Student Geri Bodeker Uses iSchool Career Site Resources to Land Job

Community Profile

When iSchool student Geri Bodeker heard about a job opening at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, she knew just where to go to brush up on her interviewing skills — the iSchool career development website.

Bodeker watched a video on the website about interviewing skills, and spent time reviewing the segment about what to do and what not to do. And she’s glad she did.

“It was a really hard interview,” Bodeker said. “I’ve had plenty of interviews before, and I’ve even sat on the other side of the table as part of a hiring committee. The Medical Foundation interviewers asked some really good questions.”

It helped that Bodeker, who started working at the Medical Foundation in October, had plenty of experience to draw on as well. After earning a graduate degree in Health Sciences from San Francisco State University, Bodeker worked as a health educator for Kaiser Permanente and then became a medical librarian. She then transitioned to Seaton Medical Center in Daly City, California, where Bodeker worked as a full-time librarian until her hours were cut to 20 a week.

It was then that Bodeker realized she would need an MLIS degree to apply for other medical librarian jobs, and she enrolled in the MLIS program. She soon landed a part-time job at Samuel Merritt University’s San Mateo campus to make up the difference in her reduced hours at Seaton. In July, her job at Seaton was eliminated and Bodeker again needed to find another job to augment her hours.

It just so happened that Bodeker’s job search came at the same time she was taking INFO 204 with Dr. Patricia Franks, whose assignments included marketing and resume writing. Bodeker became very familiar with the career development website’s offerings through her 204 course, and Dr. Franks also helped her radically overhaul her resume.

“Dr. Franks was really great – she was such a cheerleader and a great motivator throughout my job search,” Bodeker said. “I already had acquired the right experience for the job, but Dr. Franks and the career tools gave me that extra boost of confidence.”

Bodeker now works the two jobs, both of which she “loves.” On top of that, she’s continuing with her MLIS courses with an eye toward graduating in Fall 2011, and she’s the mom of a fifth grader.

The former health educator is focusing her MLIS electives on academic librarianship, in part because “I really like the idea of instructional librarianship, and that seems to be the direction medical libraries are headed,” she said.