Information officer : Employers and vacancy sources

Information officers work in a variety of organisations, including:

• commercial organisations, including banks and other financial institutions, insurance companies, advertising agencies, media companies and management consultancies;
• professional practices, including architects, law firms, accountants and trade and research institutions;
• professional associations and learned societies;
• schools, further education (FE) and higher education (HE) institutions;
• non-governmental, not-for-profit and voluntary organisations (charities, pressure groups, political parties, church organisations);
• industrial organisations, including manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies;
• government departments and agencies;
• prisons;
• healthcare organisations.

See the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP)  website for more information on where information officers are likely to work and salary guides for each sector.

The publication Libraries and Information Services in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland  provides contact details for over 2,000 libraries and is a good starting point for researching potential employers. However, an approach to the headquarters of any fairly large organisation should enable you to make contact with its information unit. Visits to several of these would enable you to find out first hand the variety of employment opportunities that exist in information management and perhaps even lead to invaluable work experience.

Sources of vacancies

• Search graduate jobs on this site.
• CILIP Graduate Training Opportunities
• Library & Information Gazette
• Lisjobnet
• Lisjobtemps  - temporary jobs for librarians and information professionals.
• Jinfo  - jobs in information.
• Jobs for Info Pros
• Jobs.ac.uk  - for jobs in research science, academic and related professions.
• British and Irish Association of Legal Librarians (BIALL)  - legal information professional jobs.
• Specialist journals covering particular sectors, e.g. Times Higher Education (THE)  and New Scientist
• National, e.g. Guardian Jobs , and local press.

Recruitment agencies commonly handle vacancies. See Glen Recruitment , Infomatch, the CILIP Recruitment Agency , Sue Hill Recruitment , TFPL , Vital Information  and Weekes Gray Recruitment . Also, search the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)  consultancy finder for a list of member agencies specialising in information and library work.

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