going out into left field

[kitcatwoman]

Hello folks,

Been lurking for a while, but now I'm in a full-time job search, and need a bit of advice, so now's a good a time to come out as any :0

I'm about to graduate out of college with my BA come this spring. For lack of focus during college, I ended up majoring in environmental studies, pretty hippy-dippy, but it was a good time. In my last year or so, I got to be pretty interested in international development, and have spent a lot of time studying international policies and whatnot, but I'm not really sure of my prospects of landing a job in the industry--it seems pretty competitive. I have a lot of internship experience in other areas, and it's more likely that I'd be able to get a job elsewhere. If I did something completely out of left field--like program development for an education company, say--how hard would it be to shift gears later? I guess the point is I wouldn't mind doing other stuff per se--there are many cool things in the world--but I would really like to give this particular field a shot, and I'm worried about getting pigeonholed if I do something stuff that's completely unrelated. For all the talk about people switching careers often nowadays, I'm just not sure how it's done. And I'm worried about how graduate schools would look at me later if I tried to get into professional Master's degree programs with completely unrelated experience behind my back.

(and of course, if you know anything about entry-level development jobs, I'd be happy to hear about it. But it seems they almost all require at least an MA, not a BA...oh well)

[wordsmith]

You can always switch gears (especially if there's any thread of connectivity at all between the career categories). It might not always be extremely easy, but if you can sell people on how your previous experience is valuable to the tasks of what you're trying to get into, you can definitely switch gears. And most of the time, if you're interested in moving into something else, it's ordinarily something that you HAVE developed the skills and aptitude for, even if it's not spelled out by your previous job title, etc.; not TOTALLY out of left fied. But if you can demonstrate that your skills are applicable/convince people of that, it's not really that difficult to switch gears.

I've done it, and haven't had any real problem with employers doubting that I could make the switch. At my current job, it's actually been noted how well my previous field dovetails into the type of work I do now, even though nobody really considered that until I pointed it out in the interviewing process.

[kitcatwoman]

I suppose I need to hear that over and over in order to believe it...thanks!:p

[Rage]

I'm going through this exact problem now. It really seems to depend on where you're coming from, and how big of a leap you want to make.

[Fender247]

I think it is possible to switch gears as long as your experience can be applied to whatever organization you are applying to. Program development for an educational company can translate well if you are applying to an international development organization that focuses on education for instance. As far as graduate programs evaluating your application. They will look for signs that you are actually interested in the particular field of study. Those signs might not necessarily be work related either. For instance you could work retail full time but on the side volunteer for some development organizations doing fundraising or awarenesss activities. You can also have the volunteer coordinator you work with write a recommendation for you. But don't start volunteering 6 months before you plan to apply because that will look like you just did it for the sake of the application....

I'm actually interested in international development as well. I do have internship experience and lots of volunteer experience but I'm still having a tough time landing a job with a decent organization. They usually do require an masters of some sort. Which kinda sucks because you are putting a lot of resources into getting a masters only to end up with a low paying entry level admin type job for one of these organizations. You can PM me if you want to know more, I've done lots of informational interviewing and have attended networking events, etc. So I can probably (hopefully) shed some light on any questions you might have.