Working World

TwinCities.com reports that the failing economy, along with the promise of new partnerships abroad the Obama admininstration brings, is leading many young people to pursue the Foreign Service. What I liked in this article, even more than the fact that so many people are interested in serving abroad that the Foreign Service exam reached its “worldwide scheduling limit” in February, is that young Americans who don’t have extensive experience overseas (and who often live in smaller, less “international” American cities) are feeling the call to pursue a career in international affairs:

“People are getting more excited about foreign policy,” said Erica Tun, a 24-year-old public-relations specialist from Fort Wayne, Ind., who registered to take the exam this month. “There is a president who is interested in making the nation more global.”

Tun, who has applied for a position in the public diplomacy track, which focuses on defining America’s image abroad, first considered the Foreign Service just a few months ago, when she found an online job posting as the presidential election reached a fever pitch.

“It piqued my curiosity,” she said. “I always had the interest but didn’t have a way to focus my energy.”

For Tun, who has not traveled beyond the Virgin Islands and Canada, the Foreign Service represents an opportunity to explore the world beyond her hometown.

I was discussing recently with Lauren Jacobs, program specialist the USDA International Institute, the appeal (if any) of listing “social networking” as a skill on your resume. Lauren pointed out that almost every organization is starting a blog/a Twitter account/a Facebook group, etc. The question then becomes: do these organizations assume that if you’re applying for a job with them and of a certain age (i.e., young), then you’re automatically proficient in this kind of social networking? Lauren’s thought was not necessarily to “advertise one’s Facebook prowess as an elite skill,” but rather, if you have it, to perhaps highlight your experience with social networking in your resume/cover letter as something that is a very useful and marketable skill.

I think she’s on to something. Young professionals in all fields, including international ones, can really make themselves indispensable to a small organization by expertly guiding it in its use of social networking.  Certainly, as Lauren said, everyone is jumping on the social networking bandwagon.  But that doesn’t mean organizations know how to use these tools effectively. So if you do know how to use social networking as an effective organizational tool, should it be on your resume?

On the one hand, as Lauren points out, “proficient in Facebook” is about as silly a skill to list on your resume as “jogging”—these aren’t skills; these are hobbies. But to put on your resume/in your cover letter that you have actual, substantive experience and skill with not only setting up an organizational presence in a social networking site, but effectively managing and utilizing that presence for the benefit of the organization?  That might be something worth highlighting, especially if the job calls for it, like the job that Lauren noticed floating around the USDA for an E-Marketing Specialist that called for:

Familiarity with Web-based technology, internet trends and social media tools (blogs, wikis, twitter, etc.)

It’s true most people are “familiar” with these things in the way that I am familiar with my tax return—I know that it exists and it’s something I can/should do, but it doesn’t mean I have any idea how to do it well. So I think Lauren’s point is that social networking might be a good skill to highlight if you truly have a deep understanding of social media and how to use it for the benefit of an organization, especially a small international nonprofit that could benefit from the savvy of a young professional who knows how to utilize free technology to make a deep impact. But I think you really need to school yourself in such intricacies and that involves a whole lot more knowledge and experience than updating your status every hour, posting unsightly photos, and tagging far too many of your friends in that damn “25 Things” craze. If that’s all you’ve got, you might want to keep that off the resume.

Any other opinions out there? Is social networking a skill? How can it be utilized for international organizations or to help further your international career?

Or they wouldn’t have sent me three emails in the past week trying to get me to pay between $24.95 and $39.95 to have access to Doostang Premium, which they promise me will lead to “premium jobs” and “elite opportunities.” I am still so not at all attracted to using Doostang as a career networking/job search tool, not only for the reasons previously discussed here and here, but also because they seem to think that my idea of a premium job is either, and only, Alternative Assets Analyst or Private Equity Senior Associate. Not that there’s anything wrong with these jobs, but not only do they not interest me personally in any way (which my Doostang profile should tell them), but as someone who writes on careers in international affairs, I’ll admit I bristle at the Doostang notion that the only jobs worthy of the premium label are those in finance and/or corporate consulting.

Reader DivaDivine is also not impressed with Doostang and its Presumption of the Premium:

I joined Doostang almost 3 years ago and never paid it any attention. Back then, you could search and apply for jobs for free. Now, they’re charging a ridiculous sum to even find out which of their Elite companies are hiring. Give me a break. I’m canceling my membership TODAY.

Speaking of premium, if only we could all be unequivocally tall and premium dancers like Alex:

My good friend Geoff Gloeckler, a staff editor at BusinessWeek, passed along his interview with the Dean of the Farmer School of Business at Miami University, Roger Jenkins, with these words: ‘this video might be of interest to you, especially the end.’ Indeed—in the last two minutes of the interview, Dean Jenkins basically makes the case I wish I’d been able to make when trying to convince my parents that my plan to spend a year in China was not just a waste of time or a way to put off the inevitable.  Says Dean Jenkins:

The particular option that I personally…that my faculty and alumni are aggressively encouraging our students to think about is the international option. At the Farmer School, we’ve been very aggressive globalizing the curriculum, the students, the faculty. We’ve been very aggressive in setting up exchange programs around the world, particularly focused on China and Asia.  And even before this crisis hit, a lot of our graduates would see the wisdom of spending a year in China, teaching English, learning Mandarin, learning the culture. And now this crisis has hit, a larger, larger number are saying ‘This is the perfect time to add to my resume, to add to my skill sets, and come back being much more marketable than when I left. And at the end of the day, this has been a great thing for me because it forced me to step beyond my comfort range and forced me to get beyond the comfort of geography and so forth and really make myself more marketable’…We live in a small world, a seamless world, and the global is a part of that.

