Careers in International Affairs, Eighth Edition

1 Introduction to the International Affairs Job Market

1 Introduction to the International Affairs Job Market Maria Pinto Carland Maria Pinto Carland is the counselor of the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Before joining the school, she was an administrator at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce and in the University of Toronto Graduate History Department. She has been a curatorial assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the University of Kentucky Art Museum, and a program officer at the United Nations Association and the Foreign Policy Association. She is also a career counselor for men and women of color in the International Career Advancement Program at the Aspen Institute, which works to bring greater diversity to the staffing of senior management and policymaking positions in international public and nonprofit careers. She holds an MA from Georgetown University. APHRASE that has crept into our vocabulary is ‘‘My first job was. . . .’’ We no longer speak of a single career in a single organization, and no one expects us to do so. For example, one of our Georgetown alumni started in the private sector after graduation with a major bank, overseas. He returned home to join the staff of a senior U.S. senator. Then, several years later, he left to head up a nonprofit group. He now runs a small think tank / educational organization and is a member of the board of a well-known foundation. So it is only natural that when we speak of the international job market, we are really talking about not just a range of fields from which to choose but also all the fields that you might one day work in or deal with—at a negotiating table, in a boardroom, or on a consulting team. The path our alumnus took through the international 3 4 • Introduction to the International Affairs Job Market arena is quite typical of international affairs professionals today, and your path may well be like his. As a new international affairs professional, you are in demand! Agencies, corporations, nonprofit groups, and international organizations around the world now expect the new hire to have not only crosscultural experience but also cross-disciplinary skills. The corporate interviewer expects a job candidate to have the ability to articulate and defend ideas on paper and in person. The nonprofit director wants a staffer who can read budgets and understands fund-raising. Government agencies want managers as well as analysts, and international organizations look for all these things. Graduates of international affairs programs today are being urged to ‘‘step up’’ to the global challenges that require education and experience. They have received an education that allowed them to have several concentrations and therefore multiple options. They have spent time overseas —studying, living, working. They want to integrate foreign policy and business, law and economics, medicine and human rights. They not only combine disciplines but also expect to move in and out of sectors and specialties. Creative career combinations and sequences are more and more common. The joint degree—international relations and law, international relations and business, international relations and medicine—is extremely popular. The interest in and need for cross-cultural studies is as important, if not more so, than ever. Education and Experience Information about careers has become such an integral part of the American educational system that even many children in elementary schools have a day set aside to learn what firefighters and farmers do. We are a can-do country, and we are urged early in our lives to discover what we want to do and whether we have what it takes—in interest, skills, education , and experience. To this end, effective career guidance and employment services are essential. Most educational institutions recognize this and offer students preparation and training, insights and advice, and opportunities and contacts as well as encouragement and assistance. What they do not offer is jobs. Indeed, experience at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown shows that our students’ achievements are supported by our career services but their accomplishments come through their own efforts. We believe that career achievement is the result Introduction to the International Affairs Job Market • 5 of interaction between a student’s character and our curriculum, a student ’s intelligence and our instructors, and a student’s skills and our services...