Oh, good lord. I spent the last three days at Congress 2009 (the annual Canadian academic love-in) doing interviews, attending sessions on non-academic careers and meeting an array of really interesting people. I’ve also been vexed by problems with the wireless connection (so much for my live blogging idea), so between the schmoozing, the traipsing across Carleton’s campus and internet problems, I have not been able to get on Leaving Academia and keep you apprised of all the great stuff I’ve been learning. I’m heading back to Toronto today, though, so regular daily posts will resume next week. I’ve got lots and lots of information to share with you about what I learned at Congress (not to mention finishing off my transferable skills series), so be sure to come back next week (or make it even easier on yourself by clicking on the subscribe button up there in the right hand corner, to make sure you’re informed of each new post that goes up).
What I’ve got for you today is my first summary from a session I attended at Congress on Wednesday at the “Career Corner” (which I really want to type out as “Kareer Korner,” for some reason). I wasn’t able to live blog the session, but even though this material is now two days old, it’s still tasty fresh. The talk was with David Ainsworth, who works in the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity for the United Nations. David gave a really great overview of the work he does, how he got in to the UN, and suggestions for MAs and PhDs to get into the UN system. Obviously his talk was addressed at a room full of Canadians, so keep that in mind while you’re reading my summary post here.
Working for the UN can involve a vast array of work, ranging from high-level policy articulation to working on the ground doing international aid. There are a number of different UN agencies that have different mandates. The UN website has descriptions of different jobs. David explained the job classification system:
• internships
• short-term contracts and consultancies (contracts usually last a year and don’t pay a lot but are a good way to make contacts usually last a year; consultancies mean being hired for specific skills you have like writing a document; these are short, specialized and lucrative)
• general service staff (aka locally recruited staff. These are people who do everything from clerical to backup work. They are permanent jobs located in UN member nations, good for someone with an MA, but because there’s a career ceiling, it’s not ideal for someone with a PhD)
• professional staff (PhD or professional degree is required. These are well-paying permanent or limited-term jobs that are internationally recruited. You get involved in program management)
• management staff (director-level and above; these are political appointments)
David argued that the subject of your dissertation is important to getting into the UN because your dissertation is your expertise and your calling card. It’s evidence of your link into the UN system. He suggested that if your goal is to work in a UN agency, then think about designing your research and thesis on a topic that is of relevance to particular agency. Do a bit of advance research to make sure that the topic you’re selecting is of relevance to the UN organization you want to work for, and then craft your thesis deliberately. But David also acknowledged that not all grad students are going to want to write a document to fit someone else’s work. You just need to ask yourself: are you doing a PhD to get a job, or is the research itself your passion? Make your decision about how instrumental you want to be based on that.
David emphasized that part of the reason why he found this job was because he was in the right place at the right time—and this has to do with networking. He kept his ear to the ground, listening for opportunities. He had had a contact who worked at the CBD who, years later, called him about working for them. Networking, then, made the difference for him. But David emphasized that networking means more than just collecting business cards. He defined it as the ability to talk about yourself and what you want. You need an elevator pitch that, in just a few sentences, explains what you do and what you’re interested in. This is a presentation skill, which you learn to cultivate in grad school.
To get a UN job, David advised, you’ve got to know somebody. Get to know people who work in the agencies, people who can tell you what’s going on and what the skill needs are. Interview processes are formal but the informal connections make a difference. If someone knows you or knows of your work, it helps to get your foot in the door, but it also helps you perform better in an interview. One way of meeting people is to attend their conferences.
Getting an internship is another way to make those connections and get experience. Internships, though, are hard to come by. Instead, you can find organizations that work with a UN agency and get an internship with them.
You can contact program officers by email, followed up by a phone call. But before you make contact, do your research on the organization. And try to meet people at conferences. Another way of finding people to talk to would be finding contacts for the various UN agencies within your own country. For example, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO can be your first contact into getting into UNESCO.
There is, in some instances, a way of getting into the UN through a process where you write an exam and you become a part of a pool of applicants. The problem is that this process is organized at the national level, and Canada doesn’t do this every year. Moreover, some parts of the UN don’t accept people through this process—including the CBD, where David works.
David emphasized how important it was to have a strategy. Just applying for jobs on the UN website will not be very efficient. It takes a lot of time to fill out the forms (they want your work experience dating back to when you were merely a speck in your mother’s eye). Without meeting people first, doing the online application may not be the best use of your time. You can look at the site to see what jobs are there as a part of your research.
There are a few other minimum requirements, like having experience working abroad and knowing at least two UN languages (the more the better). You also need to make sure your CV is put together—and not an academic CV, but one crafted for your non-academic professional life.
How do you go about crafting one of those? I attended a session by Carolyn Steele on the topic of CVs and resume, and I’ll post my notes from that session for you on Monday.
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How true is that? Similarly, before you give birth to a child, you’re like, “Okay, it’s gonna hurt. I’ve prepared myself. But it’ll be worth it.” But you simply cannot know the pain until you’ve fully descended into the depths of the hot, burning hell. It’s like with grad school. You’ve browsed the interwebs and seen lots of cranky grad students and faculty complaining about shit. You’re a bit puzzled, but maybe you think, “Okay, getting a Ph.D. is gonna be tough.”
But it’s not until you’ve had your first proper mental breakdown that you really know what those people are talking about. Even worse, every person who enters a doctoral program secretly thinks that it is she or he who shall be the one who shall be good enough and smart enough to be the one out of the cohort to finish first and get a tenure track job. So they know it’s gonna be tough…but they might be the one to squeeze their baby out in record time and have an orgasmic birth. Right. Good luck with that.
All of this stuff is excellent fodder for really thinking through what responsibilities graduate schools have and should have to their students. What do you think would be the best way program directors could give students a realistic snapshot of the career trajectories of not only its graduates but the folks who left before finishing?