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Because I have graduated and am now job searching, I thought this would be a fitting first book to review. It was suggested by a colleague, and is just one of a series of “How-To-Do-It” manuals for librarians (why not just how-to?). The book is a bit outdated (2006) and this shows periodically. It is geared towards beginners (I wonder who has gotten through library school without writing a resume or cover letter before), but I found it fairly useful.

Newlen walks the reader through the creation of a resume from scratch, discusses different styles and formats, and provides sample resumes for librarians interested in different types of positions. There are handy checklists and even an appendix full of action verb suggestions for you to use. The section on cover letters was far too short in my opinion. I personally stress about the cover letter more than the resume for a job application, and the example cover letters provided seemed overly simplistic. The final section has good tips for interviews and sample interviews questions, but is fairly generic and has little that is library specific. Despite its flaws, I found this book useful in creating a resume and cover letter for my first post-degree job application and think it would be a useful reference book for my home library.