A few times a year I am asked for advice by recent graduates and job seekers who want to start a career in health and international development with Canadian NGOs. A few recurrent themes always seem to come forward, in addition to the standard job seekers advice. So, now for the benefit, or curiosity, of all, here is my advice for those who are interested in working in the same areas as I do:

1. Learn statistics and data management. There is high demand for people who can intelligently and deftly handle large data sets. If you can do so, it sets you apart from most other job seekers.

2. Learn another language or two or three. On its own, being multilingual will not be enough to build a career around, but it expands the number of settings in which you will be useful and thus more valuable to prospective employers.

3. Get another degree. There must be some “qualification creep” happening in international development, as there is elsewhere, and a M.Sc. is now often the entry level degree. But in addition to the creep, there is the reality that the more skills you have the more valuable you are to prospective employers and more easily hired.

4. Get a position overseas as a volunteer or intern or whatever you can find. These positions are hard to come by and it must be so frustrating for recent graduates who are willing to go anywhere and do anything, but still cannot find a position, but it is the reality that overseas experience is a prerequisite for many jobs.

In my 14 years at HealthBridge, if memory serves, we have hired nine nutrition or health specialists – that is staff with technical roles more so than project management and each of those nine had at least three of those four attributes. At the time of hiring, all nine of them had graduate degrees (six PhDs, one MD, two MSc), all spoke at least two languages, all had extensive (years) overseas experience and six had data management expertise.

and this leads to my final point...

5. Have a Plan B. The job market is very tough, and even if you land a position it may not last. For your own protection and security, have a backup plan if you are unable to break into the international development scene.

There are other careers out there in international development which follow different paths then what I have followed, for which different skills and attributes will serve you well. Maybe somebody else out there could write about launching other sorts of carreers in international development?