The wonderful thing about the recruitment we do in the information sector is that we are dealing with a known quantity. Through networking we know the majority of our clients and we also encounter many of our candidates out and about. We take the time to get to know them through a personal face-to-face interview. Even better we like most of them as well. I have worked with many employers and candidates who have been around as long as I have on more than one job hire, or more than one job move.

I am always asked to comment on key skills in demand. Or how they have changed over the years.

My first instinct is to say that the qualities have not changed at all. But perhaps they have. As some of what we all used to call library skills have developed and taken the once Librarian, (now more likely an Information Manager), out into the organisation as a sales person, marketer, trainer, and IT liaison point, so the list of personal qualities that employers look for has lengthened.

It is very difficult to be specific as each job and each organisation has a different wish list, so I have looked at the different levels of job to give an idea of just what it is that the employers seek.

At the junior end of recruitment, for pre-library school trainees (graduate trainees) an employer is looking for raw material. However, they will certainly want something else for their money (and often it is quite generous money!) The roles of this type that we have recruited this year for the commercial and legal sector have looked for a good education, a sound first degree, an element of ability with MS Office, and top class communication skills. Also an indication that the candidate was genuinely seeking a career in information work and could display a demonstrable interest in it. It goes without saying that the ones who were applying just because it was a job didn't get too far.

I know with my own recruitment recently of a junior trainee information recruitment consultant, the thing I was looking for above all was potential with excellent interpersonal skills.

Our clients when they recruit new information graduates ask for a postgraduate in information studies, rarely a graduate. Then usually next on the list comes communication ability level with relevant previous experience. Certainly those postgraduates who have worked in a law firm or similar for their trainee year are invariably the first to be recruited. The good ones often don't even come onto the job market as they go back the place where they completed their traineeship. It is taken as read that new information graduates/postgraduates will have good IT skills, i.e. have good keyboard ability and a knowledge of MS applications. Certainly the first degree, choice of options on a course and subject for dissertation can have a bearing on the direction that a new entrant to the information field will take.

Specific jobs will perhaps request particular IT skills such as database development knowledge or interest, a desire to work with systems and so on. Online research skills are generally seen as something where training will be needed. However, the ability to plan search strategies, and conduct good reference interviews might be looked for. The Internet is a more recent addition coming to the fore as a major source of information over the last few years. Even at this entry level recruitment into information the request is that the candidate have an understanding of the Internet as a resource, and sound Internet research skills, rather than happy home surfing techniques.

More and more employers look more favourably at candidates who attend to their own professional development. The ones who take an interest in what goes on inside and outside of the office environment, who belong to groups, go to meetings (internal and external), attend conferences, work on committees and of course network. How many of us have been able to solve a problem or at least get some input by asking

For more specific roles, the client always puts as priority the particular skills for that job. It is rare though, that communication ability isn't ranked equally. For a systems librarian, a good knowledge of systems will be paramount. They will need to show demonstrable evidence of affinity with systems or a particular software and ability of previous work in this area. Acquisitions or subscriptions and publications jobs will seek candidates with relevant experience, certainly they will want knowledge of techniques, resources, and again an interest in professional development, perhaps through membership of something like UKSG or NAG.

The higher the level of the job, the broader the requirement for those intangible skills. It is assumed that the professional library and information skills will be there in breadth.

The search then is for a broad range of skills that show management ability or potential.

Skills such as:

· Leadership and people management: an essential if you are to manage a team.
· Recruitment skills: job descriptions and person specifications need the ability to plan how a team will work, and then you need the interview techniques to ensure a good hire.
· Mentoring: something we see more and more. The management consultancy information units, doubtless led by their consultants who are encouraging clients to implement this technique, are firm proponents of mentoring. In my day it was called sitting by Nellie.
· Negotiation: necessary for dealing with often quite complicated high value vendor contracts presented by high-pressure vendor sales representatives or for holding your own for the library at meetings.
· Budgeting and financial skills: vital for Managers and/or Deputies, or the person with the specific responsibility for a function.
· Systems Implementation: any upgrades or desktop roll outs etc will call for a whole raft of skills, end user training, negotiation, project management, and so on.
· Knowledge Management and/or Know-how: funny here how such old skills as thesaurus development, indexing and classification appear to haunt us again. Thesauri and taxonomies are certainly hot currently.

That of course assumes that the search for a senior person is for the larger firm with the range of library/information assistants, assistant librarians, information officers, deputies and heads.

The emphasis will be perhaps a little different when it's a smaller organisation.

Last year we worked with more than one smaller organisation where there were little or no electronic information resources. One (a medium firm with about 70 partners) wanted someone with the ability to come in, set up a library (for want of a better word) and introduce relevant electronic information sources at the same time as selling the concept to the more doubting partners, hire an assistant and get from 0-60 in not too much time at all. The first task of the new incumbent would doubtless have been to conduct an information audit (another useful skill).

So where are we with skills? I often find that people hope I will write a list, they can tick off the ones they possess and then either sit back and relax safe in the knowledge that they have a good skills set or even worse panic if not and wonder what they need to do to get them. I am very firmly of the opinion that individuals should work hard to identify their skills, to note gaps, and to strive to continually update and increase the list.

I hope I have shown you that skills and qualities are very much a matter of horses for courses. Often the serendipity of that first job or a work encounter with someone inspirational (now there is a skill) is the trigger that points our career in a certain direction and builds the base or foundation of both sound information and personal skills.

The more I do recruitment, the more I am aware that for the employer and for the candidate, that next job is very much a matter of being the right person in the right place at the right time. And that being the right person is often the result of having the right skills in the right quantity at the right level at the right time, combined with a healthy dose of the right attitude. That is surely within everyone's power to achieve.

Sue Hill Recruitment & Services Ltd.,
Borough House, 80 Borough High Street,
London SE1 1LL
Tel: 020 7378 7068, Fax 020 7378 6838
E-mail: jobs@suehill.com
www.suehill.com