Tips for Talking About Your Council Service
- Rachel Searcy
Overview
Volunteer professional service, like the ArchivesSpace Advisory Council, is a commitment of time and energy that is not always outwardly visible or well-recognized. We are so grateful for your Council service, and we hope that for all that you put into this work that you also benefit from the experience in some way.
This page is intended to serve as a growing reference resource to increase the visibility of your Council service at your home institution, explain its significance, and/or identify ways in which it supports your career growth. We hope it can be of use in cover letters, job interview responses, annual performance evaluations, promotional portfolios, and conversations about job titles, responsibilities, or compensation.
Self-assessment
Consider the following prompts to begin thinking of the material ways you have grown as a result of your Council service, or examples of times you have applied skills and knowledge from Council at your home institution.
Prompt | Details or examples |
|---|---|
What is a specific skill or quality you have learned, improved upon, or gained comfort in as a result of your Council Service? | e.g., familiarity with a specific metadata schema, understanding the perspective of a software developer, running an effective meeting
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How do you explain what you do on Council and its importance to a non-ArchivesSpace user or a non-archivist? What do you want someone who doesn’t use ArchivesSpace to know about this? |
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What is an example of your Council Service benefitting your home institution? Can you think about a time you shared, re-used, or referred to something that you learned about or did on Council in your day job? |
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How might you incorporate your Council service in this common interview question: Tell me about a time when you learned something new? |
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Imapct Statements
Another way to articulate the value and significance of your Council service is through an impact statement. An impact statement typically synthesizes an action, skill or method, and result to convey the significance of your work.
Below are some examples:
Action | Skill or Method | Result | Impact Statement |
|---|---|---|---|
oversaw creation of sub-team process documentation | delegation, documentation, verbal communication | new sub-team members understand roles and workflows; new leadership can assume role | Coordinated and planned major revision of sub-team workflow documentation through effective communication and delegation, enabling new members to understand their roles and establish continuity to incoming leadership. |
tested new functionality in upcoming version release | problem solving, software testing, Jira, attention to detail | confirmed functionality works as expected and ready to be incorporated into code of upcoming release; led implementation of new functionality at home institution | I applied my understanding of new functionality gleaned from prioritization conversations and testing workflows to my home context by taking the lead of local implementation of this functionality, including documentation and policy decisions. |
participated in prioritization conversations | written communication, software testing, reviewing technical documentation, listening | improved understanding of software development | My active participation with the Advisory Council has helped me understand the participatory aspect of open-source software. This has helped me build stronger relationships with my colleagues in IT, and given me greater fluency in meeting developers where they are. |
reviewed feature requests and bug reports | Jira, written communication, problem-solving | increased comfort with Jira tickets, improved troubleshooting skills | Through my experience on the Advisory Council, I better understand the processes that go into development, and the ways in which I can potentially participate in these activities. I am now more confident submitting tickets for bugs or feature requests that I encounter through my regular work, and I am also the first person my colleagues turn to for troubleshooting help. |
facilitated sub-team meetings | verbal communication, written communication, listening, delegation | well-run meetings; sub-team members understand expectations; tasks get completed | As the leader of a sub-team, I have internalized the impact of running an effective meeting, and have applied those lessons to other committees and working groups I participate in. I always create agendas, assign a notetaker other than myself, ensure all action items are documented, strive to delegate tasks rather than reflexively assigning them to myself, and spend the last part of each meeting recapping action items. I have seen a huge improvement in my meeting engagement and the efficiency of those groups as a result of these modifications. |
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