'What's my place in global development?'

You’re a corporate leader without development experience? An nonprofit worker who’s never been abroad? A technical expert who hasn’t consulted on projects funded by the donor you’re interested in? Or a recent university graduate wondering how far your degree will get you? Global development professionals come with diverse experiences and backgrounds. But when you’re considering a career transition, it’s often hard to predict where you’ll stack up. This question was front-and-center at our one-hour webinar “Successful Consulting With EuropeAid,” which featured three seasoned consultants and leaders with Technical Assistance Consultants United, a membership organization representing the interests of individual aid experts. Following the event, TACU’s experts addressed several questions from the webinar audience on how their background fits into the global development consulting space. Here are some of the responses by Henry Leerentveld and Stephen Dewar, the group’s cofounders, as well as Michael Gericke, an advisory board member: I’ve had a successful career at the national level, but only little international experience – and most of that through virtual communication with colleagues abroad. I do hold a master’s in international development, and I think some of my professional skills are transferable to international development. How important is international work experience for EuropeAid consulting, and what types of consultancies might I want to hone in on given my background? How does one make that crucial step from a national context to an international one? It depends primarily on what you have been doing at national level. Furthermore, you would have to assess the relevance of your international experience. (It is very difficult to enter into international technical assistance consultancy without relevant international experience). If your skills are relevant to the kind of work that EuropeAid funds, you should send your CV to as many relevant consulting firms as possible. Read all the Devex materials, scan EuropeAid’s website regularly et cetera to get a feel for what’s going on, who the main players are and so forth. You should also join as many relevant groups on LinkedIn as possible, since many of these carry job advertisements. If there are a lot of people on the circuit with similar professional skills, you may get invited to work as a short-term expert on an assignment, which is your starting point. If you are a recognized leader in a very narrow field, you will have a greater chance of being selected as a long-term or key expert. Without knowing your field, we cannot be more precise. Your degree is helpful, but many projects require qualifications in other areas where it would not be relevant. READ:Global development consulting: How to gain the right experience I am 29 years old and currently working in the public sector in the U.K. with most experience in administration. What type of job (consulting or staff) may be a good fit for me within EuropeAid? Based on the information you provide, your best bet would be to apply for a job within a consultancy firm (contractor). There are a lot of administrative jobs in such firms and typically the people doing them are in their late twenties to late thirties. If you speak any foreign languages (especially Russian, Chinese et cetera, which are the languages in a lot of countries where assignments are carried out), this would be a great advantage. It’s easy to find a list of international consultancy firms, then check their websites for appropriate vacancies you could apply for. There are quite a lot of international assignments in the field of public administrative reform, but these are normally only awarded to people with many years of experience, including at senior level, and often requiring experience of managing major organizational and functional changes. What you also could consider is to see if you can get into bilateral international cooperation, so-called “twinning projects.” These are projects devised in cooperation between governments, where officials from ministry X or state agency Y are seconded to the equivalent body in the recipient country. In their goals, these are somewhat comparable to technical assistance projects. The difference is that these projects employ working public servants. What job type or level would I fall into with the EU if I have hands-on work experience in humanitarian relief but no academic degree? Humanitarian relief and aid organizations need people like you. But technical assistance (transfer of know-how) requires academic/professional qualifications and years of relevant experience. If you enjoyed working on humanitarian relief, stick with that. It’s immensely important and personally satisfying work (if you have the right motivation!), whereas technical assistance, though demanding and complex and often done under difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions, is not nearly as glamorous, nor does it have immediate, visible results similar to saving people’s lives. Mostly, you spend an awful lot of time in an office environment. Are there careers in international development for those with a background in volunteer management? Please see the answer to the question above, which applies here also. What types of consultancies or seniority levels would someone fall into with 11 years of experience in the financial industry plus a political science bachelor’s degree? There is a great deal of work available in financial services-related consultancy. Indeed, there are quite a few contractors who specialize in this area, so you should research them and see if you can find anything suitable. If your degree includes economics (e.g. a PPE degree or similar), this gives you the basic qualification for this field. With over ten years’ experience (though this depends on exactly what kind of experience) you should be able to aim at a mid-level position and work up from there. Please remember that previous international experience is of eminent importance for entering international technical assistance consultancy. I am a non-EU citizen with more than 15 years field experience, and my university isn’t recognized by the EU. Would that make it unlikely for me to be considered as a (local hire or international) consultant? What seniority levels would I fall into? Assuming your degree is legitimate (not just a piece of paper you bought through the Internet), you should be considered perfectly eligible as a local consultant. All EU-funded projects are required to promote themselves and the EU in local media, so your newspapers and perhaps television news will report when a major new EU-funded project gets started in your country. If it looks as though the kind of work involved is relevant to your skills, apply directly for a job as a local consultant. Alternatively, watch the local newspapers and Internet websites for job advertisements, as EU-funded projects are required to recruit local experts in an open, transparent and objective manner. Having said that, many local experts get hired because the local beneficiary organization “recommends” people it knows. Often, projects hire such people in order to maintain a good relationship with the beneficiary organization. Thus, it helps to have friends in the right kind of organization. You should be prepared for the fact that although international experts tend to be paid a lot of money compared with local standards, local experts are typically paid at similar rates to that earned for doing equivalent work in a local organization. If you make the breakthrough into international work (e.g. by doing a brilliant job as a local consultant and impressing the contractor so he/she asks you to work on a future assignment abroad), then the fee rates go up. READ:What eurozone crisis? – EuropeAid consulting trends and pay rates Can sponsoring the fight against breast cancer and homelessness in Portugal through art be considered international (development) experience? I’m afraid not, if we are talking about technical assistance projects. However, there are NGOs and other organizations who would undoubtedly welcome someone with your skills and experience. What flexibility exists with the requirement of experience on EU-funded projects? How likely is it that EuropeAid or one of its implementers would hire a consultant with experience on other donor-funded projects only? Most experienced experts have worked on projects financed by different donors, so this is not an obstacle to working for the first time on an EU-funded project. However, a number of projects require previous specific experience on EU-related assignments, for instance in EU pre-accession states like Croatia, where much of the consultancy work requires familiarity with EU programs and procedures as part of the process of teaching the country how to play by EU rules when it joins. Sometimes, this is only required for the team leader position. I’m a photographer with many years of NGO experience in social work, but I can’t find a position that suits my experience. Any advice? Unlike humanitarian relief and aid agencies that require a high visual profile internationally to arouse public sympathy and financial support, technical assistance consultancy is not a photogenic area. Nobody is really that interested in looking at pictures of people working on, say, customs harmonization or food safety labeling training courses. Don’t waste your time with the technical assistance industry. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Many aid organizations do need photographers, however, to brochures and other marketing-related material, and some of them may hire external photographers occasionally to get the job done.] What types of internships or fellowships have a good reputation and could pave the way to a consulting career in development? Internships and fellowships do not lead directly into a consultancy career in development. You need many years of experience in your chosen professional field before you will be considered eligible to apply for an expert position. This is because, at heart, technical assistance is about transferring know-how from experts to recipients. So, first you have to gain the know-how yourself – and this is not achieved while doing consultancy abroad, as donors are not going to pay you to learn how to do the job. You should already have learned it at home or in a non-consulting environment. However, internships with contractors, aid organizations and so forth can be very useful in bringing you into contact with people who are already involved in this kind of work, which will enable you to decide whether you really want to do this later in your career and also, if you do want to go ahead, provide you with the beginning of your personal network of useful contacts. Use the Internet search functions and talk to friends and colleagues in order to identify good organizations for this purpose (and to avoid the bad ones).