3 insider tips for landing development roles on Devex

As an already competitive global development job market embarks on a year clouded by additional uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to have a firm grasp of all the tools Devex offers for those seeking their next role. This is why we kicked off 2025 with an “ask me anything” session that opened the floor to your questions about Devex Career Account membership. I was joined by Raquel Alcega, Devex’s director of digital products, in providing key insights into how to take full advantage of CA membership benefits, including hacks for optimizing your job board search and the vital role your Devex profile plays. I also provided an overview of the content available to Career Account members and shortcuts for accessing key benefits, including our Career Center page of curated articles, past and upcoming events, CV templates, and select downloadable reports such as our recently published 54-page guide to development’s top sectors. Here are a few key takeaways to help bolster your 2025 job hunt by using Devex’s Career Account, or CA, member benefits. The value of an up-to-date Devex profile “We need to think of the Devex profile as the digital resume, basically as a key tool to get noticed by recruiters,” Alcega said. Like one’s LinkedIn profile, a Devex profile contains vital information about one's qualifications and experience. But it is also designed with global development professionals and recruiters in mind. “I won't deny that LinkedIn is super powerful, but what Devex has that LinkedIn does not have is this specificity of the niche development sector,” she said, adding that having worked for 25 years providing services to development recruiters, “We have the trust of global development recruiters … and we know the nuances of their recruitment needs.” Alcega went on to explain that when recruiters search Devex for prospective candidates, profiles of CA members are given priority in search results. Up-to-date profiles are also eligible for our Curated Candidate Lists, or CCLs, which are hand-selected profiles highlighting top candidates for various types of roles that we deliver to recruiters who use Devex. Profiles selected for CCLs also appear with a badge and a colored border to stand out further in a recruiter’s search results. “We have a variety of lists of talent pools, and if your profile is top notch [and] if you're available for your next opportunity, we put you on those lists which we share among approximately 600 recruiting organizations,” Alcega said. Use keywords wisely on your profile and CV Alcega explained how recruiters search our database of profiles using “specific filters that you cannot find on LinkedIn.” “Having a good summary with the key keywords and the key expertise [and] technical skills [you possess] … [should] very much [be] the focus of your profile,” she said. As an example, she said recruiters often “use the donor filter, which is extremely important … [so,] do mention [that] you were working for an INGO or a U.N. agency within a project that was funded by a given donor … because that keyword, the donor name will be picked up by our algorithm, and you will appear in the search filters,” she said. When creating or updating your Devex profile, you can upload your CV to populate key profile fields. As such, a CV that is already optimized with keywords, which is a best practice we recommend for all development CVs, is even more important. On our job board, filters are ‘your best friends’ Alcega walked our audience through effective ways to use our job board, which contains several filters to help you find opportunities that best fit what you are looking for. “Filters should be your best friends in your job search at the end of the day,” she said. Beyond unlocking access to thousands of additional job postings, CA members can view all accompanying salary information that organizations choose to share publicly. “We know salary transparency is extremely important [and] we are trying to encourage recruiters to share as much salaries as possible,” Alcega said. More recruiters are responding, as the percentage of Devex job postings that included salary information reached a new high of 32.2% in 2024. Members can also create job alerts specific to the roles they seek based on any search they have started, which means new opportunities that fit your criteria will be emailed to your inbox moving forward. You can access the event slides here, which contain helpful links and additional information. Ready to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by the recruiters who matter most? Update your Devex profile and start connecting with top global development recruiters now.