Katie Weiskotten

Hi Emmanuel,

Have you seen job opportunities that you would be interested in? Are you missing any of their requirements? It sounds like you have useful education and experience for a health-related organisation. If you are meeting all their requirements, then you should at least be getting interviews…

How about finding an organisation you are…[Read more]

Good question! Here are a few blogs that are worth a look:

http://chrisblattman.com/
http://aidthoughts.org/
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/
http://www.owen.org/blog
https://danielesser.org

All the aid agencies (USAID, DFID, World Bank etc.) also pump out blogs, some of it good, but you have to deal with a certain amount of…[Read more]

That’s great that you’ve decided you want a career in ID. You’re right: there is a lot to this field if you haven’t specialised!

Have you done or considered doing an internship or voluntary work at an NGO (head office or even better in the field)? West Africa might be a good match for you with your French. This would help you narrow down your…[Read more]

Hi Georgina, that’s great to hear that you’re interested in getting into development. If you are not going to be getting paid and you’re not taking a local position, you should be OK volunteering in those destinations. Here’s some information on visas and volunteering in the US for example:…[Read more]

Hi Eefje,

I’m glad you find the website helpful! We’re actually spending some time (after a long break) updating the site, and would love to hear what other content or other features would make good additions to the site.

That’s an interesting niche you are in. I am sure your skills are valuable, but I suppose the difficulty is in findi…[Read more]

Project man­age­ment, prob­lem solv­ing and com­mer­cial acu­men is all valu­able expe­ri­ence for a lot of jobs in ID, so I think you’re in a good position.

If you are want to stick with an engi­neer­ing focus (which would be the most obvi­ous choice), maybe you can nar­row down the jobs you would be inter­ested in doing? Have you had a look t…[Read more]

I’m talk­ing about devel­op­ment jobs focus­ing on grass­roots issues. Most often this is an area NGOs con­cen­trate on.

The best piece of advice I can give you, with­out know­ing much about your back­ground, is to do vol­un­tary work in whichever field or with whichever orga­ni­za­tion you are inter­ested in. Com­pe­ti­tion fo…[Read more]

Devel­op­ment work can be frus­trat­ing, but it can also be very reward­ing. There are jobs that take you to the fore­front of prob­lems – where you are faced with real poverty, and on the other end of the spec­trum are jobs with donors, where you will often only deal with rel­a­tively rich gov­ern­ments, orga­ni­za­tions and other donors.…[Read more]