Finding a Job in the Field: The Holy Trinity

by Transitionland

category: Humanitarian Relief

Published February 21, 2009 @ 03:33PM PT

This is the third part of a series looking at how to find a job in the field.  The posts were written by Transitionland, a woman with a human rights and development background trying to break into international aid work.

As for background - Transitionland has spent the last five years as a volunteer, intern, fellow, and junior employee in various human rights and humanitarian organizations in the States and abroad.  She is currently continuing a decade-long obsession with Afghanistan and is passionate about refugee issues.  She also writes the phenomenal Transitionland blog.

Part one is here, and part two is here.

The so-called "holy trinity" of finding jobs in the aid field –experience, networking, and education– also applies to internships.

Only, if you're a student, or fresh out of school, you probably don't have much experience (if any) and you probably don't have many (if any) connections.

You'll have to work with what you have. Here's how:

• Ask professors you've had for relevant subjects who they know in the field, and ask for letters of recommendation stressing how well you did in your courses on economic development/human rights/public health/non-profit management/etc.

• If you still have access to a university career center, make use of it. Get your resume/CV professionally edited. Make sure you have a good generic cover letter that you can modify slightly for each different internship you apply to. If available, schedule mock interviews. If you're out of school, get your successful friends to help you out with resume and cover letter editing and mock interviews. All of these do make a difference.

• Make sure you have at least one exceptional writing sample to send to potential employers. This should be no longer than five pages, and it should be either journalistic or policy-oriented. You might write awesome comparative literature papers, but they're just not relevant.

• Play up your skills. You might not have worked for an NGO before, but chances are, you know how to do something useful for one, whether it's taking care of children, performing or teaching CPR and first aid, or working in a community garden. If you handled the finances or PR, or organized events for a student organization, make sure you stress that in your resume, cover letter, and interview. Work-study counts, too. It is, after all, work experience.

• If you are fluent in an additional language to English, make sure your resume reflects that. Potential employers will overlook a lot if you speak and write a language they desperately need.

• Be persistent. It took me six months and who-knows-how-many unreturned emails and phone calls to finally land the dream internship that opened every subsequent door for me. In general, it's best to wait a month after the deadline for an application has passed (or three weeks if there is no deadline) before you send a polite follow-up email to the hiring manager. If you still hear nothing, call, or send a few more emails, spaced out by two or three weeks each. You have nothing to lose in this situation. You were either rejected already, or the hiring manager is still waiting to make a decision. In the latter case, your persistence demonstrates your strong desire to intern for that specific organization -- points in your favor.

[Photo of the Kabul - Bamiyan Road from Hindu Business Line / Rasheeda Bhagat]