Want a career in international development?
Cracking into the international development sector may seem like a daunting prospect for students completing their undergraduate or masters studies or people seeking a career change. I often get asked for advice about how I got into the sector and what opportunities exist to get relevant experience.
This week I spoke to Masters students from around the world at King’s College London’s International Relations Career Challenge event. This is an exciting time for the international development sector in which I believe we will see a number of irrevocable changes in the way we think about “development”. This will inevitably have an impact on career opportunities and routes into them.
With this in mind, here are the three main pieces of advice I shared:
1. Don’t be afraid to take untraditional routes
Within one month of starting my Masters at LSE, one of my colleagues said to me: It’s totally normal not to have a job for 6 months after you finish your masters. Competition for a small number of jobs is high and the application processes are often long. This wasn’t an option for me — so my own route into the sector has been a rather windy one. I started my career in the private sector, working for a company called DTZ, now Cushman & Wakefield. I had moments when I wondered whether I’d ever break into…
