What is going on in the information professional job market? How much impact has Covid had and can we identify trends in the profession? Simon Burton, Angela Krzyzanowska and Sue Wills look at the steps candidates can take to prepare in such uncertain times.

Disruption from Covid is distracting us from the disruption of Brexit, which is distracting us from the disruption of a decade of austerity. Although they are not affecting all sectors in the same way, and the effects are not all negative, it does mean that this is not a stable landscape for identifying long-term trends. Here our contributors pick out some interesting possibilities that are becoming visible through the chaos.

Simon Burton is Director and co-founder of CB Resourcing, an information professional recruitment firm he set up in 2014. He has worked in the information sector since 2009 and was in IT recruitment before that. Here he gives his view of changes in the job market for library and information roles in the corporate sector.

Sue Wills, who is responsible for Arts, Heritage, Libraries and Registration Services at Surrey County Council, interprets the jobs market in public libraries. Her experience includes leading library services in Cambridgeshire and Poole and working on the Libraries Taskforce. But first we turn to CILIP’s own view of the market through its jobs board: Information Professional Jobs. This has been run by Angela Krzyzanowska, CILIP’s Advertising Manager, for well over a decade.

Public libraries jobs

“There has been a bit of an explosion in Public library jobs on Information Professional Jobs in the past few months,” Angela says. “Before 2008 public libraries made up about 50 per cent of CILIP job advertising revenue. At the start of austerity it fell sharply to about five per cent, sometimes with no new jobs coming onto the market for months on end. It remained at that level until this recent post-pandemic resurgence. It is hard to explain because obviously we see the activity around the job, but not the context. So, what is driving these trends? We don’t know exactly. “Taking a closer look, we’ve had a lot of demand in the public library sector for posts like reader and collection development and also digital. This is a focus on relationships with communities, the customer base, and developing a collection, and access that matches their needs. Also, we are seeing a similar rise in demand for digital roles – like IT infrastructure – in the sector. And the pay for some of these roles is looking pretty good for the public library sector too.”

Academic Libraries

“From our job advertising revenue figures, the significant changes in the academic library hiring market came post Brexit. That’s when job advertising fell. The Covid-19 effect has been significant with a complete drop off in recruitment through 2020. This has bounced back but still not to the levels seem before the pandemic. I think employers are finding it more difficult to recruit. We’re seeing the same number of visitors to the site, looking at similar number of jobs but failing to make an application. This might be a reflection of the market shifting to an employee market and away from an employer’s market, as talent becomes harder to find. Again, another interesting change is in the kinds of roles, rather than the volume. What we see coming up frequently are teaching and learning roles and content delivery and discovery. It is a trend toward eLearning that was happening before Covid, but which seems to have been accelerated by lockdowns.”

Story behind the data

Before giving the details behind the trends, Sue Wills points out: “We’re still in the eye of the storm. The Prime Minister left a back door open when he set out the unlocking process. He will be reviewing all arrangements at the end of September. We could all be facing more changes soon.”

While there are interesting profession-focussed changes going on, she warns that the biggest factors remain outside the sector, and mainly financial: “pressures from other areas like the social care budgets and special educational needs – exacerbated by Covid – are still creating financial pressures across councils. The general direction has been reducing local authority grants while the financial pressures that had been there before Covid remain, and then councils had to step in as a response to the pandemic. So, the underlying problems have never gone away, and the financial situation still has to play out.”

Ageing workforce

However, she sees changes in the job market as the result of longer-term trends. “We know the workforce age profile from the national sector wide Workforce Survey and the proportion of 60 plus and 55 plus means there will be a higher proportion of the workforce retiring. This turnover of staff is happening quite quickly now. Authorities like mine have had to make decisions concerning issues like this mid pandemic, and while having to restructure to get savings over the line.”

Books are coming home

On the rise in the number of reader and collection development roles, she said it was not a short-term quirk. “This is the result of something that happened more than 10 years ago, when many authorities went down the route of supplier selection – in effect, de-skilling ourselves. I don’t think there are many people in the public library sector left now who understand the engine room of a library management system, how to create the best experience for the reader in terms of exploration and discovery.”

