nuts. Eating in such a manner was miserable but as I weighed myself on a daily basis and began to chart the numbers the amazing happened: I lost 18 pounds in the span of one week. The next week I lost another 15. The weight was literally flying off and what’s better: I instantly felt transformed. Almost all of aforementioned health woes were gone in the first week or the coming weeks. I felt like I had won the lottery. This diet sucked ass, but I had figured out the essential nutritional configuration necessary for me to lose weight! For those who don’t have the patience to read much further before throwing this guide out: do not fret, the diet we adopt to lose and maintain our weight is wonderfully diverse and delicious, it was just that in my initial exploration of it I did not know what I was doing.

Those glorious bastards on Sherdog were right! A stroke of luck and a desperate gambling leap in the dark had gifted me with a seed of knowledge necessary to begin a more deliberate and exhaustive inquiry into this little known world of nutrition. This guide represents the findings of that inquiry – through personal experimentation, academic surveys and analysis, a retrospective on mainstream and official guidelines, and discussion of philosophies of health. I attempt to distill, offer alternatives to and expand upon the basic plan I have followed to transform my health, lose a huge amount of weight and achieve a more fulfilling life. How did I personally do it?

• Sound nutrition is the key to health; good food is medicine and the way to avoiding disease
• Nothing goes in the mouth that has not been considered
• Eat a small amount of carbohydrate a day if possible, eat a lot of fat and a moderate amount of protein
• Eat a good amount of fibrous vegetables, nuts and seeds
• Fast daily
• Focus on whole, natural produce and avoid stuff coming in boxes
• Hydrate religiously
• Lift heavy things, walk a lot and sprint occasionally
• Indulge during the holidays and special occasions
• Become interested in cooking and experiment in the kitchen
• Focus on what’s in your power and become indifferent to what’s outside of your power
• Eliminate bad influences, praise health and imitate inspiring role models
• Set goals and reach them; force yourself into uncomfortable and challenging situations

Forget everything you know about failure. All of that is about to change. All it takes to overcome a hopeless struggle is a push in the right direction and a whiff of the truth. Rather than struggle in self-defeating cycles as I once did, I will reveal the most common configurations which persist to defeat us: in doing so you will triumph over these pitfalls. Let’s kick ass.

This post is in some regards a continuation of my prior Atheists and Religion, in which I examine the culture of contemporary, popular atheism and justify the existence of religion as a social and civilizing convention. I feel like I should expand upon this premise as an easy misreading might suggest I am somehow in full support of traditional religion as a convention while this is not the case.

In Sam Harris’ recent The Moral Landscape the author argues that there exists an empirical science of well being in it’s infancy that will one day replace the “provincial” moralities of religion. Harris draws by force of metaphor the image of a landscape with various peaks and valleys conveying the heights and lows of potential human wisdom regarding well being, suggesting that some cultures like those imposed by the Taliban are rife in misunderstanding what benefits a people while others are more aware of the case. For those interested in this topic there is an excellent talk on YouTube which was given by Harris at Oxford in May of last year. It must be noted that I am primarily reproaching Sam Harris the activist/philosopher/speaker rather than Sam Harris the scientist as I am ignorant in his field of study.

While Harris’ premise may very well be true, and I tend to agree with it, it has two notable faults.

One, it confuses truth with well being – suggesting that those who believe in superstitious nonsense cannot be good. This is simply not the case: simple minded people can live good and virtuous lives while simultaneously believing in factually incorrect assumptions about the universe. The mere historical functioning of Abrahamic societies demonstrates this fact: Abrahamic religions by canon are rife with superstition and inhumanity and yet the accidents which accompany those religions still instruct a basic morality at the bedrock level. As I pointed out in my aforementioned post, the accidents of religion can be very useful to those who lack the initiative or ability to forge their own moral codes. It is a fact that not all minds are created equal: some individuals just need to be told what to believe and how to behave. The mode of transmission of these mores is irrelevant: one need not be pedagogically authoritarian or dictatorial to transmit these values yet they nevertheless must be instructed. Gymnasium, public institutions or mentoring are sound alternatives in instruction.

Two, someone like a Sam Harris, a Richard Dawkins or myself might spend years of contemplation studying poetry, philosophy, literature and history to create a firm moral base. We are scholars and we are nothing like the society at large. Most people have no interest (and more immutable and relevant: the ability) in deeply studying the esoteric mysteries of the Bhagavad Gita, the sayings of Sima Qian, the writings of Marcus Aurelius or the Platonic dialogues to arrive at an original moral code. It stands to reason that religion must remain to instruct a baseline morality to society at large. Whether we call this religion or not is irrelevant, but the sort of religious experiences which are common to religion are essential to human happiness. Whether we call it culture, religion or government – it matters not, but a child must come into the world with a society which instructs virtue, honor and order, a devotion to and love for the common good and makes sacred ritual of the human relationship to social rites of passage, duties and the greater universe. Something like Confucianism, which I would argue is one of the best configurations for a harmonious civil society, might very well stand-in for “religion” – but ultimately something must replace it in function and place.

Furthermore, not everything in life can be empirically sound and there is no “perfect” morality. Two civilizations can flourish simultaneously and promote different values; at some level the myths, allegory, national character and virtues of a civilization are arbitrary. Take the Germans for instance: they pride themselves on being “industrious.” Is there anything objectively virtuous about being industrious? What if your society did not believe in the good of material things and instead of valuing industriousness valued the ability to detach from distracting worldly possessions? Is one inherently more “moral” for being industrious versus being detached from industry? Of course not. Now, that being said I do agree with Sam Harris in that it is possible to arrive at a fundamental morality through science and rationality. Clearly it is never good for a person to live in a state of constant psychological torment at the prospect of burning in hell, to be whipped for disagreeing with a husband or to be hung or beheaded for having sexual orientations which are not statistically normal. While it may be possible to arrive at a basic morality by science by simply considering stressors and health penalties of various ways of living this does not answer the pedagogic predicament, and it does not answer the problem of instructing a social bedrock or a complete, heroic morality.

Sam Harris does not comment seriously on what should replace religion and in interviews tends to do as his colleague Dawkins does, skip around it by saying that one can draw from literary sources and philosophy. Great, that works for you, does it work for a society at large in educating the young and creating a stable and consistent social bedrock? I would argue that while contemporary Christianity can barely accomplish that now, it is still better than popular atheism.

And what do I mean by popular atheism? I am not referring to myself, Dawkins, Harris, Dennet, Hitchens or the like – I am referring to those in my age group (teens-30s) who by convenience and common reason do not believe in God. While the religious tend to take their faith very seriously, even if they often misunderstand it and believe in it by contemporaneous applications of their own reason,  the atheist’s only faith is in his defiance of religion and his defensiveness when being proselytized to. As I pointed out in my previous post, nothing replaces religion in their lives, and they often become nihilistic hedonists. Nihilism and hedonism (I do not refer to Epicurus, but Sex and the City) are not healthy philosophies of life, neither at the personal level or the public level: how could such selfish philosophies instruct self-sacrifice, public service and restraint necessary for conduct in the commons? Sure, a small percentage of atheists become moral philosophers – as every atheist should, but they lack the framework and organization to bring any wisdom they have compiled to the masses. Masses which believe in nothing except the self. For a civilization to flourish it must have a conception of the hero, of myth, virtues, duties of relationship and most importantly: something greater than the self.

Harris does not help: he seems obsessed with destruction of religion but restrains from offering or even fully acknowledging the need of a substitute for it. What’s worse is the hypocrisy: I recently saw a talk in which Sam Harris convinced the audience to do 15 minutes of Vipassana meditation, a practice deriving from Buddhism, in order to enhance their awareness and well being. At no point did Sam Harris identify the religious practice he was tricking his audience into partaking in – as identifying an element of religion as not only helpful but essential to life would not fit into the worldview of that audience. My point is this: these sorts of excursions can not be private and society will not flourish if a few atheistic parents teach moral philosophy to their offspring; there needs to be something at large which instructs the operation of life.

How would I do it? I like the idea of a passage of the youth in training to become a responsible citizen. Something like the Boy Scouts (sans the contemporary bigotry) immediately comes to mind in the same way sending off one’s children to the church in yesteryear resulted in them becoming educated, virtuous and of firm moral character. Children must be involved in an organized mentoring institution which has virtuous role models ensuring the healthy operation of the students: body and civic character. In ancient Greece this was done in the Gymnasium: older men would take on younger boys and teach them everything about what it meant to be a virtuous, well-educated and responsible citizen, as well as instilled in them a reverence of the Gods (in our place: nature). In Buddhism there is a conception of a teacher and student relationship, in which a student becomes a charge of a teacher is thus instructed in the dharma, the state of nature as it is, and the way of a skillful (wise) individual who is compassionate and virtuous. Children could be involved in martial arts programs instructed by morally straight, inspirational role models. Children and young adults need constant intervention by organized moral forces in their life, otherwise they risk becoming rotten adults. While today some turn to the church, the nihilistic forces at large have a potentially corrupting influence, and wise parenting will only engender good nature so far along.

Another way in which religion can be replaced is by proper philosophy education in the schools. Currently philosophy is instructed as either a diversion or as a means of knowing technical truths. This is not the good or the historical meaning of philosophy as Pierre Hadot spent the whole of his life demonstrating, and to which I have written of extensively in my undergraduate thesis. Philosophy is a guide for applying wisdom to life and is a way of living that might be confused for religion by the contemporary observer who more likely has come to understand it as an academic and far-removed pursuit. If philosophy as a way of life was taught in schools in parity with mathematics or English – not as an elective course that one might take as a senior in high school, much of our problems would be mitigated. Studying moral philosophy is the one reliable means of developing our inherent sense of morality to heroic and magnificent heights: Harris’ resources of empirical science are a malnourished stock compared to something like the Discourses of Epictetus. It must be noted that such teachers of philosophy must be philosophers themselves: they must embody and practice their philosophies, not merely be instructors in them, else the student shall not imitate. For the particulars I refer to the obscure but excellent treatise Musonius Rufus and Education in the Good Life: A Model of Teaching and Living Virtueby J.T. Dillon, which outlines the classical mentoring relationship between a philosopher and his students.

Lastly myth and allegory are incredibly important. A civilization must have a clearly defined conception of hero, a wealth of wholesome allegorical figures to contemplate and moral parable to share in a common study. We need something like a Bible, an Iliad, a Bhagavad Gita or a Kalevala. The content of said canon must instruct a civilization’s virtues, values and present materials to uplift and build the character of the reader. There is nothing wrong with contemplating on an allegorical deity or mythical figure if it uplifts us, engages the mind and promotes imitation of that allegorical good. Moral stories should accompany such a book, easily comprehensible by the common man, and demonstrate basic truths about the universe and of moral conduct. A.C. Grayling attempted to create such a work in his The Good Book: A Humanist Bible, omitting all mention of God but nevertheless attempting to compile a powerful canon of moral rectitude, while William J. Bennet inscribed a similar work, although at times mentioning God, in The Book of Virtues. Whatever the process or contents, what is true is that the proliferation of such a canon is essential to the flourishing society. While the Abrahamic sources lack a great deal of wisdom and are rife in genocide, racism, misogyny, ethnocentrism etc they also do contain a few gems of wisdom which have been cherry picked by believers to live moral and good lives. I do not dare mock these believers, but instead respect them for their attention to focusing on what is the essence of life: being a morally aware and responsible citizen. For more on religion after religion, see Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists - that work covers this topic in wonderful breadth while I merely mention my own suggestions.

