So, You Want to Work in Human Rights: Career Path

Grace Carter
Student Voices
Published in
4 min readJul 26, 2018

Humans Rights is one of the most essential career paths to take in this modern age. If you’ve ever watched the news, you’ll have heard horror stories around the world where pain and suffering have been inflicted on individuals and entire countries and societies.

On a more local level, human rights individual can stretch into all corners of the society, from businesses to individual towns and even homes. Of course, this work is considered emotionally straining and tough at the best of times, but if you’ve got the right mindset and a passion for the role, this could be something you excel in.

To help you get going into this highly-rewarding, highly motivating career path, today we’re going to detail your first steps in the career, so you can start to change people’s lives and add a bit of good into the world.

Defining Your Mission

If you’ve worked for a company in the past, you’ll be aware of the fact that they’ll have a mission statement. Typically, this is only a few sentences which summarises what the company is aiming to achieve during their time in operation.

Within your own personal mission, you need to define what your purpose is and how you can bring value and completion to this purpose.

“Like a traditional statement, it only needs to be a couple of sentences, about 3 maximum, and should clearly explain what you’re going to do and the end objective,” shares Jennifer Taylor, a career coach for Boom Essays.

Once you’ve defined your goal, purpose and mission, it will be far easier to know exactly what kind of human rights worker you want to be and which organisations and fields you should be looking into for work.

Researching the Company/Organisation

Once you’ve found a collection of companies you would like to work for, you then need to start researching them in more detail. Firstly, make sure that the company has its values in order with your own.

“Then, look to see what kind of placements they have in place, whether it’s full-time work, 5-year plan or even a ten-year plan. Have you got room to grow as an individual within the company? You may also want to check to make sure that the company fits in with your requirements on a social level,” explains Jessie Kemp, a career coach for Essayroo.

Some of the best places to look for this kind of information is on social media accounts and the organisation’s website. You want to make sure this is a place where you enjoy working since the main bulk of the job is going to be straining at the very least.

Writing Up a Resume

Once you’ve found a job that you think you might be interested in, it’s time to start applying. You can do this by crafting a professional resume to hand in. Get the resume right, and you’ll be able to secure interviews and every job you apply for. Here are some tools that can help;

Other Opportunities to Consider

When working in the Human Rights role, there are so many other things you’ll want to consider, but it all depends on your personal preferences and the type of work that you want to work in.

For example, here are some other questions you may want to ask yourself before applying for a job;

  • Do I work at home or travel the world?
  • What does the company do on a daily basis?
  • How can I use my skills in the job position?
  • Will I be able to progress through the company?

Of course, every individual and every job is different, but make sure you take a good look into what makes the job what it is so you can be sure that you’re finding and applying for the right one.

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