However, changes in society and the publishing industry mean that public libraries need these skills in house – as well as supplier selection. “It is not so much supplier selection coming back in house. It just doesn’t take enough things into account. A lot of the stock work is reactive, based on data which is reporting emerging behaviours and existing behaviours, not what might be going on in five years. The strategic element is missing. And there is not enough debate about what the impact or solution might be. And all very necessary because we have a publishing industry that has been narrowing with a subsequent loss of excitement because of the way the publishing world works now. Which leads to the other big missing element, which is the inclusion and diversity agenda. We’re having to work really hard to find diverse content that reflects our communities – all of this plays into the role of public libraries as a valuable part of a healthy democracy.”

Technology

Another factor is the role of technology in finding out what communities want and delivering it to them. Sue sees developments like the Single Digital Presence as a wake-up call for the profession, that it needs digital skills and strategic vision to harness these things for their communities. This is why Surrey recently joined the Library Consortium – the largest library consortium in the UK – which is in the process of developing a new LMS that is likely to be ahead of most local authority technology, potentially allowing library services to link into their councils more effectively and opening up other opportunities. Sue said she needed people with vision who “know how to max out the benefits of a consortium” adding: “I came from Poole where we had Libraries West, one of the most mature consortia, so I can see the potential of strategic relations and sharing of expertise, but another reason we need strong digital skills is because without them we are in danger of repeating or duplicating the work of the British Library. We need people who can help us nurture the relationships between the various organisations.”

Opportunities in weakness

“The plus side of all of the challenges the sector faces is that if you have these skills, now is the time to make your mark. I need people who are going to create that kind of excitement and focus. The upside is that you are going to be in increasing demand for your skills in stock selection and the same is true in digital. Those are the two weakness we have now. With people retiring and the digital world changing so fast, there is a vacuum. However, this leaves room to make your mark professionally and to really help the communities that we serve.”

Accredited courses

She adds: “Surrey is a major employer but we don’t have much interaction with library schools. When we’re looking at applications we do look for CPD. It is something that has become more significant since Surrey joined the CILIP Employer Partners Scheme, because now our managers are more aware of the benefits of networks and the PKSB. When you start getting people plugged into the CILIP network you start getting those profession-focused conversations in-house. There are people coming to me and saying “have you seen this really interesting article in Information Professional?” So CILIP membership is a shorthand way of saying ‘I’m paying attention’. People who aren’t doing it can’t see what’s coming up and find it difficult to be part of that conversation.”

Employee’s market

Simon Burton, Director and co-founder of CB Resourcing says: “Demand for new professionals is coming through but it is uneven. It is uneven between different sectors but also within particular sectors depending on their focus. But there is evidence that the market is changing from an employer’s market to an employee’s market. Starting salaries had been stagnant since about 2010 and many organisations didn’t hire anyone last year. There was a perception in some firms that there would be lots of people looking for a job, but like most things it depends. Candidates entering the job market are often being hired relatively quickly in the corporate sector and responsive employers aren’t hanging around. Employers that aren’t responsive to that, who don’t move their processes on quickly, don’t feed-back quickly, will struggle... and they are struggling. It’s a wake-up call for organisations who haven’t hired for 18 months or so.”

Employer reaction

Simon sees employers are getting wise to this and are putting in processes to win back some advantage in the hiring process, saying: “Because there’s competition for these candidates now organisations are not just increasing salaries they are also working very hard to secure talent in different ways, like in their interview process which have been condensed and refined to make them a better opportunity to sell the role to candidates.”

So, while it might be an employee’s market, Simon advises against complacency. “There is demand for candidates but it comes in waves. If you get a good opportunity don’t over think it, every opportunity is precious. Make your decision and ask all your questions during the process.” For the interview itself he said: “Don’t fall into the trap of being too casual, treat it as you would a normal interview, go prepared, well-prepared notes about the firm, sector, the people interviewing you and their competitors and make sure you have questions for them, a glass of water and no distractions. We’re not used to zoom. Suddenly the hour is done, so make sure you have your questions there ready for them.”

Accreditation

Like Sue, Simon says: “What is valued is people taking their professional development seriously. It’s valued by employers. That could be internships, it could be accredited qualifications or being connected to your peers and networks. You cannot under estimate how much that gives someone an edge, particularly at a junior level, showing that you take professional development seriously. People value it.” He also agrees that employers value connectedness, saying: “If you’re in a network you might get a chance to run some webinars or something similar, dealing with lots of different people. These are great skills, but also being connected to the profession gives you insights and where the industry is going. It’s always harder for managers if you have a team that doesn’t really professionally network. It’s hard to communicate with them, where the profession is going. If you have a team that gets involved it is a real bonus.

To find out what your next move could be visit Information Professional Jobs or speak to the team at CB Resourcing.