Ultimately whatever follows religion must be organized and these issues must be seriously considered before the complete abandonment of religion. The provisional lifestyle many atheists have adopted in the stead of religion does not appeal to me as a sound way to further the goals and health of a civilization. Unfortunately the millennial generation is rapidly becoming atheistic and nothing awaits them except the nothingness of their iphones and adderall. While I am glad to see a decrease in superstition and of belief in imaginary sky creatures – I also caution those “coming out of the closet” to not abandon the accidents of religion: that of living a respectable, moral life, bound by a calling to something greater than oneself.

Jump me to the good part, where I can see veteran Archivists giving good advice!

Recently I have become concerned about my economic survival.

At age 24, and having finished grad school in the end of December, I took two months off before seriously starting a job search. In this time off I cleared my head from the intense schedule I had gamed in the two  years before. Not only had I taken a full time courseload (something I actually regret now, not due to the difficulty but because it meant less time to get practicum experience) but I also was involved in a number of internships, and it was time for a break. I also wanted to try to establish a revenue stream by other means, namely by starting a new business.

I applied to a few jobs here and there during that time, but mostly just relaxed and tried to reflect on my vocation to be. A bit over two months ago I began a focused search and began to apply to dozens of jobs, mostly informed by the immensely invaluable  I Need a Library Job. The result of the search thus far has been fruitless. Not only did I recently realize that the dozens of federal jobs I had been applying to were being rejected because I was not following an unrequested Federal Resume Format, but I also encountered a complete wall of silence from other private and academic listings I applied to. What came to mind after over a month of this perpetual failure was: I am obviously going up against hundreds of over-qualified applicants per job and I am probably doing something horribly wrong. Perhaps, just as I had made a major misstep in using the wrong resume format for Federal jobs, I was also failing in some other unknown capacity in my application process to other types of listings.

This quest takes a lot out of you and is extremely stressful. The worst part is writing the actual cover letters. If you write a good one, it takes at least a half hour, and many listings have redundant, proprietary application forms which take at least as long to fill out. I applied to all sorts of jobs: librarian positions, archivists, technicians, assistants, analysts, researchers, museum techs, museum curators, directors, writers, copy-editors etc etc while keeping in mind I would really prefer to work with special collections or history. Not hearing back from any of these people, I began to look into teaching English overseas. For those who might be interested, I recommend it: there is an insane abundance of jobs and you will have a job within a week. It’s still my backup plan if my business or library career doesn’t take off.

With my failure in mind, my first student loan payments coming due, seeing my savings dwindle, the threat of being kicked out of my house looming overhead – and in a state of desperation/despondency I decided to email the Society of American Archivists “Archives” listserv for guidance. What follows is that correspondence.

My objective in mailing the listserv was:

• Be told what I am doing wrong in general
• Have people look at my resume/cover letters and point out what idiotic things I was probably doing
• Figure out if my assumption about being vastly outnumbered/outgunned is sound so that I can resolve the feelings of disappointment resulting from lack of response.

I expected *maybe* 2 or 3 people to respond if I was lucky and to get some measured, even pedantic advice. Well that’s not what happened: instead my post went viral, caused a huge amount of drama and resulted in at least 1 newbie like me leaving the listserv after being consumed by the sharks.

Unto the Breach

My first post was:

Hey folks,

Would any experienced archivists, especially those in hiring positions, give me some serious, no nonsense advice on how to get into the field? I have spent the past two months applying to jobs fruitlessly and I am seriously considering “rage quitting” the profession and just moving on elsewhere – either I am incompetent at applying or I am being outclassed/outnumbered by gigantic and unseen pools. The idea of writing another cover letter is insanely unpalatable. I know I can do anything – because I have always had the highest GPA/academic accolades and received the largest praise/pseudo-leadership positions in all of my internships. I just.. don’t know what’s wrong and I am getting really despondent.

What do you get out of this? No idea – you’d have to be a real standup citizen of the world to answer this call.

If interested – please respond to my personal email. Much thanks.
Cheers,
Chris

I made a point not to monitor the listserv because I figured the most specific information would be communicated personally. Then the huge influx of emails began. Incredibly long, incredible valuable discourses on the history of the archival job community, their own experiences in job searching, their career histories, suggestions on what to do and a few offers to look at my resume/cover letters. I was amazed by the length and complexity of the replies, as well as the breadth of topics. One fellow even called me up and we chatted for nearly a half hour.

As time went on I also received a few emails to ignore the hostile and demeaning posts on the list. I was not aware of these posts, as I have my list in digest mode, and as I indicated before, was making an effort to focus on personal correspondence. The valuable emails continued to come, with a few emails scattered about warning me to ignore the list. Out of complete curiosity, I checked it out before going to bed. Apparently while I was exchanging personal correspondence and receiving a wealth of knowledge another newbie on the list was involved in an epic flame war, being attacked by older professionals, as my own post was being declared self-entitled whining, disrespectful posturing and outrageous. Apparently because I had mentioned 2 months the impression was to some that I was somehow expecting a job on a silver platter, and that I acted like a spoiled brat. I responded with a magnanimous email, attempting to humbly explain that these assumptions were mistaken (that any information I provided was under duress, in a state of ignorance, in brief and for context) and thanking the list for the invaluable advice I had received. Sealed it with a nice little saying of Gotama Buddha:

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

The point of this blog post is to chronicle the best advice I received from personal correspondence in the list, as requested by a number of students and recent graduates. I believe it will be very helpful for those entering the field. All the following have been made anonymous and identifying information has been removed. I apologize for the walls of text, but here goes:

Correspondence

1

I sense your frustration and have lived it…and continue to live it. After earning an MLS and MA history with highest honors, coupled with internships and constant volunteering, I spent over 4 years before getting my first and only job offer at a graduate school. The position I took is professional, but the salary hardly covers my basic living expenses; and I graduated with no student debt, no car loan, and no credit card debt. I have been here 5 years, and have had no raise or cost of living adjustments, and the retirement plan was stopped after my first year. There were layoffs and cut backs, and I now spend all my time in public services and not the archives. I am thankful to have a job though.

Due to my disappointment in my current situation, I have applied to 84 positions and have had 12 interviews in the past 5 years. These are positions which I meet or exceed all basic and preferred requirements. Many jobs I never hear back from, not even a thank you for applying. At those interviews, I have been told that I was selected from 100 – 200 applications for one position. I made it through several levels of interviews on several of these positions but never received a job offer. Many institutions have scaled back their work force. Many never replace retiring workers. With 100 – 200 applications for each position, those hiring have their pick from the cream-of-the-crop. Many institutions can and do hire folk who are overqualified for entry-level positions. Many PhDs are being hired, since they are looking for positions because they are not being hired for tenure track academic positions. As academic institutions are hiring more and more adjuncts and never replacing their tenure track professors when they retire; some of these folk are turning to librarianship and archives.

They do not, nor will not, share this stuff with you when you considering an MLS. It is learned in the trenches of job search after graduation. Higher education is nothing more than a business which keeps churning out more and more graduates for $40,000. They do not care about your prospects after graduation; their job is to fill their classes and take your money.Please do not be fooled by those spouting promises of a better tomorrow; tomorrow is now, and the picture is bleak. I have started looking at other career paths, but cannot manage to save money for more education on my meager salary. Its like a catch-22, and not very enjoyable.

Good luck with your search!

2

I completely understand your frustration. I have been in the field now for about 5 years. After graduating with my MS in library science, it took me about 3 months to find my first job. After being in that job for about 2 years, I got married and moved to Delaware where it took nine months of searching to find a job in the field, so believe me, I understand how disheartening the lengthy job search can be.

The best advice I can give you is that you have to continue to be persistent. I’m also not sure about your situation, but being geographically flexible can really come in handy since narrowing yourself to a specific location can really limit you. If you are unable to move to another location, your best shot is to find an institution or two where you would most like to work and begin volunteering. The importance of networking in such a small profession can’t be overlooked. From experience, often opportunities will be posted with internal candidates in mind, so often your best chance is to become one of those inside candidates. I don’t claim to be the expert, but I have landed jobs successfully and done some hiring, I’m happy to look over your resume and a sample cover letter if you like.

3

I just saw your message on the Archives listserv about your difficulty landing an archives job. The job market is really quite bad now. I was unemployed for 2 1/2 years and applied to 40-50 archives jobs, many of which I was interviewed for, so two months of looking is not long even in a good job market but especially in the worst economy in 80 years. You might find Arlene Schmuland’s blog, That Elusive Archives Job, from a couple of year ago helpful: http://elusivearchives.blogspot.com/  It might be useful to have an archivist in a hiring position look at your resume and cover letter to be sure they’re as strong as they can be. If you’re in New York State, you should join MARAC. The regional archival associations provide wonderful networking and learning opportunities.  New England Archivists, for instance, offer a resume review table at its two meetings.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

4

With all due respect, I can’t believe you are making these comments after only 2 months of job searching.  As we are all aware, the economy is not in great shape right now, and libraries and archives do not get priority when it comes to funding…thus make job availability that much more diminished.  But there are jobs out there.  I am a recent graduate and consider myself lucky to have been hired for a full time benefits-earning position about 5 months after completing my MSIS.  (This was after beginning to apply for positions several months before actually graduating.)  Another archivist that started about 5 months before me had been searching over a year (although she had been working 2 part time jobs in the field during her search).

While this may sound bleak, the forecast for archives jobs is looking up and, needless to say, 2 months of fruitless job searching is nothing!  There was actually a fairly recent article regarding  job/salary forecasts for archives positions and it was quite positive – I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to find the link.  While this is not where I have ended up yet, I would definitely recommend getting into digital archives, as this is undoubtedly a growing branch and many positions are looking for this type of knowledge and experience.  I would say don’t give up if it is really what you want to do.  It will require a bit of patience, but the search is not futile. After my first useless masters degree, I am very glad that I went on to get my MSIS and do see it as a practical choice as far as employment goes.  Most people are having a tough time these days, regardless of what field they are in.  The application process is nearly a full time job on its own and can be very frustrating.  However, I strongly believe that if you stick it out something will come through – and once you start gaining professional experience, more doors will open for you.

5

As someone who not so long ago was hunting for a job just out of school it took months to finally land a job. I applied to what seemed like a 100 jobs and then only seemed to get called for very few interviews which I had 2 or 3 before I got my job. Our field is tough because archives are one of the first places including libraries where funding gets cut when the economy sucks. Are you looking out of state? Or just in your area if you are willing to move you have a much higher chance of landing a job. I also recommend, since its where I found a job is looking at corporate archives. Get creative on your job hunt try different companies who may have archives. If you haven’t already have a friend or maybe someone from your past internships look over your resume and cover letter just to make sure you aren’t missing something. You say you did well in your internships perhaps your past supervisor or professors could offer you some advice as well. Also if you can try volunteering or taking part time work. Even if you don’t land an archival job keep trying to build of archival skills. Adapting is a huge skill to have as an archivist. Any ways I wouldn’t give up hope after two months

Good Luck

6

 (I’m responding from the listserv) I can certainly empathize, since I was in the same situation just a few months ago.  Allow me to share just a few pieces of advice.  First, two months is a drop in the bucket in terms of procuring a job after grad school.  In my experience and those of my friends who also recently got MLS degrees it takes an average of 4-6 months to land a job in the field, and that’s for the good students.  If you were close with any of your professors I would keep in touch with them, as they are often good resources for jobs coming from unusual sources.  Second, is there a particular area of archives you are most interested in?  I can tell you that some areas bode better for young archivists entering the field than others.  Electronic records is an area where there is a great need throughout the profession- I never thought I’d end up in that field when I started, but it has offered me a chance to make a mark.  This is one area where recent education in the topic can overcome your general lack of experience, I have found.  Also consider looking into records manager positions- they deal with a lot of the same problems and the two fields are becoming ever-closer.  It may not sound exciting, but it’s a foot in the door.
Finally, and please don’t take this as patronizing, but I can totally understand the frustration and even resentment that can build up after getting so many rejections (especially those automated ones where you don’t even make it past the pre-screening).  That said, you have to try to take the emotion out of it.  Understand that it’s a nasty market to enter in virtually any field, and it may take a while to get where you want to go.  Quitting would just throw away your work.

