Tips for Building an International Career in Charities

JOB MARKET

By Jeffrey Klineman

It’s an unsolvable puzzle: For job seekers to get hired by a nonprofit organization abroad,

they’ve got to have overseas experience. But where do they get that experience? By working overseas.

It can be frustrating, admit officials at international charities, but despite the difficulties, the chance to live in a foreign country and do some good at the same time continues to fuel a strong demand for positions abroad. And many organizations, especially in certain global hot spots, offer a steady supply of jobs.

“With the fall of dictators, natural disasters, famine, war, all of these events, there are always challenges,” says Gregory Hofknecht, a veteran of many overseas postings through Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore. “There are a bunch of jobs available for humanitarian assistance overseas. It’s a boom industry.”

Much of the preparation for a career in international nonprofit work can be described as a “hurry up and wait” process. It is important to have an up-to-date passport ready, but often work permits, which can only be issued through the host country, are acquired at the last minute. While in some countries obtaining permits can turn into a hassle, most of the effort is expended by the employer. The process can delay an employee’s start date at a new work assignment. (Go here for more information on visa requirements for specific countries.) It can take years to line up the right position that matches one’s skills, interests, and desired destination, but employers often demand that their potential workers be prepared to divorce themselves from their domestic lives in a matter of weeks.

However, with the right combination of skills, experience, and foresight, it is possible to find satisfying nonprofit work abroad, and not go broke while doing it, according to those with firsthand knowledge of the process.

Although the most readily apparent opportunities for employment are in the areas of aid for developing nations, poverty relief, and education, a variety of jobs are available for candidates with the same kinds of skills that create success within domestic organizations: Project management, fund raising, and even accounting are in high demand at many nongovernmental organizations — or NGO’s, the most frequently used term for charities abroad.

Here are some tips for building an international nonprofit career from the ground up, as advice for midcareer professionals who want to move overseas. Accompanying is a list of resources to help potential employees navigate their international job hunt.

Planning Early

For the young and unattached, international work can be more easily obtained than for those who have sunk deep roots domestically, and it is possible to advance quickly within organizations. During their undergraduate years, students should try to master a foreign language and also take courses on international relations, according to Tamara Golden, an employment counselor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, in Medford, Mass.

Just as important as the academic load, however, is the opportunity to spend summers and semesters abroad, because it gives undergraduates a taste of what it is like to establish a life outside the United States.

“Organizations don’t like to send untested quantities internationally,” says Bas Vanderzalm, president of Northwest Medical Teams, in Portland, Ore., which sends health-care professionals to developing countries. “It’s a high expense, and if you misjudge, there’s a terrible price to be paid by everyone. They want to know you can make it out there.”

To further that end, Mr. Vanderzalm says, students should try to find work abroad after graduation, such as enrolling in the Peace Corps, for a significant experience outside the United States. Veteran international workers swear by the mix of practical experience and personal knowledge that comes from a two-year hitch with the federal agency, which has placed young college graduates in developing nations for 40 years. Because of the number of people who continue to work internationally after serving in the Peace Corps, the experience also offers the chance to build an extensive professional support network.

From there, overseas employees and employers recommend that returning aid workers pursue graduate degrees in international relations. From there, the nonprofit world is wide open.

“The people I know who were most successful didn’t just wake up one day and say, ‘Oh! I’m going to start applying for international jobs, ‘” says Cristine Betters, who worked at Catholic Relief Services in a variety of developing countries and war zones throughout the 1990s before returning to the States to start a family. “They were the ones who spent years getting their ducks in a row — they did internships, they looked at postgrad education programs in international work. It can just happen that you get the right break and go work overseas, but most of the people I knew prepared for it and got their credentials before they went.”

The Midcareer Switch

Getting overseas after building a career in the United States can be daunting, even for the most skilled fund raisers and other nonprofit employees. Claire Holman Thompson, of Tacoma, Wash., had run multimillion-dollar fund drives on behalf of university museums, but after spending several months looking for similar positions in Britain, she gave up.

“The salaries were about half what they are here,” she says. “I just don’t really think they’ve been doing it as long as Americans have. They’ve had an enormous amount of state and government support in the past, but that’s dwindling, and they’re having to fund raise.”

Indeed, established skills like fund raising are in high demand across the globe — and can help those who have not spent their entire lives focused on foreign work eventually find positions outside the United States.

Many American charities that send workers overseas seek employees with some sort of professional skill, says William Nolting, director of the overseas opportunities office of the International Center at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, which has a vast resource of information for those wanting to work abroad. “Public health, for example, is a degree that’s in high demand,” he says. “Having that skill can really speed up the process.”

Many large, multinational charities have a multitude of needs, just like any big organization, and those needs can give job seekers a wealth of options, notes Sid Balman, the director of communications at InterAction, an alliance of more than 160 international development and humanitarian nonprofit groups that have their headquarters in the United States. “They need Web managers, writers, fund raisers, clerical workers, and project managers,” he says. “And once your foot is in the door, all things can be possible.”

Even for employees who possess prized skills, however, most charities that work in developing countries still require experience abroad, and midcareer professionals would be wise to do some planning if overseas work is their goal, says Melanie Myers, director of recruiting at Save the Children, in Westport, Conn., which runs relief and development programs in more than 45 countries.

“Look for every opportunity to get exposure to the international environment,” she says. “Even if it’s a monthlong opportunity, get overseas. Volunteer on your vacations. Get yourself academically equipped. Learn a language, work on your management skills, and join professional associations that can tell you what it’s like to do your job in the country you’re interested in.”

The Transfer Option

Some nonprofit employers say that for workers without overseas experience, the quickest route to a foreign job is through the home office. Joining an international charity and taking a desk job at its American headquarters allows employees the chance to prove their competency and puts them in line for assignments abroad, says Ms. Myers. It is a chance for workers without significant overseas experience to familiarize themselves with the mission of their organization while developing the skills that will help them serve that mission.

Employees who have applied for overseas positions, either with their current employers or as part of a wider job hunt, should be prepared to go at any time.

“Those people who go overseas, by and large, are those who can quickly respond to an opportunity when it develops,” Mr. Vanderzalm says. “If a position becomes available, we start looking right away. If I was looking to go overseas, I’d think it would take about at least a year to find a job, but I’d interview, pursue opportunities, and maintain my own personal affairs so that I could leave quickly, within one or two months if possible.”

For those who are already living abroad, volunteering at an organization can help create job opportunities — just as it does in the States.

Lena Cheng, an internist who was living in London with her husband as he worked there on a project for a technology company, was forced to go the volunteer route after unsuccessfully trying to land a paid fund-raising position with area hospitals. “I was mostly cold-calling and developing relationships, but I didn’t get much response when I was calling around and asking for paid work,” she says. “It wasn’t until I was offering myself as a volunteer that people were more receptive.”

But after just three months of volunteering in the fund-raising department at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in London, a position opened up, and Dr. Cheng was hired on full time, eventually becoming the fund-raising manager before the couple returned home.

While Dr. Cheng, now living in San Francisco, does not plan to work overseas again in the near future, the experience abroad did change her career goals: “I’m looking to stay in fund raising.”

Are you an American who works for a charity overseas — or would you like to land such a position? Share your tips and ask for advice in the Job Market online forum.