NHHI Hiring Spotlight – Lia Sansoucy

Tell us about yourself.

I am a book lover, have a couple cats, and wear glasses and a lot of cardigans! I was born in CT but moved around a lot and really only lived in the state from 1998 to 2000 in Torrington. In mid-2022 I moved to New Haven’s Wooster Square area and am happy to be around extended family again.

Tell us about your job search experience.

I moved here as a “trailing spouse” having left a job I loved in a public library in a different state. I really wanted to work for Yale, but applying for many Yale Library jobs on my own from out of state was not working, even with a master’s in library science and a few years of experience.

One day I was at the main library at the green and I met some people at a table from Yale’s HR and the NHHI. They gave me some business cards and a lot of encouragement, and I signed up with New Haven Works (NHW). Through NHW, I worked with a job coach where we went over my resume, did some interview prep and I learned a lot about what working at Yale would entail. I applied to two job postings at Yale and was asked in for an interview for one of them and was hired right away.

Tell us about your current roles at Yale.

I started in technical services at the lowest level position, but it got me in the door. Within 5 months I was hired to a higher-level job. I am still in a Clerical and Technical position but am doing some training to eventually move into a position that will take my career the direction I want to go.

What advice do you have for other job-seekers?

Take a job that gets you in the door but only if it is adjacent to where you want to be. Don’t be afraid to apply to lower-level jobs or jobs that have been open for a while. For me, I applied to a job just to get into the library. There are a lot of jobs that are only posted internally, so sometimes the first step is to just get in the door. Moving up from there is not as difficult. I worked in HR for a bit and volunteered with military veterans, and one piece of advice I pass along is to make sure that each job you take moves you closer to your ultimate dream job. Want to be a chef? Take a job in hospitality. Want to be in law enforcement? Take a job in security. If you want to be a librarian, it’s ok to take a job in the shipping room of one of the libraries here. That said, don’t be afraid to try a new direction if you think you might like it. There are always skills you learn in any position that can be transferred to a new line of work.

What is next for you?

I hope to eventually move into a professional-level position within the library system, but I do plan to stay at Yale for the rest of my career. I am a part of one of Yale’s affinity groups (The Working Woman’s Network) and I am also working with a committee called the Library Accessibility Initiatives Task Force which is working to make a better set of webpages for people with accessibility issues. I think it is important to not only give back but also get to know the other Yale employees that I do not work with every day. I also sign up for a lot of the activities because it can be fun and you can learn new things, but also you get to meet other staff members.