-Oh, and I presume you have seen http://elusivearchives.blogspot.com/? There’s some really great advice on what sort of resume structure archivists are looking for in general. In summary- don’t over-think it.

Let me know if I can help in any way,

7

From my personal experience, it can take 3 months or more to get an administrative assistant type job, let alone a “professional” position. Don’t give up. If you need an income soon, take some other job while you keep applying for the type of job you want. You may actually learn a few skills which will help you when you obtain and archives job. I started in archival work, stopped to have a child. When I went back to work I found a library assistant job, then after a move a bookkeeping job. After several years I finally made it back to archival work. I’m not suggesting you follow my example, but many of my past jobs have helped me have a better understanding of the archival material and books I work with in special collections. Best wishes finding the job you want.

8

I am not who you were looking for answers from, but I am, like you, a recent grad who is trying to make it in archives. I do expect you’re going to get a lot of advice – many of it pretty standard and also pretty annoyed at the way you phrased this request – in response to your post. Here’s my biggest points for this situation:

• average job search time right now for recent grads in archives and libraries is about 4-6 months. I’ve been applying since November – which retrospectively was probably too early – and do not have a job acquired yet, but I think I am getting close since I’ve had a few in-person interviews recently. Like you, I’m a high achieving student and have practical experience to draw on.
• If you’re applying to archives at universities, hiring is notoriously slow in that area, sometimes even taking 6 months from application deadline to hire for a single position.
• On a related note, many universities have their new fiscal year beginning in July, meaning that more positions will be posted and/or hired between now and then.
• The applicant pools ARE huge. The search committee at the most recent interview I had, for a one year project position, said they hundreds of applicants.
• If you have flexibility in where your job location is, use it. Being able to relocate will increase your options immensely.

I’d highly recommend the blog That Elusive Archives Job, which is a few years old now but has the type of information from archivists that do hiring that you’re looking for. I’d also recommend you check out the SNAP (Students and New Archives Professionals) Roundtable listserv, as there are a number of sympathetic folks on there in the same situation as you!

Don’t give up hope at 2 months. It is a difficult and lengthy process. Applying for jobs that you don’t get isn’t necessarily fruitless, either. Every application is an opportunity for you to learn more about the positions that are available and to hone your application skills/process. Be sure to also take care of yourself – taking a break from applying for jobs to do other things is good in the long run and will help to avoid burn-out.

Feel free to be in touch if you’re looking for any other info.

9

I can honestly say I don’t know *anyone* in this field (or any other history related field for that matter) who has gotten a job in two months. This is relatively a small field so there is a good bit of competition. While a high GPA is very nice, landing a job in small field in a bad economy takes persistence, if nothing else.

If you decide you can handle the rejection until you can land an archives job, you may want to think about how to help yourself out in the meantime–are you certified? Do you have time to volunteer somewhere? Is there any skill that you are lacking that you can take a class for in the meantime?

Best of luck in your search!

10

Two months is not a job search; it is beginning to get started with a job search. I’m not suggesting there may not be other problems, but two months alone doesn’t indicate that anything is wrong, odd, or unusual.

11

Dear Chris – [name] is right. You are not being realistic. I checked out your blog and resume, and if I were hiring I would be asking: what archival skills does this person bring to the position? It’s great that you have an MLIS degree from San Jose. That’s a good start. As for archival work experience I see this:

<<Archives Intern Stanford University
Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Higher Education industry

August 2011 – December 2011 (5 months)

Managing OCR finding aids, converting them to EAD instances, Archivist’s Toolkit, digital object management >>

That’s a good start, but it’s only 5 months at an internship level. Most of your work experience is in the IT field, and would not move you in the direction of archival work. Note the word ARCHIVAL. Yes, you have computer skills, but now you have to apply them in actual archives working with actual collections and with automated tools that actual archives use. You’ve done a little of that at Stanford. You need to do a lot more of it.

I’ve been a professional archivist for 22 years, certified for 20. I’ve applied for many jobs – actually gotten two of them. GPA means nothing -I’ve never seen an employer ask for a specific GPA. Most jobs I’ve applied for have never even asked to see a transcript. Academic accolades and (to use your word) “praise/pseudo leadership” mean little to nothing. My experience is somewhat the opposite of yours – I have an M.A. in history and got into the field when a history M.A. and experience were enough. It is no longer enough – an MLS is now absolutely essential. So now I’m now in the program at San Jose. Why? To stay employable in the field. Unfair, perhaps, but that’s the way it is. You have the library degree – good. Now build on it, with experience that gives you the skills that are required by today’s employers. You have to have *both* the degree and the experience. 5 months of internship experience is okay, but it won’t hold up against people who have much more than that. There are lots of smart, experienced people out there and you’re competing against all of them.

12

It’s tough, and I was in the same boat you are in when I was looking for a job.  It took me about 6 months to get a permanent full time position.   I won my MA in Public History from the [College] and as part of our curriculum we had to do internships.  I was able to work at the State Archives and did an internship at a small university.  After I graduated I was hired for 2 years as the interim University Archivist.  This gave me a lot of experience and put me in the “middle” of the hiring pool.   While I was working at the university and when I was actively looking for full time employment I volunteered at a local Historical Society, this too added to my work experience.  I graduated with my MA in [someone in early 2000] and by Jan of [someone in early 2000] I had a full time permanent job.

Archives, libraries, and museums always need volunteers and it is a great way to get work experience, and it always qualifies as work experience on applications.   If you do volunteer get involved in all that you can.   Once you have established a relationship at an institution ask to help with outreach, reference, processing, appraising, and preservation.  It will give you a lot of experience.  I got involved in a lot at the California State Archives and I left with tons of knowledge and hands on experience.   I also went back to my university and asked one of my professor’s if he needed help grading papers or doing research, I offered to do it for free but he paid me, and I helped him do some research on a book he was writing and lectured in one of his classes.  I put this on my resume and it seemed to impress those reviewing my applications.   I also joined the Society of American Archivists, there is a onetime reduced rate for persons in your situation, and other local and state archival organizations, and historical organizations, it demonstrates that you are interested in your field.

I hate to write, and if you like to write and do it well, look into doing reviews for archival publications or help with the editing/publishing of a local archival publication.   Or if a local group does not have a publication ask to help get one started.

I probably applied for 40-50 positions and about 1/3 called me back for phone or in person interviews. I looked on a lot city, county, university, and corporate websites and applied for archivists or archivist related positions.  I also looked at government jobs too, USAJOBS.gov  If I qualified I applied for it.  I worked hard at it and it paid off.

There is a job for you out there and it will happen, trust me it will.   I think you are a smart and determined person and things will fall in place.  It just takes time.

I wish you the best in your job search,

Good Luck!

13

I’m sure by the time the dust settles on this subject, you will hear from many more folks who are much more experienced than I am. I don’t know what your undergrad degree is in, but mine is History … so is my MA. I happened into a very nice internship at our local government – and was hired perm seven months after my internship ended. My advice is to look into not just archives, but other jobs that have an archival component. The problem is not enough jobs, lots of new graduates, many in the field with years of experience and institutional knowledge, and timing. I really didn’t want to make records management my field of choice, but it ended up that was the job I found. I get to do a lot of really great things in my job besides the grunt work – we have an exhibit case in the courthouse lobby that my student assistant (yes, now it’s “my” student) researches a topic and installs a new exhibit on county history every six months. We do have a small, but important archive and offer our partners (actually county departments) advice and consultation services on a myriad of issues including data storage and preservation as well as being a full service records center.

Networking is key – if you’re not on Linked In, do it now. Hook up with other professionals if you can. Someone mentioned SAA’s mentoring program – which is great IF you get a good mentor. I say this only because at the county I work for we also have a mentoring program. I went through it several years ago and was really disappointed with my mentor, but that doesn’t mean the ones through SAA would disappoint – I know that they try to match well and it IS a great program. You don’t mention any areas of interest … Like I said, my degrees are in History so I applied for, and got, an adjunct position at a local community college. I teach two U.S. History survey classes and love it. I also enjoy genealogy and research, so I try to stay connected in that field as well.

One big problem today is that many agencies are simply struggling financially and either not filling positions, or eliminating them altogether. It’s a very tough job market out there, but do NOT get discouraged. Everyone has to bring in a paycheck, so you might have to work in a job that isn’t necessarily what you hoped for right off. Being employed is a good thing right now. Look at other careers like I did; records management is joined at the hip with archival services, and they say it pays better! Never quit learning and training – if you haven’t already (and the deadline just passed for this year’s exam – but there is always next year) study for and take the Certified Archivist exam. Many agencies are looking for certifications like that now. I know my employer will bump up my pay once I receive that certification – which I hope to in August. Also, I went through some pretty rigorous electronic records management training through AIIM. They offer some very good certificate programs as well.

Bottom line – don’t get discouraged. I know it’s hard not to, but many good people are in the same boat. Surviving comes first, but the dream job is out there. Stay current on trends and training and eventually you will get the job! Best of luck to you in all your endeavors.

14

2 months of applying for archival jobs is not that long. Right after I graduated (2009), I applied to about 30 jobs (over a period of 4 months) before I got even a phone interview. I think it took that many revisions of my cover letter to get it just right. Have you had other archivists or librarians review your cover letters and resume?

My best advice at getting into the field is to be willing to relocate for a job. In this economy, you might have to bounce from one grant-funded position to another until you land a permanent position (I did).

If you are truly serious about this career, don’t “rage quit”. Pick up a job that pays the bills, but make some time for volunteering at a local historical society or museum (easier said than done, I know). When reviewing resumes, it often doesn’t matter if your positions were paid or not, as long as you have experience.

15

I am little surprised at the impatience displayed here.  Back in 1982 when I graduated from library school, I expected to take at least six months to find a position in an academic library.  It was more like 9 months. With the increasing litigiousness of the personnel process, the situation has gotten worse over the years.

When we are looking to fill a faculty librarian/archivist position here, the process can take almost an entire academic year from formation of a search committee in the fall to posting the job announcement later in the fall, giving time for applications to come in in early spring, vetting the applications and checking references, interviewing mid-spring, doing more reference checks if deemed necessary, making a decision, getting permission to offer from the University personnel folks, etc.  If we are lucky, we have a decision by the end of the spring semester.  From the applicants’ point of view, the process will seem to have taken 6 or 7 months.  So do not despair.

Also match your resume to the job qualifications.  It is amazing how many applicants send in letters with resumes that clearly indicate the person is not qualified for the position.  Such applicants make themselves look foolish.  If you are continually not interviewed for positions for which you are clearly qualified, you might consider changing your list of references.  In this day and age, you might also take a look at information that is available about you on the web.

Good luck.

16

I’m replying privately. I am now the director of an [academic library] after working most of my career in archives and special collections. I got my Master’s in [sometime in early 2000s], I’m [mid 30s], and have lived all over the country.

I lurk on this list and usually merrily delete-delete-delete nearly all the messages without reading them. But yours really struck me and I hope that my comments will be helpful.

I do a LOT of hiring – sadly, usually not for my library these days – and just finishing chairing 2 search committees for IT positions at my university, one of which we received 148 applications for. So I’ve seen a lot of cover letters and resumes. If you send me your resume and cover letter, I will be happy to critique them and tell you, in my mind, what employers want and need to see in them. I’d seriously love to do it, so if it would help please send them along to this email address or [someone@something.com].