Note that for Dean Jenkins—the dean of a business school—an abroad experience for his students is not just a throwaway, but rather a necessary thing in a globalized world, a way to “add to my resume, to add to my skill sets, and come back being much more marketable than when I left.” It’s certainly proven true for me, and for many many others, whether they are working in the fields of international education, exchange, and development or some other field, that an experience abroad has not only had a deeply formative effect, but has also made us more marketable and added to our resumes in very substantive ways. And all this despite that fact that many of us didn’t know exactly what kind of specific career benefit our time abroad would have.

So for all of you struggling with your parents and trying to convince them that going abroad is in fact not only what you want to do, but also a good thing for your career, put them in touch with Dean Jenkins (or at least forward them Geoff’s interview).

I was happy to see this Career Couch article in the NY Times reminding us that the cover letter is not expendable when applying for a job:

Cover letters are a graceful way to introduce yourself, to convey your personality and to impress a hiring manager with your experience and your writing skill.

They are also the perfect vehicle for telling your story. One of the most common mistakes in a cover letter (other than sending out a poorly-formatted, typo-laden, and/or generic letter—always, always, ALWAYS tailor every letter for every job you apply for—form letters will get you nowhere) is simply repeating what is in your resume in paragraph form.  Don’t just repeat the jobs, internships, and other experiences you’ve had—that’s all right there in your resume.  Rather, draw your experiences together for the person reading your resume. Don’t leave it to the hiring committee to make conclusions about you and your experience and your suitability for the job—do it for them. Tell your story and show them how the things you’ve done and the person you are make you an ideal candidate for this particular position.

One further point for international career seekers: when attempting to convey in a cover letter why you want to work for that particular organization, simply pointing out that you are interested in international stuff and they do international stuff is not enough. I can’t count the number of times, as NCIV’s internship coordinator, I was put off by cover letters that reeked of the obvious truth that the person was only applying for a position with us because we had the word “international” in our org name.

Rather, make a compelling case in each cover letter why this organization and its mission, and then this specific position within the organization, are particularly suited to your international interests. The more you can show that, yes, you are an internationalist but that you are also extremely drawn to this particular organization and its cause, the more likely your cover letter will be noticed.

American University is holding its 10th annual Conference on Intercultural Relations March 12-13.  It seems like an intriguing event, complete with “varied, hands-on experiences for a niche group of individuals concerned with advanced intercultural relations,” and Carol Bellamy, the president and CEO of World Learning and a profilee in our book, as the keynote speaker (she’s pretty amazing). The price tag is pretty steep though, even for alumni.

Check out more on the conference on AU’s alumni website, and on the Intercultural Management Institute website too.

After looking at the 2008 Open Doors data and returning from a speaking gig at Notre Dame,  I brought up up the issue of short-term v. long-term exchange programs: which allows for a more in-depth, formative experience, especially for a career in international affairs? An article by Charlotte West in the latest International Educator brings up a related and equally important issue: single country v. multicountry study abroad and, again, which allows for a more in-depth, formative experience?

The article is definitely worth a read (it’s in downloadable PDF format on the NAFSA website, if you’re not a subscriber), as it lays out in plain detail the pros and cons of each model, as well as examples of multicountry study abroad programs that seem to be designed rather effectively, providing much more than a whirlwind tour that relegates students to studying tourists. West lays out the familiar arguments and debate by quoting a student who participated in a multicountry program:

In a single country over an extended period of time, one probably gets the benefits of really grasping the language and deeply indulging in the local culture. Yet, when one gets to see many different cultures they can better grasp the magnitude of the beauty which this world has to offer.

West goes on to comment that “one of the main arguments against multicountry programs is that full immersion is the best way to truly learn a language and a culture. However, studying in a single country is no guarantee that immersion will actually occur. In many cases, foreign students are grouped together in the same classes, held in English, and have little contact with the locals.”

West is right on here. Length does not always add up to a quality experience (I think about the classmate I knew who spent a year in Madrid, yet refused to eat Spanish food the entire time and only spoke Spanish if he absolutely had to—not exactly what the program was hoping for him to do, I don’t think).  Certainly the quality of a program—i.e., the manner in which it facilitates deep student interaction with the host country and its people—trumps the length of time in terms of importance.

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Reader GG doesn’t care for Doostang’s selectivity pitch:

I got the same email from Doostang. My guess is that they aren’t doing so hot. Like you, I created an account a few years ago, but never visited. When it comes to social networking, I’m not sure that ‘exclusivity’ is a good thing. I think it scares more people away than it attracts. Isn’t the whole point of networking to have a large, diverse group of contacts? I didn’t see that happening with Team Doostang.

