My “Gentle tips for (new and seasoned) evaluators looking for jobs” posted on LinkedIn on July 5 garnered some interest and queries. Thanks to the re-shares on LinkedIn and a few retweets on Twitter—it was viewed by over 5,000 people across the world.
I am thankful to everyone who took the time to read. It would be a big lie if I said that I received 100s of queries and comments. There were a few–all good ones.
The job-related questions that I received led me to write this 2-part piece.
The most common questions posed were:
- (But) how do I find or get my first evaluation job?
- Who will hire and then train an absolute novice?
- Will anyone want to hire a career switcher?I will attempt to respond to the best of my ability. I’ll cover the first question today and the others in tomorrow’s post.
First, I am not an HR person/expert. This is not a complete list of solutions/answers by any means. I speak from my personal and professional experiences and then some tried and tested job searching methods.
- (But) How do I find or get my first evaluation job?
The simple answer is just look around for opportunities, then apply for the job.
Here are a few ways:
a) The American Evaluation Association (www.eval.org/jobs) is a great place to start.
b) LinkedIn has evaluation groups that one can join, post, and apply for jobs.
d) Open a Twitter account, tweet out questions or what you’re learning about evaluation, and interact with other evaluators to add followers and get in touch with them directly to learn about their organization and ask if they are hiring.
e) Idealist is another site to look for non-profit evaluation jobs.
f) There are other associations/organizations that post ads for evaluation/applied jobs
(e.g., APA, SREE, NORC, etc)
g) There are several small-medium-large research and evaluation consulting firms in the DC metropolitan area. Do a general job search and you will be surprised to find what shows up.
h) The good old classified sections of the newspapers are useful too.
i) Then, there are Indeed and other commercial websites that may also advertise jobs.
When applying via commercial sites, it may make sense to use search terms like “data analyses, surveys, evaluator, research, data collector, etc.” to cast a wider net.
j) If you get an opportunity, you may also consider working as a consultant for individuals or firms on a part-time basis to learn about the field of evaluation.
These side gigs are great resume and confidence builders.
I took small data collection, analyses, and reporting “jobs” on the side when I was in graduate school. Any money was good money at that time and I was learning a lot.
Hope these tips are useful. Drop in a line/comment if you have any additional resources to share with the group. Part 2 later this week will tackle questions 2 and 3. Stay tuned!