Some thoughts:

• Two months is not long to look for a job, unfortunately, in libraries/archives or in most other fields these days. Keep at it, and don’t give up. Echoing what a lot of other people have said – my first job after grad school was a full time position in a library, making $20,000/year salaried. I had two other part-time jobs and it absolutely sucked. But you will move through and out of that quickly if you keep pushing.
• Sounds like you have done internships and other volunteer gigs. Keep doing that. If you were near [my city] I’d offer you an internship.
• Be willing to move for the job. Your area code suggests you’re in New York, which is good since there are a lot of jobs there, but there are also a lot of job seekers there. Be willing to move. If you have family nearby and a partner or kids, you are going to have to make some tough decisions. I just can’t tell you how important it is to be willing to move for the gig you want. In this field, in this employment climate, you almost have to be. I moved [all over the place], just in the past 11 years.
• Don’t expect much from SAA. I’ve been a dues-paying member of SAA for a long time and I don’t think I’ve gotten anything out of it that you couldn’t get yourself by reading some book covers and keeping up on listservs and blogs. It’s good to be able to put on your resume that you are a member, but man, they don’t do much for the field.
• Do try to get certified as a CA. This is a STUPID thing to have to do. You won’t learn much, and being certified won’t mean that you are a better archivist than anybody else. I got certified in [early 2000s] or so – the test is dumb, it’s absolutely ridiculous, but it’s a bullshit hoop that is worth jumping through, because many employers see it as a sign of dedication. Go get it. It helps. It shouldn’t but it does.
• Become involved in local archives stuff. New York’s local archives group – NYART – does a lot of events and programs – go to them, drink a glass of wine and schmooze. Get on with NYART or some other local group as not just a member but an officer. Much as I hate networking – I hate even the thought that one has to network, let alone actually DOING it – it is the only way. Knowing people and having them have positive associations with you is important. Get on LinkedIn if you’re not already. Link with me.
• Look broadly for jobs. Others have mentioned this too. Look at the up-and-coming vendors in the archives field – vendors who do digital preservation, digital asset management and enterprise content management, migration of obsolete media, etc. See if you can work for them and beef up your tech skills. This will be a huge asset when you’re looking for your next job. Records Management is another good field – lots of jobs and money there. If you are determined to work in one kind of archives, or do one type of work, then you will have much more trouble – and definitely need to be willing to move for the gig.
• Don’t pay too much attention to this listserv. People on this thing spend hours and hours, writing message after message, about what you should do when you find a box of matches in your archival collection (cut the tops off the matches? Just keep the box? Throw it away after scanning it???) Bah. It annoys me. That is not what archives are about. We should be – and job seekers especially should be – looking at the big issues, advocating for them, trying to peer into the future, finding leadership roles and gaps in leadership in the field. You will make yourself distinct and memorable if you do this, and stay out of the weeds.

Hope this helps – and do feel free to send that resume/cover letter if you like.

17

I wanted to give my input to your situation off-list.  Connections are VERY important when you’re looking for an archivist position.  I managed to land my current position because, as it turned out, my mentor at the [University] knows my current supervisor through SAA.   That connection helped A LOT when I applied for the position!  Another instance—I applied for a position at another institution and asked a former supervisor for a letter of recommendation.  As it turned out, he was friends with the current archives supervisor at the institution I was applying to—they had worked together at another college in another state.  (I didn’t get the job but I made it to the final two, largely on the strength of a personal recommendation.)

I would encourage you to approach your former professors or anyone in a supervisory capacity you’ve worked with at an archives—let them know you are applying for a job at Archives “xxxxx” and ask if they happen to know anything about the institution or anyone who works there.  The archives world is very small and insular—I think you will be surprised just who knows who.  But don’t give up in your search.  I had about 20 applications out there before I landed this job.  And I would encourage you to consider a library position—any experience is good, and your chances of moving into an archives position as a current employee at an institution are much better than just applying randomly.

18

Before I graduated with an MLIS I had a job, yet now I feel as if I’m in a similar situation. I have been applying left, right, and center with the hope of moving back to the Midwest. Yet I only get little nibbles and often times none. I wonder if getting my first professional position was just too easy and that it takes more work than I had ever imagined. Like you I have taken this personally.

I have been advised to:

not invest in the positions that I have applied for. I am to look for a good match and I did not get an offer because we did not mesh. NOT because I did something entirely wrong,

make my cover letter as succint as possible yet sell why we would be a good fit emphasizing special qualities I can bring to the institution,

don’t leave anything out of your CV. No one will “be blowing your horn for you”. That really is a quote,

and lastly, I have a friend that was appointed to a government position that we would all dream to have. After 15 years on the job (and being frugal) he was able to retire. He stated that it took a couple of hundred applications to finally find that position. Now in his very early 50′s (he retired about 5 years ago) he continues to work but for enjoyment only. He also accomplished this in a strong economy – It is doable.

If you have any words of wisdom, I would most appreciate them.

19

I would like to be encouraging, yet real.  It’s hard for anyone to find a job right now, and some fields are even more difficult.

Here are some thoughts I have:

I have worked as a curator, librarian, archivist, and records manager.  I have degrees in anthropology, museum studies, and information science with a focus on archives.  I have been working in information and cultural heritage management since [the 80s].  I switched to libraries and archives after finding it too hard to find professional work in a museum.

It takes a long time to get a (professional) job.  I think two months is way too soon to give up even though you may be frustrated.   And sometimes when a person gets his/her first pro job, it is not necessarily the dream job.  For instance, my first professional job (and I am a person with lots of experience even then) was as a children’s librarian and that job offer came 4 months after graduation.  There are many talented, intelligent, experienced people out there searching and few jobs.  Part of it is the economy — fewer jobs being posted, fewer people retiring, fewer people moving around.  Part of it is the nature of this work.

I have been laid off twice in the past 4 years.  And the jobs that I did get, I got through networking.  Does your school offer any career counseling services?  You might want to check them out.  Networking is a big part of getting jobs.  Volunteer, get a part time paraprofessional job, apply for jobs in related fields, get a mentor, go to professional happy hours, serve on professional committees, and use social networking tools to your advance (I got one job through a FB comment saying I was laid off).  Send your resume around and ask for feedback.  (I am happy to look it over.) Asking for people to look it over is a chance for you to improve your resume, but also gets someone to look at your resume and know what skills you have.  Go on informational interviews where you contact a professional and ask to come in and talk to them about the field, their job, etc.  Again, you learn something and you get a chance to sell yourself in case jobs come up.  Looking for a job is a full-time job that requires lots of different strategies.

And before being laid off in 2008 I had been looking for a better job.  I have been looking for a better job for years.  I have applied for over 100 jobs across the country and have had many, many interviews.  I have had several job offers (many of which I turned down) and have worked in some okay positions, but only this week was I offered something good and I’m happy to say that I start on Monday.  However, it is not in special collections, but rather public libraries, and that is disappointing to me.  But I like most things about the situation and it has some potential for career advancement and tolerable salaries.  I am grateful to have it.  That’s the economy we are in.

Also, these jobs do not pay well.  Some people can make a six figure salary, but most do not.  I think starting around $30K-40K is still common.  A friend of mine is a librarian at [University in the south west] where she has worked since the 1970s and she makes around $60,000.  For some people that is not an issue, but for where I am right now, these mediocre salaries are preventing me from achieving some of my life goals and serious hinder my ability to support my family.

Personally, I think anthropology is a great degree if you can combine it with a practical graduate degree like information science, public administration, or MBA.  There are many jobs that would use an anthro degree.  Have you looked at the Society for Applied Anthropology?  Many library and archive jobs require or prefer a second masters, but before you take on any more debt, remember how much you are going to be paid.
Also, anything involving technology or other kinds of management of information are other good options, such as project management, business (systems) management, digital asset management, and records management.  Those are all valid ways of using an info sci degree, if not as cool and interesting as being an archivist.

Some people get lucky.  Keep applying.  Be flexible in the job title and location.  And don’t take it personally when you do not get interviews or offers.  You just never know what will happen, so you have to keep trying.

Again, I want to be encouraging yet real.
Good luck,

20

 I’m sending this message to the entire list since I think my comments may be useful to others, but feel free to email me directly if you’d like.

I hate to say this, but the short of it is that two months is not a long time at all for an archives job search in this day in age.  I’ve conducted two country-wide job searches since I received my degree.  My first-job-after-graduation search in [early 2000s] took about 8 months.  The economy was fine, I had a decent amount of experience in the field (about a year of full time plus 9 months part time at three different repositories), and I was willing to relocate pretty much anywhere and it still took a long, long time to find something.  It was a two-year temporary position in a university archives setting, which later morphed into a tenure-track position.

Fast forward 9 years:  There are a lot more archives programs pumping out a lot more graduates.  The economy still isn’t recovered from the recession.  People are putting off retirement as long as possible.   Vacant positions are not being filled as a cost-cutting measure.   Some experienced individuals who were laid off are willing to take positions for which they are extremely overqualified, making the competition for lower-level jobs even stiffer.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t jobs out there.  In fact, it seems like postings have become more frequent of late.    But, job searching is a slow, arduous, and self-confidence-sapping process regardless of the field one is in.

What I tell the students who’ve worked with me is that if they want to make a career in archives that they need to be willing to relocate.  Further, they are competing against people who have more experience, who went to a better graduate program, and it is up to them to get experience (maybe even get certified by ACA) and build skills to make themselves more marketable.

Some more specific advice
- Meredith Lowe’s Archives Gig is (in my opinion) the best place archives-related job listing site.
- Check out Arlene Schmuland’s That Elusive Archives Job
- Take advantage of as many continuing education opportunities as you can.
- If you can, volunteer to keep up your skills while you job search.
- Get involved in professional associations now while you can get away with paying the student/not-yet-employed rate.
- If you aren’t a member of SNAP, SAA’s Student and New Archivists Roundtable, join it.  It’s new, but the membership is enthusiastic and can commiserate and advise.
- SAA has a mentorship program, as do many of the smaller archival associations (I’m currently involved with one organized by the [a roundtable of archivists in the north east]).
- Get certified. I’ll admit that there is not universal agreement on this, but I figure that it can’t hurt especially considering the fact that some employers require certification.

21

I’m a new graduate and have been (and still am) trying to break into the field too. The main thing I can tell you off the bat is that two months of applications is, sadly, not that much. My first job search straight out of school took five months of applications before I got a one year internship (and I know people who have been searching for much longer). Towards the close of the internship, I sent in dozens (and dozens and dozens) of applications over a seven month period, had second interviews for only two jobs (neither of which I got) before the institution where I was interning as a processing archivist decided they had a temporary (6 month) need for me at their off-site storage facility. Discouraging? Yes. Extremely. When you hypothesize that you’re competing against unseen masses, I think you hit the nail on the head. A recent job I interviewed for had nearly 1000 applicants. It boggles the mind.

My advice might not be worth much (as someone who’s still relatively new in the field), but the two things that stick in my mind from this experience are to gain as much experience as you can and to be persistent. As far as experience- all the feedback I’ve had from employers/potential employers is that they’re impressed by my range of experience- I took a number of internships while still working on my MSIS (one at a national library) and spent as much time as I could spare volunteering at local libraries/museums/archives. The choice of venues was limited as I was living in a smallish city at the time, but I managed, between internships and volunteering, to build a foundation of widely varied and highly practical experiences. As far as persistence goes…I know how incredibly discouraging the job search can be (and how hard it is not to take rejections personally). If you need to, take whatever work you can find, branch out of archives into libraries/knowledge management/prospect research/records management, but don’t “rage quit” your search. Trite as it sounds, Something will work out…eventually.

