How to identify transferable skills when applying to globaldev roles

Global development is a big tent, despite the kinds of monolithic roles and organizations that may first come to mind for many when considering the sector. “Development is not just, you know, the United Nations, or implementing agencies. It can also be universities, it can be think tanks, it can be advocacy agencies,” said career coach Caroline Korda Poole, highlighting just a few of the many different forms development work can take. “I think about skills as sort of horizontal, they sort of go across any kind of vertical, knowledge, or expertise.” --— Caroline Korda Poole, career coach and founder of Centered Career Within this big tent are also a broad range of skills and experiences that development organizations seek in employees. While “every sector has its own different way of getting the job done … the underlying skills [of many professions] can be transferable to almost any role,” said Kathryn Harper, a professional development writing expert. If you’re looking to work in development for the first time, it’s important to know how the skills and experiences you have built up outside the sector can be presented in order to show a recruiter that you are qualified. The first step is being able to identify what these are. Korda Poole and Harper spoke of the role transferable skills play for those wanting to transition into the development sector during two recent Devex career events. Here are some ways to reassess what you’ve done in your career up until now in order to improve your chances of landing your first development role. Think of skills as ‘horizontal’ To help identify skills that you may not have considered as being applicable to a global development role, Korda Poole suggested considering the skill itself more than the specific sector in which it has been used. “I think about skills as sort of horizontal, they sort of go across any kind of vertical, knowledge, or expertise,” Korda Poole said. Some examples include meeting facilitation, writing, research, and budget facilitation, she said. “Project management, program management, budget management, staffing — all of these pieces are universal. Every organization, no matter what they do, where they do it, or how they do it, needs people who understand [these areas],” Harper concurred. A similar approach can be taken in terms of expertise in a particular topic, such as previous work done outside of the development sector dealing with, for example, diversity and inclusion, or climate issues. “Even gender, potentially, is something that can go across every single [sector],” she added. Consider development-relevant skills Those looking to break into development should be aware of certain skills and experiences that tend to apply to many traditional development roles and functions. Many of these can be honed in plenty of roles and experiences outside of the sector. For example, “if you're really good at fundraising with individuals, there are some organizations like Mercy Corps [and] Save the Children that work with individual donors as well. So being able to bring in, understand, manage, and continue to develop money, that's a helpful skill. It's highly transferable, [and] it helps no matter where you go,” Korda Poole said. Other skills broadly in demand within development include project management, proposal development, monitoring and evaluation, and foreign languages fluency. “It's going to be really hard to enter into international development if you can't speak to people in their own language or in several different languages,” Korda Poole said. “You're not going to understand where people are really coming from if you're not able to connect with them in their own languages and it also broadens your mind, your ability to read [and] research — it's just fundamental.” Redefine your previous experience When assessing your previous or current job, you may have the ability to highlight the skills and strengths you’ve developed that a recruiter might not pick up on, especially if your role tends to provoke preconceived notions. Harper spoke of a client she is working with who has been a lawyer for 30 years and is now looking to transition into operations management and employee retention within the development sector. “When you hear ‘attorney,’ most people think ‘litigator’ they think ‘courtroom’ they can think ‘adversarial,’” Harper said. “That's just not true … the vast majority of attorneys never go to court [and] are not litigators, but they're advocates, they're champions, they're mediators, [and] they're negotiators.” “I'm working with her now and showing her how to convert those skills that make one a good lawyer, that also make one a good leader of a team, leader of a unit in an organization, [or] a leader of a project,” Harper added. The key is to highlight these often overlooked aspects of a profession, to “show a potential employer that those skills are equally important” for the type of role one is targeting, Harper said.