#SLAtalk: The Road Less Traveled – Alternative Career Paths for Information Professionals

Whether you are newly-minted with an MLIS degree or are in need of some re-energizing, @SLAhq invites you to this hour-long Twitter chat in which we will discuss “non-traditional” roles and paths to explore. See if taking the road less traveled by is right for you!

We’re pleased to partner with New Professionals Day Ireland (@NPDIreland) for this session of #SLAtalk as we seek out new opportunities for LIS professionals.

Information professionals are uniquely skilled and experienced to capitalize on the explosion of demand in such areas as research data management, resource training, competitive intelligence, effective Web search, and more. We’d like to seek out some of those areas and existing roles, and share advice on how information professionals can start filling more of them. There is a definitive surplus of demand for deep analytic talent in big data—a talent gap which will be decreased over the next 5 years [McKinsey & Company infographic].

Join in the Twitter conversation and follow #SLAtalk. New to Twitter chats? Read this!

Tuesday, March 18th at 19:00 GMT / 15:00 EDT / 12:00 PDT

(What time is that where you are?)

Q1: First 15 Minutes: As an information professional, how did you choose your current career path? What support or resources did you make use of when preparing to start your journey? What resources and support can you offer graduates gearing up to enter the workforce?

Recommended Reading: What’s the Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros

Q2: Second 15 Minutes: What about your current role is nontraditional, and how would you recommend gaining the skills and thinking that may not have been covered in your LIS curriculum? What resources, articles, and tools can you share that other information professionals should know about?

Recommended Reading: Information Professional Skills For the Future

Q3: Third 15 Minutes: The introduction to this post mentions big data, research data management, competitive intelligence, and more as areas with great demand for jobs. Which key areas do you see information professionals thriving in over the next five years? Or, which areas would you add to this short list? What new job titles have you already noticed that scream “information science!”

Recommended Reading: The Future of Knowledge Work

Q4: Final 15 Minutes: If you could choose the point at where your dream job intersects with the future of the information profession, what would it be? How will you get close to this point in the next five years?

Recommended Reading: How SLA helped me land my dream job

Can’t join us live on Twitter? Check the SLA Blog’s #SLAtalk category for the recap which will be posted following the session.

New to the #SLAtalk Twitter chat series? Check out How to #SLAtalk, which includes 10 helpful tips, as well as a Powtoon created by SLA members Emma Davidson and Dennie Heye.

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