As far as actually searching- you might already know about them, but some of my favorite resources for jobs/job searching have been I Need a Library Job (for which I also volunteer- find the daily digest at inalj.com or see just a selection of the jobs it contains on Facebook), archivesgig.livejournal.com (posting mainly archives and related jobs), the “That Elusive Archives Job” blog (which is really just a series of articles rather than an ongoing blog- but it’s supremely helpful- http://elusivearchives.blogspot.com/), and individual school or state job listservs or blogs (most library schools have some type of resource for posting jobs). I also love opencoverletters.com- library/archives/km professionals anonymously post the cover letters that got them their current job- It’s a great resource to see what works and what doesn’t.

Know that you’re not alone! That may be cold comfort, but a little patience and a lot of persistence will go a long way. Luckily you’ve also got a lot of other more highly qualified responses in response to your email. Good luck with your search!

22

I spent over a year applying before I ever got anything more than a thanks, but no thanks letter. Don’t give up. Just keep being persistent. It’s painstaking writing cover letter and cover letter, tweaking the resume per job, and so forth. Especially, when you never usually hear anything; it’s as if you are sending them to a black hole.

But, just keep at it. I finally got a phone interview, which led to a position three months later. In total, I was looking for over 18 months before I found a job.

23

To begin, I’d just like to say this I’m just offering you one person’s opinion. You could ask five different people to read these docs and get very different responses, so here my two cents to take for whatever it’s worth. (I’ll also say that a lot of these decisions come down to opinion and subjective points of view, so keep that in mind when reading my comments as well.)

I completely agree with you on a clear concise resume that gets to the point. I have always gone with the rule of a resume not going over 2 pages. As far as the resume goes, one thing that jumps out at me is that your descriptions of jobs are not consistent. For the Credo Reference you just list individual tasks. Then you get down to Yuba College and you use more complete sentence-type fragments. I would strongly urge you to go through and make them all consistent. I have always preferred the Yuba College style where you use good active verbs to describe work experience instead of the simple list under Credo Reference. It is small style consistency things like this that can keep your resume at the top of the pile when up again 100 other candidates. I also understand adding content this way makes it longer, but I think you have enough of a cushion to expand on some things and still stay within 2 pages.

On your letters, the file cover.pdf – the first thing I notice is that your first sentence isn’t a sentence. Who recently saw? If a recruiter is reading through 100+ letters, starting off with a fragment like that might mean they don’t even read any further and chuck you into the no pile (not fair, but certainly the way things happen sometimes). This, like most of my advice, is just personal preference, but I’d avoid using the word nerdy. It gives the letter a less professional vibe to me. I would also definitely never write “I’m sick of writing cover letters.” It shows a poor attitude and will have them wondering why nobody else has wanted to hire you either. I do think your secont paragraph starts out extremely strong with your focus on Web 2.0 technologies etc. and I also like the part in your last paragraph about not simply doing duties, but going above and beyond.

On the file named ChrisKrauseCover.pdf, I would nix talking about how you’re keeping it brief because of all the other letters to sort through. It’s true, but not something that needs to be said as it’s not strengthening your case any. I would also never say in a cover letter “I am not the most experienced.” I would never ever advocate dishonesty in a cover letter, but you should also be using all your space in the cover letter to sell yourself to the company. It’s not a time to talk about your shortcomings. I would also discourage mentioning things like working for a low salary until you earn your chops. In my experience, a discussion of salary in a cover letter is just too premature. I do think the bullet points in the middle are great. They clearly state the experience and are listed in a way that makes them stand out. You might consider changing your resume to mimic this sort of bulleted list as well.

The last letter, ChrisKrauseInterest.pdf, once again the starting with Recently spotted… take the time to write out I recently spotted. Other than that, the first and second paragraphs seem really great and strongly worded. I’d once again shy away from the bluntness of I am a giant nerd. I understand you’re trying to make it more personal and staying honest, but cover letters are supposed to be a more formal type of writing. I’d also remove comments like (no kidding).

Hope this was at least somewhat helpful and I do wish you the best of luck in your search! Persistence pays off!

24

You are right about the debt [I brought up on the list that the main issue is student loan debt and lack of medical insurance] .  I got through a Ph.D. and then did an MLIS with minimal debt.  My wife was also earning a pittance as a university professor in [the south] at the time, so we were not starving.  After I finished my Ph.D., however, I worked for two years in a clerical position in a library, decided I wanted an MLS and had to quit that job in order to go to library school.

Good luck and hang in there; professional jobs take time, especially academic jobs.  On a personal note, even if you are angry, don’t mention it in an interview.  I lost a job at Brown University that way; and I don’t really blame the people who interviewed me.

25

I am sorry that everyone is being so negative.  Being unemployed in this economy is hard.  I consider myself lucky that I graduated with an archives degree during the first tech boom when everyone just wanted to get rich quick working for a tech company.

I recently attended a MARAC conference in which there was a session on people having trouble getting hired, entitled “Hire Power”.  Here is one of the presentations, which might be helpful (or at least let you know that you are not alone).  Best of luck!

http://eatingouryoung.wordpress.com/

26

I was laid off in August 2009 so received unemployment for much of the time that I was out of work.  I don’t know your circumstances so probably don’t have useful advice regarding the challenge of day-to-day financial security (taking a part-time gig, moving far away for a job or some other less-than-desirable solution). I am very sorry to hear what a rough time you are having and wish you good luck in your job search.

27

Well, your request certainly went viral on the A&A list!  A few archivists tend to fall into traps of responding “Well, oh yeah, look what happened to me.”  Some tend to lose sight of humanity.  But these are a tiny minority–vocal they may be–of the list members and archivists, in general.  Frankly, I was put off by the tone of part of your message, but I chalk that up to frustration.  I can still remember my fear of 30 years ago that I wasn’t going to be able to find a job after graduate school.  I don’t know whether what follows will be useful, but you asked for some advice.

First, it is true that you are in a tough market.  The effects of the economic meltdown of 2008-2009 is still being felt in the archival profession–many layoff and few jobs.  Two years ago, I posted a grant-supported job announcement that paid an entry level salary and got 115 applications; the person I hired had 28 years of experience, the most recent three doing exactly what the new job entailed.  I don’t tell you this to further discourage you (although I’m sure I have), but to answer part of your question.  You may not be doing anything wrong in application process, but you are in that “gigantic” pool that you mention.

Second, I know it is hard to have patience.  Your generation isn’t known for patience; neither was mine when I was young.  Many of my colleague forget this.  You probably have debt, you may be worried about health care insurance, and you want to get into your chosen profession.  If you have a passion (I don’t especially like this word) for it, it will eventually happen.

Third, and here is my real advice–and I apologize for taking your time if it is all stuff you know and are doing already:

1) You start with a Catch-22.  Newly graduated archivists need to find entry level jobs to get experience and almost all entry level jobs require experience.  And the ways to get pre-appointment experience are not always satisfactory, at least from an income perspective.  Most hiring managers looking at entry level positions will take seriously student employment, internships, and volunteer work.  I always feel badly suggesting volunteer work, but if you get the right situation, it is a great way to learn, hone skills, and get experience.  It seems that this work is often heavily weighted toward working with photographs.  At least in my experience reviewing resumes, that seems to be the case.  Thus, it does raise two issues:  1) It is important to either broaden your experience as much as possible or 2) figure out exactly what you want to do (visual materials, digital records, preservation, etc) and get as much experience as possible in that area.  Admittedly, neither of these is easy to do; but a focused volunteer experience can be valuable.

2)  Figure out what your short-term (and perhaps intermediate term) career goals are and whether you want to focus your job search strategically to meet those goals.  Do you want to be a generalist?  Do you want to work with institutional archives?  Do you want to work with manuscripts?  Do you want to concentrate on reference?  Do you just want to get a job?  Of course, sometimes your perspective changes.  I worked two part-time jobs immediately after graduate school; one in municipal archives, the other in a school district records management program (this is the “just wanting a job” part).  After a year, I got a job as a manuscripts curator dealing with Jewish records (this is the “exactly what I wanted to do” part).  But it did not pay well and it was in [a city in the midwest].  I did not want to work in government archives, but after three years in [a city in the midwest], I took the project position in [a city on the west coast].  And now I can’t imagine doing anything else.

3)  Having an answer to number two informs your strategy.  What experience do you need and what skills do you need to develop to find a job?  Most entry level jobs are still processing positions.  Getting more experience in processing textual records would be good for your resume.  Work in or familiarity with MPLP seems to be a “must” these days.  As much knowledge about (and any experience with) digital assets and electronic records will be invaluable.

4)  Someone on the List mentioned contacts.  Networking is really valuable.  Several years ago, a young recent graduate asked for an informational interview.  She was bright and personable, but I had no jobs.  But I did keep up with her to a certain extent and followed her work experience.  When a job came up, she applied and the fact that I had some knowledge of her weighed in my decision to hire her.

5)  Hopefully, your graduate instructors or career counselors told you this one.  Always tailor your cover letter to the job, using the same language that is in the job announcement.  I personally do not like cover letters that are more than one page.  To some degree, you can create a template that has basic information and then you fill in the material that needs to be specific to the specific application.  Of course, be sure that you don’t leave any of the old information in a new letter.  I once had someone applying for a job who had the wrong institution in the body of the text.

6)  Make your cover letter and resume look like you are the guy who invented cover letters and resumes.  Non-professional looking application materials don’t get very far with me or most of my colleagues.

7)  Think outside the box in looking for work.  I know perfectly fine archivists who first went to work for Corbis or Amazon doing taxonomy work.  Your graduate skills should be able to buy you a lot if you are willing to do something in the short term that you don’t really want to do in the long term.

8)  Be willing to move anywhere.  I am a native Pacific Northwesterner, but I took a job in [a city in the midwest] a year out of graduate school.  Three years later, I got back to the NW.

Chris, I’ve written more than you probably want to read and it may not have been helpful.  Don’t let a few cranky archivists bother you.  We are generally a pretty decent bunch.

Best of luck,

28

Thanks for the follow up posting.  I didn’t join the pile-on of responses, but I do want to add a few comments of my own.
You are correct that a lot of people who have been in the profession for a while are perhaps unaware of the situation faced by a lot of recent graduates.  Things have changed a great deal from even 20 years ago, let alone 30 or 40.  But I think one of the real problems not discussed in polite company is the failure of faculty to be honest when advising students.  Encouraging students to get degrees in fields that are not likely to lead to employment which pays a living wage is not fun, but it is the honest thing to do.  Unfortunately, too many faculty try to avoid hurting the student’s feelings or enthusiasm for getting an MA or, Heaven help us, a PhD in a field like history or anthropology.  They are rewarding areas of study.  But I wouldn’t dream of encouraging any student to enter such a program unless they have a brutally realistic appreciation for how bad the job market is in those fields BEFORE they head off to grad school, and how much the degree will cost them.
I have had this discussion with students regularly over the past fifteen years.  I have told most of them that I do not encourage anyone to borrow large amounts of money to get an MA or PhD in history, because incurring such a debt is a very poor economic decision.
The archival world is changing fast.  If you don’t do computers and data management, you probably are limiting yourself to a few large archives with large legacy paper collections.  Today’s archivist needs to be savvy on working with electronic data.  Lacking that, no matter how good the subject area MA (anthropology, history, American Studies, etc) won’t be much help, unless you are able to line up an interview with a museum or library in that area of narrow expertise.
Best of luck with your search.  I’m sorry to repeat, be patient, and keep plugging and looking.  Keep doing the volunteer work and the paid project positions.  So far, it’s the only way anyone gets an entry level job these days.

29

I’ve been following that firestorm you sparked over on A&A today, and as someone who has seen many n00bs get smacked down on the list over the years–try not to take it too personally. The advice you’re getting over there is mostly good, but you’re right that many of the archivists don’t really understand how tough it is to break into the field right now. (I had two solid years of library and archives experience when I started applying for professional jobs, and it still took me 1.5 years to land one.)

If you’d be willing to share the private responses you received with the SNAP list, I think our members would appreciate it.

