Interviews, Success Stories

Carrie Netzer Wajda …Success Story

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions

My interview with success story Carrie


Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Carrie: Through the New York chapter of the Special Libraries Association jobs website. I’ve always had better luck applying for jobs online or through postings than through networking. Perhaps this is just a fluke, since it goes against every piece of job seeking advice out there, but it has worked well for me.

Naomi: Favorite Library you have been to?
Carrie: The New York Public Research Library on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. The organization works very hard to blend traditional and modern services, but I love the building for its beauty as a cathedral to learning and study. It’s gorgeous. Also taking tours of the stacks under Bryant Park is pretty fun.

Naomi: Favorite book
Carrie: I can’t choose just one. I re-read Wuthering Heights almost every year and every time I find something new, but the books that stand out in my mind nowadays tend toward genre fiction. These days I read for escape more than for learning, but that hasn’t always been the case. Someday I may read for erudition again.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Carrie: My favorite thing about libraries AND library technology is that libraries open up so many new avenues and possibilities. Libraries have enabled so many people to learn new skills and explore new ideas. And library technologies extend the impact of libraries on people’s lives. My role probably wouldn’t have existed twenty years ago, and now that it does, technology lets me work remotely on a frequent basis, so it’s had a huge impact on my career and quality of life.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Carrie: I like In The Library With The Lead Pipe, although honestly, between a job, a kid, and being the Vice President of ACRL/NY, I’m not all that up to date on my professional reading.

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Carrie: Stay positive, and be open to possibilities even if they’re not where you thought you would find them. Look for the best opportunity for you and your interests, not what people tell you is a “great” job. If a job isn’t working for you, don’t be afraid to leave for something better if you can’t change your existing circumstances. Change is inevitable; embrace it.

I started my career in academia, made a U-turn and started my own business, had a baby and subsequently found my way into advertising – and I’ve learned a lot at every step of the process. Originally from Wisconsin, I’m a country girl turned New Yorker, where I’ve lived for more than ten years. I am the Global New Business Librarian for Y&R, an advertising firm. I couldn’t have come up with a better job if I had designed it myself.

 

Formerly published on 6/7/12 and entitled Carrie Netzer Wajda …Success Story

Naomi House

Naomi House, MLIS, is the founder and publisher of the popular webzine and jobs list INALJ.com (formerly I Need a Library Job) and former CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of T160K.org, a crowdfunding platform focused on African patrimony, heritage and cultural projects. INALJ was founded in October 2010 with the assistance of her fellow Rutgers classmate, Elizabeth Leonard. Its social media presence has grown to include Facebook (retired in 2016), Twitter and a LinkedIn group, in addition to the interviews, articles and jobs found on INALJ. INALJ has had over 21 Million page hits and helped many, many thousands of librarians find employment! Through grassroots marketing, word of mouth and a real focus on exploring unconventional resources for job leads, INALJ grew from a subscription base of 20 friends to a website with over 500,000 visits in one month. Naomi believes that well-sourced quantity is quality in this narrow job market and INALJ reflects this with many new jobs published daily. She has also written for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 LexisNexis Government Info Pro and many other publications in the past decade. She presents whenever she can, including serving on three panels at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Las Vegas; as breakout presenter at OCLC EMEA in Cape Town, South Africa; as a keynote speaker at the Virginia Library Association annual meeting; at the National Press Club in Washington DC; McGill University in Montreal, Canada; the University of the Emirates, Dubai, MLIS program and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Naomi was a Reference, Marketing and Acquisitions Librarian for a contractor at a federal library outside Washington, DC, and has been living and working in Budapest, Hungary and Western New York State. She spent years running her husband’s moving labor website, fixed and sold old houses and assisted her husband cooking delicious Pakistani food. She is preparing to re-enter the workforce and is job hunting. Her husband is now the co-editor of INALJ, a true support!  She has heard of spare time but hasn’t encountered it lately. She pronounces INALJ as eye-na-elle-jay. 

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