AAP’s Bookjobs.com Now Open to Bookstore Job Postings

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For the first time, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) is inviting booksellers to post open staff positions on its Bookjobs.com job recruitment website, which is widely used by young book-loving professionals to search for entry-level jobs and internship positions.

According to AAP Vice President Tina Jordan, the free and popular service, up to now only open to the organization’s 400 member publishers, is “extraordinarily active,” generating more than 30,000 hits on a seasonal basis when college graduates are looking for jobs.

“It seems only natural to expand the types of jobs posted on our site to the rest of the book industry to include booksellers,” said Jordan. “Our missions are so aligned; it’s natural we should extend the resource, especially since site traffic is so robust. I think that leveraging our respective assets and engaging in cooperation makes our outreach even stronger.”

In some ways, Bookjobs.com may be even more valuable to booksellers than publishers, said Jordan. Jobs in publishing tend to be concentrated in New York City, but booksellers all over the country will have the opportunity to pull from schools in their region, she said.

AAP representatives regularly work with career services personnel at colleges and universities across the U.S. to promote the Bookjobs.com website through presentations and job fairs, especially at colleges with publishing programs and those that have diverse student bodies. This year, AAP is also partnering with the United Negro College Fund and member publishers to recruit high-achieving students from historically black colleges to intern at a select number of publishers over the summer.

“Diversity has always been a front-facing part of our recruitment effort,” said Jordan. “Highlighting the importance of having a diverse workforce is extremely important, even more so today.”

The Bookjobs.com site is part of AAP’s Book Yourself a Career campaign, started by the organization’s Diversity, Recruit, and Retain Committee in the late 1990s in response to the competitiveness for quality talent in the industry.

ABA member booksellers who are interested in posting their open jobs on Bookjobs.com should contact Jordan at [email protected] or (212) 255-0275 to set up a free account.