30

From a recent interview we had with an intern… how are you presenting yourself? Are you coming in with the attitude that you are the best freakin’ person they will ever find and they are blasted fools IF they don’t hire you? Our first choice was rather shy, but we thought she would be happier than our #2 with working alone most of the time.

31

And now I want to apologize for all the ungracious things said today.  I can understand why people can have been offended by some of the words you guys chose to use in your emails, but they didn’t bother me.  You were just asking for information from your peers, communicating the best way you could at the moment.  Nothing wrong with that.  Nothing wrong with being frustrated or curious.

I have found that the Archives list is full of petty bickering.  Very odd.  I have never been the recipient of this craziness, but I have witnessed it often enough, which has caused me many times to sign off or at least not pay very much attention to the list.

If you want to be an archivist, a library/info science degree is not always required, but getting to be that way more of the time.  Rarely is a person required to be a Certified Archivist and it’s even rare that it’s a preference.  But still a good thing to aim for.

Museum curator, registrar, and collections manager are jobs you could get with an MA in anthropology if you also get a certificate in museum studies.

To be a librarian, you need a master’s degree in library/info science.

If I had it to do again, I would not go into this field.  Sad to say.  I like the work, but the pay and chance for advancement and other kinds of support (like being able to go to professional conferences and having the tools I need to do my job) are so few and far between.  And other kinds of frustrating decisions from administrators…Well, where I am in my life now makes me regret my choice of career.

That being said, it is rewarding in many ways and I do like the work.

Again, sorry for how my colleagues represented themselves and our field today.  Most of us are not all like that.

Let me know if I can help you.

32

Hey – may I recommend substitute teaching as something to live on while you look? I did it through the half of library school when I didn’t have a full time job (in another field) and then while volunteering to get the right kind of experience (at a historical society where even the director, working full time, was unpaid whenever she couldn’t find a grant to pay herself with – if you’re dead set on working in a field with no money in it, sometimes you get literally no money!)). The first in [a southern city], in the private and parochial school circuit, and the second in [another southern city], in the public school system.

It’s massively flexible work – you take only the assignments you want and work only the days you want – and, especially at the high school level or in specialized classes (music, science, etc.), can really be nothing more than sitting in a room while they watch a film, do homework, or (my best week long assignment) a student teacher runs music class. Many institutions actually have an “archivist”, often a current or retired teacher or school librarian who is the keeper of the institution’s history, and who may be involved in the local professional associations and be able to be an additional reference for you (Archivists of the [southern city] Area has several members who are school archivists, for example).

No, it doesn’t pay exceptionally well, and generally (I believe some larger public school systems may be exceptions) you’re on your own for benefits (I self-insured through Sam’s Club for much less than my eventual job took out of my paycheck in premiums each month – unless you plan on high medical bills, it’s really quite feasible — and if you do plan on high medical bills, may I strongly encourage you to get a government job!). But it pays better than waiting tables many places, and it’s certainly more pleasant and flexible. It also gives you convenient time to volunteer and get your hand in after the school day is done and on weekends, unlike working retail.

Remember, volunteering doesn’t have to be something that takes the place of a paying job – volunteers often have full time jobs and volunteer after work or on weekends, either because they love the institution and want to help out or because they want employment in the field but can’t afford to be unemployed during the job search (are supporting children, etc.).

I speak as the former volunteer coordinator for the [southern city research institution], for what it’s worth!  And we’ve hired several people (2, currently interviewing a third) who volunteered for us, then got paid on contract whenever grants showed up (hint: just about anyone will hire you if you can find your own grant!), and finally got hired full time when positions opened up. Incidentally, there seem to be a lot of traditional archives jobs in the [southern city] area in the past few months… Although that may be just a fluke and once they’re all filled nobody around here will be hiring again… (My facility hired six people at once -out of a staff of eleven! – but then went four years with nobody leaving and just recently hired two more to replace departing staff.)

Hope my (recent – [mid 2000s] library school grad) employment experience helps.

33

>Most of you who started careers in the 80s or 90s didn’t graduate with $50,000+ in debt, and you didn’t have the interest rates we do,

No, I didn’t graduate (M.A. [a university on the west coast] [mid 1980s]) with $50,000 in debt. But I wasn’t debt free either. My student loans (combined grad and undergrad) were around $20,000. The University of [some state] was a lot cheaper back then. You’re not the first and  you’re not the last to deal with student loan debt. No, we didn’t have the same interest rates you’re dealing with. As [someone] noted, ours were often higher.

>and statistically you probably didn’t worry about health insurance or a survival on a daily basis because of the former.

Depends on when you graduate, what the economic climate is at that time (the late 70s was a time of very high inflation; the early 80s was, like now, a time of deep recession), and what kind of job you land right out of school. My first one was a paraprofessional job at [a university on the west coast], and rarely do those pay well. Just try living anywhere on the west side of [a west coast city] on a paraprofessional’s salary. I lived with a roommate, owned no car, and chipped away at my student loans. I did that job  for 3 years and it was the best, most foundational experience I could have had. I will grant you that lower level jobs back then were much more likely to have health benefits than lower level jobs do now. What we did worry about, I assure you, is the same thing you’re worrying about: Am I going to be able to get a job where I can use my degree and my skills (and, yes, keep a roof over my head and pay my bills)?  Some things don’t change.

34

After scrolling through all the various responses to your posting on the listserv (some of them negative), I just want to tell you I understand the job search can be very discouraging. I was lucky enough to get a great job within a few months of graduating with an MA in History and an MLS, but that was right before the economy tanked. I have friends who have been laid off and are still looking for jobs, but I also have some friends who were laid off and found jobs.

I think it’s best to be prepared for lots of rejection, but keep in mind that somewhere down the line, your resume will get to the top of someone’s list. It is incredibly difficult to apply and apply and hear nothing back, or get rejection notices. I received several rejections before getting this job, and I know it’s a bummer. I also turned down two jobs after being interviewed because I knew they weren’t right for me, so don’t feel like you just need to grab anything or you might get into a situation where you hate what you’re doing.

I am one of the least patient people I know, but hindsight has taught me that you need to just keep going and things will work out for you, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. One of the best pieces of advice I can offer is when you do get an in-person or phone interview, let your personality shine. I think that weighs as heavily as your resume and experience. After I was hired at the [a museum], my boss told me that my phone interview was better than any of the in-person interviews because of my personality and enthusiasm. I also think that keeping your foot in the door as a volunteer in a library or archival setting (even if it’s just once a week) will show your commitment to the profession and add to your practical experience.

I hope this helps you in some small way. I wish you the best of luck.

35

You’ve spent two months trying to get a job and are ready to quit? Get a grip.

My name is [a male's name] and I have 15 years experience in archives and records management. I’ve worked in city government, county government, and a public university. I’ve sent out my resume for over 125 jobs since 2009 and have been a finalist for 2 of those 125 jobs. I was not hired by any of those places. I’m not giving up my focus after THREE YEARS of looking.

You want no-nonsense advice?

1. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Make connections with people of influence in the profession (local or state). Use them as a reference and you are golden. Trust me. Nobody cares about your GPA.

2. You have an MLIS/MLS degree I have my Master’s Degree in Public History. The MLIS/MLS will get you into any library.

3. Hiring for archives jobs are overseen by idiots in departments that know nothing about archives. Those idiots think a certified archivist or a certified records manager can only be hired. That’s not true. Those are programs set up by the SAA and ARMA to get money out of members.

4. Are you a male? This profession, especially libraries, is dominated by women. Women want to hire women.

5. Are you willing to get paid $30,000 to live in New York City, LA, or Chicago? I didn’t think so. Be willing to relocate to ANYWHERE. Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming pay very well. Go to another country for jobs. Saudi Arabia and Qatar will pay well, let you fly home for holidays, give you money for clothes and rent, and in some cases, they will give you $20k to leave your job and return home. I’m not kidding.

36

Well, at least now you have some clues. Among the responses I think there was some good advice. Some people did seem to jump to their own conclusions from very little information. I’m probably the last person to give advice, since after forty years in my profession, I’m still living hand to mouth. But I love what I do. Among the rather varied things that entails, I teach part-time in a masters program in a university history department. It trains people to work in museums and archives. One thing that we are seeing is people coming into the program from a variety of disciplines – archaeology and anthropology, education. We expect some history and we have learned that students who come into the program need some kind of volunteer or paid experience in a museum or historic house. I think the advice you got about volunteering where you want to be was spot on. Also, pay attention to the suggestions that special collections may have a home in some non-traditional settings. Museums often have archives, and several of our students have landed in corporate archives. I hope that you are not too discouraged. In spite of some of the negative posts, I think you will find most people supportive of honest attempts to keep plugging along. Best of luck.

37

My name is [someone]. I have been following the conversation on the SAA Listserv that you started with the title: Career advice for a new and probably clueless graduate. I have found some of the comments and advice helpful and many to be abravise and overly hostile.

I graduated from [a university in the north east] in May of 2011 with an MLS and a concentration in Archives and Digital Libraries. I searched for a job throughout graduate school with no luck and after graduating spent two more months searching. At that time I met an aquaintence who knew someone at an archive and sent me the information that they had an opening. Even though HR knew that I was very overqualified for the position they offered me the part time job, which consisted of monitoring the reading room and making photocopies, and I accepted. I was hopeful that this would give me the oppurtunity to get a full time job at the archive later on as HR said was a possibilty.

Sure enough, thankfully my supervisor saw quality in my work and I was promoted to full time after six months. Even now, at a much lower wage than I expected and with a job title and description that is not what I wanted I am happy working here. And since my supervisor knows that I am overqualified for the position almost from the start she was comfortable giving me work that a full time archivist does here (like reference). Because we both know that I am more than able to do this work even though the archive doesn’t hire people for the job that includes reference in the job description until they have four years experience and I only have a little over a year.

I just wanted to share my story with you and let you know that I think the wait was very worthwhile as I am so happy to work in the archive here and truly enjoy my work.

I also wanted to thank you for starting this conversation and follow up on your offer to share some of the advice that you received off list.

38

Bottom line—keep getting applications out there.  Personally, I wouldn’t mess with the CA until you have some more professional experience under your belt.  Also, some employers may actually pay for you to get the certification so it may be prudent to wait until you are in a position that has you on a career track.

39

My sympathy and empathy to you in your search.  As a recent graduate (2010) who is also carrying a massive amount of debt, I can empathize with your situation.  I am one of the lucky ones who landed a job right out of grad school.  The short version is that my previous employer (a subject based historical society where I continued to volunteer during grad school) had a newly created position for an archival professional and I got the job.  (Altho I had been applying for other jobs and landed an interview or two.)  Most of my suggestions for job hunting will likely echo what others have said.  So, I will chime in with a tangential bit of information.  I applied for jobs all over the country and needed a way to evaluate the salaries and/or a good way to come up with a ‘salary requirement’ portion of an application.

There is a website with information gathered by the National Low Income Housing Coalition called Out of Reach.  This is a side-by-side comparison of wages and rents in every county, metropolitan area, combined non-metropolitan area, and state in the U.S. The report calculates the amount of money a household must earn in order to afford a rental unit in a range of sizes (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 bedrooms) at the area’s Fair Market Rent.  I found it immensely helpful to determine if I could afford to apply/take a job.  http://nlihc.org/oor/2012

40

I saw your post on the archivist listserv and I thought it would be better if I emailed you directly. You probably got more responses than you bargained for on there! This will probably be a long email and I hope you find some usefulness in it.

I have a BA in history and MLIS from [a university on the east coast], specialized in archives, preservation and records management. Going into my masters program I had four years of experience – most of the people who were in my class did not have any experience. While at [my unviersity], I also had a 15-hour/week job, so I graduated with 5 years of experience doing a variety of tasks at a variety of institutions. I actually went to school with [someone], who replied to your message, and like he said only a few people in our class graduated with a job.

