How to Stay Employed in Global Health

Published June 24, 2009 @ 04:47PM PT

1. Be Easy. Global health is a small world. There are a limited number of employers, and everyone changes jobs all the time. Once you reach a certain level of seniority, people will notice you exist and you'll get a reputation. The reputation you want is for being competent, hard-working, and easy to work with. Easy matters more than anything else. Health work is important, and often high-pressure. That makes lots of people turn into divas. No one wants to work with them, no matter how good they are.

Personalities matter, a lot. When I was in Turkmenistan, we let a woman named Regina share our office space. Somehow, her mere presence made the office happier and calmer. She wasn't even working with us; she just had a knack for making things go smoothly around here. She's been my role model ever since, and I'd hire her for just about any job she applied for.

2. Be self-aware. Know what kind of work you like. Are you a field person or a headquarters person? Do you like work travel or do you dread it? Do you enjoy management, or would you rather be researching? Does you technical area matter to you - would you be happy with any job related to, say, reproductive health, or is it the responsibilities that matter - you are only happy when doing monitoring and evaluation?

3. Be flexible. Sticking rigidly to one kind of work or one technical topic is a recipe for unemployment. Knowing what makes you happy in your work gives you a lot more jobs to look for. If behavior change communication is your passion, then you could probably do good work on HIV, Tuberculosis, or a hundred other topics. If you love writing, you could be working on reporting, technical materials, or even a global health blog.

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Author

Alanna Shaikh has spent the last ten years immersed in global health; she has worked for NGOs, companies, universities, and the US government on projects that ranged from preventing antibacterial resistance to improving maternal and child health.