When Sherry and I do career presentations for Working World, I invariably notice that, at the end of the presentation, only when we’ve finished waxing on about theoretical approaches to building an international career and finally give some specific career websites and other resources for people to check out…only then does the note-taking commence with serious fury. I manage to convince myself this phenomenon isn’t because people weren’t interested or weren’t listening—instead, I think it indicates that when it comes to the job search and career planning, people appreciate the tangible and the concrete. “Where can I look for jobs? What websites? Tell me!” I get this.
In the same vein, it’s also interesting to note that on the heels of this blog’s torrid Doostang discussion (here, here and here), in which most people, me included, ripped the career networking site a proverbial new one, one commenter came in late and fought back:
Fine, but Doostang actually has job postings (some of which I haven’t seen on other sites) Does LinkedIn post jobs? That’s the key.
Point taken. While my main beef with Doostang is its promotion of an exclusive rather than inclusive style of online networking, I’ve admitted that I don’t appreciate that the jobs it recommends for me are typically financial in nature and of no interest to me. But I guess that is Doostang’s main focus, and it can’t be faulted for serving up what its users want.
The larger point of this post, though, is that while Sherry and I both believe it’s very important to not just focus on getting a job, but rather to engage your career from a broader perspective and to stay informed of the larger issues that concern your chosen field (here, international stuff), we also both understand that having someone tell you the best places to look online for jobs, and to even let you know when specific jobs open up, is incredibly useful.
It was in this spirit that Sherry suggested we try to post more job openings that we come across through our respective networks. So, starting today, we’re going to try to do more of that. I don’t know how thorough or systematic we’ll be able to be, but when we come across an open position in international ed, exchange, and/or development, we’ll post it.
Today’s job posting is a big one: Executive Director at Americans for Informed Democracy (Seth Green, the founder of AID, is profiled in Working World—an amazing guy and a great organization). Application deadline is April 17, and the full job description and application details are after the jump.
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