I was one of them. I not only had all of the experience the job was looking for, but I was willing to take the lower salary. I graduated in August 2008 and only applied to three places – two of which I got rejection letters for months later, but the job I truly wanted and the one I got was Archivist at the Historical Society [somewhere in the east coast]. I could commute from my parents house in [a north east state], I loved [a north east town] and my brother actually lived there at the time, I liked historical societies, I was so lucky and it was perfect for my first job. I applied at the end of June/beginning of July. The search was open until July [] and I got a call that very day for a phone interview. I had the in-person later and by August [] I was hired officially. I graduated August [] and start the job in [a north eastern town] on August []. I was hired making $28,500.

I was there for a total of 3 years. About 10 months into being hired, a bunch of changes occurred because of financial problems. I had originally been in a department with a project archivist (funded by IMLS) and a librarian. The project archivist position was not picked up and the librarian was let go, so I became the archivist and research center coordinator. We had various other changes, so I was basically doing a ton more work including gardening, facilities like cleaning the bathrooms (all the staff had to do this stuff), and we all were furloughed which accounted to a 4% paycut.

I started looking for a job when all these changes were beginning because I honestly didn’t know if I would be kept on. Luckily I was, and it was because I could do everything that needed to be done not only running the archives but continuing with the library/research center, and I was cheap to hire.

A lot of things continued to happen which I won’t get in to, but I started to seriously look for a new position around the summer of 2010. I sent out probably 50-100 applications, but honestly I didn’t keep that close of track. I had a hard time because I wasn’t entry-level, I had a ton of experience, but the length of time I had been in the field was less than others going for the same type of positions. I was in a weird limbo-space I guess you could say. I was trying to stay in the [north eastern state] area, but when I started my “serious” applying in 2010 I broadened by scope to basically the entire eastern seaboard. I applied to a larger variety of places and I also applied to jobs that were perhaps “below” my skill level. However being an archivist and working with archives was my main goal.

I had a few interviews during this time. One was for History Associates (that was suggested to you on the listserv) and I was actually offered a job there, but the job was only a bit more than I had been making (I think it was about $33-35K/year) and I would have been commuting which basically would have taken the extra money. The job was also VERY unstable. It was a job to work with other archivists helping this large NPS survey, but basically the funding could have been pulled at any time for any reason. Another job I was brought in for an in-person interview was something for records management at [a university on the east coast]. I had more experience than the University Records Manager. Needless to say I was not offered that job. I had another in-person at a different university that didn’t go anywhere. I had some other phone interviews and that was as far as it went.

Then I came across the job I now have. I am a Project Archivist at [a major university]. It is a 3-year position and I get to do a bunch of different things with archives. I had to move 5 hours away for this job. I also left a fulltime permanent job for a fulltime temporary position. It has the possibility of extension, but who knows if that will go through. This job is definitely “below” what I used to do, but I felt comfortable taking it because for one thing, its [my university] in [a north eastern city] and I am making some amazing collections and working on amazing projects. I also am glad to have years of focused work processing collections as my main job. Three years is a solid time – I had been at the Historical Society in [my old town] for 3 years and that was a good length of time.

While I was lucky at my first position being hired so quickly, this second job search I had been job searching for 2 years, although only 1 year was “serious” searching.

Some advice for you specifically? Get more experience. I looked at your linkedIn, and while you’ve worked at a bunch of different places, it didn’t seem like that big of a variety. Digital things, EAD, creating websites, etc… are all great, as is helping to guide the collections at Dubai Women’s College, but have you ever processed a collection? Have you written a finding aid? Have you cataloged a book? Have you created an exhibit? Have you reshelved books? Maybe that isn’t where you want your career to go, but those tasks are the building blocks of many other positions. If you HAVE done these things, they aren’t apparent on your LinkedIn and maybe they aren’t apparent on your job applications either.

I would be happy to look at your resume or a cover letter example. I am also a mentor in the SAA program. Please let me know if you have questions or want more advice on something I said here.

41

I appreciate your non-defensive stance in your reply to the group; it can be difficult to do when one feels under attack. Hopefully it will open up some eyes to, as you said, ” assuming that the poster is ignorant, not lazy or self-entitled.”

42

The listserv has been viscious; I deleted most of them without opening them.
I was mentoring a young woman looking for a job and I advised her to re-write her resume to answer the job ad.  She had both archival and library experiences and more computer skills than I will ever have.  She needed to tailor her skills to what the job wanted, not just what she had to offer.  That may sound strange, but your resume has to answer point by point what the job ad wants.  That is just to qualify for the next level.
I started out working part-time and I have held two or three part-time jobs at the same time in my decades long career, so I have a clue as to what looking for a job is like and I didn’t like it then and I wouldn’t like it now.  But sometimes you just have to hang on and keep trying.
My best leads were by word of mouth.  The regional archives groups may be your best source of leads for word of mouth contacts.  Rarely I got leads from volunteer work and once a temporary job was created for me.
Good luck.  The economy doesn’t help, I know.

43

It certainly seems like you’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest, I hope that some of the advice you’re getting off the list is a little more productive than some of the posts I’ve read.  I don’t have too much to offer, but several routes I’ve used in the past.  I started out at a museum, in their archives on an NHPRC funded grant; when that grant wound up, I was able to follow up with an IMLS grant and another NHPRC grant for 6 years until I was hired full-time.  I would suggest you find out the award schedule for funding agencies (they all vary) and start looking for jobs then – many archives will be bringing in new staff for these grants and these can lead to full-time jobs – it did for me (twice).  This year I remember seeing a lot of positions around March.  And if you were told about those “hordes of archivists/librarians getting ready to retire…”, they were saying the same thing when I first started in school.  Unfortunately a lot of those jobs get lost due to attrition and more institutions rely on grant funding for staffing – temporary, but still usually 1-2 years duration.

In terms of hiring – I don’t know how it is elsewhere, but at my institution, a university, we have to go through HR for approval every step of the way – from the job description, approval of initial questions, approval of on-site questions, approval of reference check questions, make-up of the search committee, etc. (are you starting to get the picture?).  While we want to move quickly, it is a very long process and unfortunately policy prevents us from reaching out to perspective candidates to let them know where in the process we are.  We have lost candidates because they find jobs faster than the pace at which we move.  Its frustrating on both ends.  But don’t lose hope!  Bite the bullet and send out those cover letters.  Two months is a very short term to be looking for a job in this economy – it took me 5 months my last go around.  And your resume might still be making the rounds at institutions that move like mine – snail’s pace!

In terms of volunteering – I’ve done it and had good and bad experiences.  If you can find a position that will teach you new skills, is at an institution you want to work at, or will offer good networking contacts – go for it!  Also, you may want to consider joining a professional association or two – if you haven’t already.  Most have reduced rates for unemployed members.  Find one that offers mentors – these can be a real boon, from helping make contacts, but even acting as a coach for interviews, etc.  I found the regional associations to be more open to this, and surprisingly, I had the most help from the Special Libraries Association in my area.  And regional conferences are usually more affordable than national conferences, and most offer job boards and resume help.

I hope this offers a little bit of help, good luck.

44

I just wanted to let you know that it takes about 3-6 months to find a job, in most fields not just the archival field.   Also, being willing to relocate increases your chances of finding a job.  I moved from [midwestern to western state] for a job.  So, try to keep all of your options open.  Keep at it and you will soon find a position.

45

Hi, Chris. I have stopped responding directly to the A & A list for various reasons, although I do read it in digest form, and just now saw the “conversation” your post triggered.

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot, mostly because I have some very unhappy friends with the same dwindling bank account you mention. I’m not in the same boat as I never took out student loans for my MLS ([mid 2000s]). Instead, I plugged away at that degree for years while working full-time, and, in various semesters, working multiple jobs, and depleting a savings account I accumulated working a decent job that I just never was able to establish an intellectual commitment to. With the exception of two months after being pink-slipped in [a few years ago], I’ve never been out of work.

As mentioned in several posts, networking is important, but one has to go about it the right way. A lot of newly minted archivists can be kind of aggressive in their very clear and present desperation. When I’m at a conference or a professional gathering, I want to talk with people as my peer, not as someone who has something to gain from our exchange and I get nothing in return. So, yeah, network, but also be genuine and share your interests and your passions. I know. Easier said than done.

Also, I hear a lot people giving the old “volunteer” advice. Although I did volunteer before I started my graduate degree, I was able to do so because I had a financial cushion. If you’ve got debt and need to eat, you shouldn’t be volunteering between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm. Plus, it totally undermines what paid professionals do. How about starting out as a freelance professional researcher, or working for a law office (I know, dull, but it pays the bills)? That’s what I did. My clients referred me and it kept me going until I got my first real archives gig in [mid 2000s]– not even advertised. I sold my skills by explaining that because I was working toward an archives/library degree, I had the “inside track” on how to find information and historical records quickly and expertly, and I was able to interpret them. The library thing has also paid off pretty well — I am occasionally called upon to provide library-related advice.

I recommend looking for opportunities that contribute toward a demonstrable “portfolio” of sorts [I actually have one]. Book reviewing for a local archives journal, serving on a professional committee, helping plan a conference, etc. These are productive networking opportunities- — there are also unproductive networking opportunities — and you can do them in addition to working at whatever job you have to hold down to pay your bills. As a former committee chair for a local archives group, I would have been so grateful for the assistance of someone in your position to basically go out and create programming content for me by cold-calling archivists, repositories, etc., and asking about possibilities for collaboration.

Also, listen to [someone] about the records management thing. I highly recommend this track, especially if you are a people person and have good interpersonal communications skills. Many of my pals are “digital asset managers” but they’re basically digital archivists who are handling the tail-end of the record lifecycle if you buy into that theory. They don’t.

In retrospect, I realize I graduated at a good time, which means pre-2009. While I still cannot wrap my mind around anyone taking out student loans to get an MLS, I also realize I am trapped in the mentality of the particular time and place in which I was raised and spent my young adulthood. This may be at the root of some of the hostility you and [someone] are experiencing. Frankly, when I first saw your post, I thought, “Two months! What is he whining about? And who in their right mind would knowingly accrue that much debt?,” but I understand now that you are earnestly searching for understanding and camaraderie, and we senior archivists met your entreaty with disdain. As a profession, we need to be honest and authentic with each other and the people knocking on the door, asking to be let it in.

I wish you the best of luck, Chris, and hope that you can still dream of a future in which you get paid to be an archivist. Please let me know if you have any questions.

With all good wishes,

46

I read with interest yr posting to SAA A&A asking for career advice, & I wanted to give you my take offline.
First of all, you’re younger than most MLS people.  That’s a good thing because if yr tech savvy, you can help any institution trying to manage digital assets, electronic records, info or knowledge management.

Two months for a job search is very short.  I recently spent 17 months searching for my current job after my first FT gig after library school ended & I probably sent 120+ resumes & cover letters & refs & had 44(!) interviews (including 4 @ place where I’m currently working).  I finally got four job offers in one week & happily ended my job search last October.

What I learned is you need to have experience, expertise & empathy, & be able to articulate the role & function of archivists & organizational strategies (born-digital or digitization) especially in relation to IT & Creative or records managers.

You should also join & network with other professionals & members of SAA or Archivists RoundTable of ny or ARMA or AIIM.  To keep myself involved, I started [a group of archivists in the north east] as a forum for us to share opinions & ideas & stories related to r careers.

I see you already have a blog, but it might be good to start a new one  related solely to library & archives so you can better brand yrself & yr name for background checks in advance of yr intvs.

But most importantly, keep everything well organized & structured. On Satdays & Sundays check lisjobs.com & archivists.org & indeed.com for archivist or records managers or librarian or metadata or taxonomist job listings. Make a list & split job listings into academic, media, public, records mgmt, etc. Create resume templates for each kind, & create folders so u’ll remember that you sent it out on date & follow up w/ phone calls & etc.

