Presented by UC Berkeley Master of Development Engineering
Amid the continued onslaught of troubling headlines, we held back-to-back digital gatherings to close out last week for those already facing a jobless future and others concerned about the career impacts on broader global development.
While all of us are still trying to make sense of it all, the development leaders we called upon on Friday for their insights all agreed that there will always be a place for your skills in the development and social impact space.
In this edition of Career Hub, I’m sharing some key insights from Friday’s panel discussion on how those directly affected by the U.S. aid freeze can navigate their next steps. Plus, check out our expanded selection of the latest and best job leads.
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During Friday’s discussion, Joel S. Hellman, dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, pointed out how this uncertain period could be the right time “to think about [the] skills you want to build further into your career … in order to help you for potential pivots or to deal with what’s to come.”
Knowing the types of roles and specialty skills that a broad set of social impact recruiters are looking for can help you round out any missing skills as well as what you already have in your toolbox that may be worth highlighting in your CV.
Areas such as project management, procurement, and budget management have long been in demand and will continue to be, the panel said. But there are others that might not instantly come to mind that you may already have foundational skills for.
“A big one is event coordination and logistics,” said Fatema Sumar, executive director of the Harvard Center for International Development. “So many of you who have planned visits, who have planned events, who have planned all those things, a lot of companies, a lot of universities, a lot of spaces need people who know how to execute logistics.”
Other areas to consider for those who have extensive USAID project experience include writing and communications and policy analysis, she added.
Read more: What to do if you’ve lost your USAID job
Watch: How to navigate the Trump effect on the development career path
Latest updates: Tracking the impact on development work during Trump’s first 100 days
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Devex Talent Solutions, our very own boutique recruitment agency, is assisting Trees for the Future (TREES) in its search for a country director to be based in Mwanza, Tanzania. Those interested should apply by March 7.
+ DTS is also seeking candidates for an underwriter (sovereign risks) with the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (closing March 2), among many others. See more roles DTS is helping to fill.
Career experts Caroline Korda Poole and Kathryn Harper offer some ways to reassess what you’ve done in your career up until now to improve your chances of landing your next development role.
Think of skills as ‘horizontal.’ “I think about skills as sort of horizontal, they sort of go across any kind of vertical, knowledge, or expertise,” Korda Poole says. Some examples include meeting facilitation, writing, research, and budget facilitation, she adds.
Consider development-relevant skills. Be aware of certain skills and experiences that tend to apply to traditional development work functions. These include project management, proposal development, monitoring and evaluation, and foreign languages.
Redefine your past work. Try to identify what may be overlooked aspects of a current or past role, to “show a potential employer that those skills are equally important” for the type of role you are targeting, Harper says. For example, a lawyer may want to highlight mediation and negotiation skills.
Read: How to identify transferable skills when applying to globaldev roles
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