GG spells out exactly why I think I’m more attracted to LinkedIn: less privileged, more diverse, more open—all of which makes it more likely you’ll forge a connection with someone you’d never have thought to forge a connection with, rather than hobnobbing with a crowd of people who are all exactly like you.

My friend Mike, an accountant in San Francisco, makes some valuable comments on our previous discussions, here and here, of how long young professionals “should” be looking to stay in any given job or with a particular organization:

Mark, I think your questions are what goes through a lot minds in our generation. At the firm I work for (not in IR), we consider the new college graduates to be from even a newer generation, where these questions/concerns are even on shorter timelines. Companies are aware that their younger employees aren’t planning on punching the clock for 40 years and then retire with a pension. That said, I think it’s fair game for a company to review a resume and ask why you’ve changed jobs every 2 years. If there is a good reason, then that should be acceptable to the company if they are interested in hiring you. If a better opportunity comes along after 1 year or 2 years at a job, then you can’t consider the future scrutiny of your resume in your decision to move on. I personally think there is no hard and fast rule, but I would advise someone to not settle for a job (or stay in one) when their passion or happiness is at stake. But it might be a whole other discussion as to whether that is easy to do considering the state of our economy. Thanks Mark, and keep up the good work…

It’s great to get Mike’s take on this issue, one that comes from outside the international affairs field but is also completely applicable to all fields, I think. His point about it being fair game for a potential employer to ask about your job switches is a great one and makes for an interesting exercise: if you’re unsure about making a career change/leaving the job you’ve been in for only a short time, ask yourself how you would respond to an interviewer’s question about your job trajectory. Can you clearly and compellingly lay out the reasons why you left your current job for another one after only 6 months or a year or two years?  If so, then it is probably a solid career move and no future employer would fault you for jumping up and taking a better opportunity. But if you can’t clearly lay out those reasons, if it’s not evident to you why you are leaving one job for another, then maybe that move isn’t the best idea after all.

Of course, as Mike says, there is no hard and fast rule, and this is all just an exercise in discussion and conjecture, which is not a bad thing but certainly never ends with one final answer. I agree with Mike that I would never encourage you to refrain from making a career move because you worry how a mythical future interviewer might interpret your resume. Mike hits on a key theme of Working World, a theme I was just posting on, when he says, “I would advise someone to not settle for a job (or stay in one) when their passion or happiness is at stake.” Of course he’s also right when he points out that the state of the economy throws a wrench in everything and perhaps might make it necessary to hold on to a stable though not awesome job for longer than you might want, mainly for the paycheck. I’m all for passion and idealism, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve also got way too much of my dad in me not to argue for practicality too.

I got an email yesterday from Doostang.com in which they let me know that they, and they alone, have the recipe for my “job hunt secret sauce,” which was a relief because I’d been wondering. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Doostang is a job and career social networking site, in a similar vein as LinkedIn.com: a place to create an online resume and profile, connect with various webs of professionals (by field, by interest, by alma mater, etc.), and hopefully get some tangible results, i.e. a job.

The difference with Doostang is that, since its inception, it seems as though it’s been a bit more…selective. Unlike LinkedIn, which anyone can join, Doostang has made it clear that it is “an invite-only career community started at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT” and requires that someone who is already a part of Doostang invite you to become a member. Now it seems that one can join Doostang not only through an invitation, but also through either a company or university network—although both of those lists of corporations and schools are very short and very selective. Indeed, if you go to Doostang’s homepage, you’ll find that they boast that half a million elite graduates are using their site, which makes me wonder what it takes to be one of the elite.  Sounds oddly like it could be an online Skull and Bones (I’m not the only one who thinks so: check out Liz Strauss’ three reasons why she wishes she hadn’t joined Doostang).

I’ve had both LinkedIn and Doostang accounts/profiles for about two and a half years. I use LinkedIn regularly, but logged into Doostang for the first time in months only after they sent me the secret sauce email, which I pasted below after the jump. I have 102 connections on LinkedIn, but only 4 on Doostang. I always encourage young professionals to join LinkedIn, but have never done so for Doostang. For whatever reason, I’ve found LinkedIn to be the more enticing option of the two, the one that feels more like a natural community rather than a secret society. It could be just that more people I knew were using LinkedIn, and so my network there grew faster and thus it became more enticing to use. It could be that in the “jobs we think you’ll like, Mark” section of my profile, Doostang recommended I check out both hedge fund associate and risk analyst positions, proving that they actually don’t know shit about what I’ll like. But I also can’t help think that some of the downfalls of Doostang that Liz Strauss points out aren’t also part of the reason I haven’t been more attracted to Doostang as a career resource.

But I’m certainly no expert on either one of these resources. What has worked for you guys? Do you find one of these career social networking tools better than the other? Or is there another, better tool out there that I’m completely missing?

And now, after the jump, the long awaited Doostang secret sauce email:

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