Then when you hear nothing, repeat the process & sooner or later u’ll learn how to write a short & concise cover letter to get you an interview, & that may lead to a second interview, etc.  It aint easy, but if you keep at it, & do it carefully, then the job search process itself (in addition to yr new blog) will make you into a better archivist.

I hope this helps, & if you have any questions, let me know.  Good luck!

– Sent from my [mobile device]

47

If you have not heard this from the many responses ( I gave up after reading about 15) let me explain something. I have been around the archival community since 1974 and there is a huge surplus. Salaries are poor and archivists cling to an institution for many years. I suspect that is because of the insecurity in the marketplace.

Leverage that degree in information management. Get a few certifications (CIP, CDIA+, CRM, CIPP) and get into the information management world. It pays far better as essentially you will use the same skills. I was an assistant archivist in the mid-1980s and made the jump. I make six figures and I am in demand. People ask me to work for them but as an archivist I was hungry after graduate school.

Think about this because you can have the highest GPA, best school etc. but it will not matter. Employers are flooded with resumes for archival positions. Gain a certification and a specialization and you will have no problems. Move your skills to information management and you will have a bright future. Archivists too often languish waiting for someone to die or retire.

48

I just caught up on the A&A list serv from last week’s discussion (vacation) and wanted to give you some advice that helped me. If you’ve heard it before I understand; and if it’s not helpful, that’s okay too. Just wanted to tell you my experience in the hopes it will help you.

I graduated with my MSLIS from [a prominent LIS school] in [last year] and began job searching [early this year]. It was really difficult; I had been a school librarian while I got my master’s and thought with 3 years library experience (undergraduate degree in Library Science) and my archival studies degree I would be in any archive I chose; no sweat. How wrong I was. Many places want a CA (Certified Archivist) on top of a MLIS; I didn’t have the year experience to take the exam and won’t be able to take it for another year and a half because I’m only part time. I did one resume a day since I was lucky to find a full time job in retail while I had no archives work. I found it easier to do quality cover letters and resumes with only one a day; every evening at 10 was a convenient time for me to search and write. Do what works for you; even one a day makes a difference. Don’t get frustrated by no response or an interview and then never hearing again; sadly, it happens all the time.

I had a phone interview for my current position in [sometime last year] and a full-day on campus interview in late [later last year]. The hiring process in academia is glacial. I was officially hired at my current place of employment in January 2012 and only by default; my position was originally offered to someone with more experience but he turned it down because it is only 26 hours a week. The other thing that worked in my favor is I had interned for the University President’s wife a few years ago in my undergrad and used her as a reference. You’ve heard it before but networking is huge these days; I truly believe having her a reference had immense pull in my getting to be second choice. I had little to no archives experience; I wouldn’t consider the one month for 20 hours a week experience I had a ton of hands on experience.

I also networked with local organizations to even find job listings; MARAC in the north east, SAA and ALA in the US, and ACLCP for small colleges and universities in PA where I live and work. All the fees to be members were pretty small (I believe around $150 a year for all four since I could say I wasn’t employed in the field) and they were exactly what I was looking for in employment. Find the local organizations in your area and join them. I also am a member of [two local organizations in the North East]; both looked great on the resume because of community ties and again, great for networking.

I don’t know if you can but volunteer; I did at a local library shelving and whatnot once a week and had it on my resume and everywhere I interviewed loved it because it showed community involvement.

I don’t know if any of this will help you but don’t give up yet. I’m not. I hope this position becomes full time and if not, I’m in the process of getting my MBA here since its discounted and will be another feather in my cap when I start seriously searching again.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need any assistance.

Peroratio

All in all I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart those who responded personally to my email with incredibly valuable advice, guidance and critiques. The response was massive and it surely has given me some things to think about. These pieces of advice will hopefully help others in kind and offer some solace to those at sea:

He is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence.

In a prior post on this blog I linked an early version of this work, but it’s come a long way since then. While the first version was written mainly on a whim after I had a sudden burst of inspiration while taking a shower, and was little over ten pages, the new guide is approaching 40 pages, as I approach nearly 160 lbs lost in less than a year.

You should read it if:

• You are curious how I am losing weight
• You are obese yourself, feel hopeless and want to lose weight

If you do read it and are one of those who is looking to lose weight, please provide feedback. I have privately distributed to a few individuals on forums I am part of, they followed my plan and all lost weight significantly, but I am still eager for wider feedback. I hope to continue to develop it to well over 100 pages, as fate allows.

Here is the download link:

http://www.krauselabs.net/dump/bookwip.pdf

Bill Maher does a bit called “Dispatches from the Bubble” in which he criticizes the republicans for fostering an insulated, delusional mental culture based around willful ignorance and groupthink. I recently went on a vacation and ran into my own bubble of sorts, amongst those who are oblivious to basic concepts of health and nutrition and are unaware of the simple fact that they are killing themselves.

I thought I would write on my experiences in the form of perceived major missteps in nutrition and the development of well being. I come from a somewhat privileged perspective: I became unhealthy and obese due to a metabolic sensitivity to carbohydrate and not gluttony, ignorance to science or basic tenets of health. When I discovered I was sensitive to carbohydrate I changed my diet (For good) and have been rapidly losing weight since. The mistakes I have encountered in my travels and lodging with family are not of this sort, that is to say: they are not medical in a clinical sense. Rather these mistakes represent a lack of wisdom, reason and knowledge regarding the most basic principles of health.

Major Mistakes in Nutrition and Health

It is OK to eat whenever you want

No, it isn’t. While some advocates of practical low carb high fat diets such as Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt and Dr. Robert Lustig suggest that it’s OK to eat appropriate foods until satiety, the problem with high carb diets is that satiety is difficult to obtain. In other words while an individual eating the right foods might be able to accomplish a lifestyle without regiment, this requires discipline and food selection often not common/popular in (American) society. Furthermore and most importantly: the idea that there are no planned times to eat and stop eating is fundamentally unhealthy. I observed individuals eating at any hour, with no consideration for a deliberate plan of food intake or awareness of what was going in the gullet. Good health involves clearly delineated and consistent periods of fasting, feeding and indulgence. Without deliberate eating, it’s impossible to determine where your body is heading and what effects foods are having. Foods should enter your mouth to serve a nutritional function.

Fat and salt are bad

No, they aren’t. And what’s worse isn’t actually the fallacy that fat and salt are bad, but the essence of this mistake being a complete obliviousness to the scientific value and composition of food. I actually had this conversation with a relative:

Relative has been asking me if I eat a series of foods, most of which I said no to because they were loaded with sugar…

Relative: “What about Nutella?”

Me: “No.”

Relative: “What the oils or something?”

Me: “No, it’s loaded with sugar and has no nutritional value.”

Relative: “But it’s made from hazelnuts, they’re good for you.”

Me: “Yeah, it’s still loaded with sugar.”

Relative: “But that’s natural sugar, it comes from nuts.”

I hope the idiocy of this chain of reasoning is evident, but we will examine it nonetheless. Here are the major mistakes in thinking like this:

• Buying wholesale into product marketing
• Unable or unwilling to read and more importantly comprehend the nutritional data
• What’s natural must be good!
• Eating food items due to taste or other factors rather than nutrition
• Endorsing mass produced garbage as an essential foodstuff

Returning to the point of salt and fat being devil incarnate, I mean not to offer a treatise on the virtues of a low carb, high fat diet, or discuss the science involved. But something needs to give when someone who is extremely morbidly obese can eat chocolate cupcakes in one (belabored) breath and then fly into a fit of rage when observing her significant other seasoning a meal with a dash of salt in the next. I actually observed this, and it made me want to smash my head against the wall.

I don’t like/do not have to drink water/I’m sick constantly

Sorry, yes, you do.While lodged with family on vacation I never observed a single individual consuming water. This is completely baffling to me as water is an essential element of nutrition and without it dehydration or death results. And all the individuals I was lodged with were chronically dehydrated, something they were oblivious to. Only in the Western World can this happen: individuals have the means to imbibe perfectly clean potable water without limit and instead willingly choose sugar drinks and Gatorade. As we walked around theme parks none seemed to understand why they could not keep up with me, and were constantly fatigued, tired and on the verge of collapse. After only a few hours of light walking my party was unable to proceed while I remained fresh as when entering. And while I have lost quite a bit of weight, my current weight is approximately the same as another relative I observed exhibiting this frailty. This is a good illustration of the importance of metabolic health versus merely weighing more or less.

The simple fact is that if you aren’t drinking between 80-150 ounces of water a day, you are dehydrated and are being afflicted by a wide range of serious health problems. You have to drink water, and if you don’t you will be sick. The problem with our contemporary Western societies is that since we have been of such a poor diet for decades now, we no longer associate our dietary habits with illness or weakness; the food appears to have been like this for as long as we can remember and is not an immediately obvious confounding variable.

I can eat whatever I want

Of course, it would never be framed or testified in this manner, but this is how they eat in practice. Eating an entire bag of chips in one sitting or pieces of cake every night is not OK. Sound nutrition is centered around the 90/10 rule. That is to say: 90% of your food should be wholesome, clean, natural, basic and healthy, while up to 10% can be crap. Discerning the difference between the former and latter should be obvious but due to decades of endemic and exploitative advertising by sellers of processed sugary crap, it is now a feat of disinformation. As a rule of thumb, if man did not eat it thousands of years ago, you should not eat it now – exceptions are permitted while indulging in the 10% of crap. But keep in mind, 10% of your diet being crap does not imply that you can have a piece (or as I observed, multiple pieces) of cake a day. In terms of metabolic quality and calories, you could perhaps have 1 piece a week.

I’m fat because I need to exercise/you need to exercise more

No,no, no, no, no! You are obese because of nutritional choices, not because of your exercise level. Buying a $80 gym membership only to go to the gym once, awkwardly flop around on some machines, and then never go again, is not going to save you. What you do in the overwhelming majority of your time, not those 30 minutes on the treadmill, is what matters. In other words, nutrition is what can help you lose weight – exercise is just a way of improving your overall physical and mental rigor. Exercise can be an aid to weight loss, but you will just erase all the progress you have made if you don’t eat properly during the time you are not waddling on the treadmill (the vast majority of your time).

I can sleep 12+ hours a day and that’s good for me/ I’m tired constantly and don’t know why

No. Oversleeping is just as bad, if not worse, than sleeping too little and is associated with a number of serious health problems. I observed individuals going to bed quite early, up to five hours before I did, and waking up at approximately the same time, only for them to exhibit fatigue upon waking. Part of this fatigue can be attributed to oversleeping and the other element is lack of sound nutrition. Constantly spiking and normalizing blood sugar levels contribute to perpetual fatigue and feelings of crashing energy levels. The solution? Don’t eat crap our bodies did not evolve to metabolize to any excess – those which are or break down into sugars. Being in your 20s (or even 40s) and being tired all the time is not a natural state; this is induced by poor nutrition.

::flatulence, bloat, heartburn::

Yeah, stop eating refined carbohydrate. Your stomach in it’s natural state should not be a gurgling cauldron.

What’s fiber?

The last thing I will bring up is the fact that like water, seemingly no one whom I lodged was was aware for the need of fiber, and if they consumed any, it was by accident. Lack of fibrous materials in the stomach leads to a number of gastronomical issues (see above) and increased risk factors for cancer, cardiovascular disease and other fun stuff. Chronic constipation and delayed bowel movements are other complication of a diet lacking in fiber, something I observed and could only shake my head. Eat avocados and golden flax yo.

* * *

There’s a whole other spectrum which is mental well being which I have some observations and thoughts on, but that is a topic for another post. Until next time.