So You Want To Change The World? First, Ask Yourself This One Question
I get asked this all the time, by students, recent graduates, young professionals, mid-career professionals and even seasoned partners at professional firms: ‘How can I get a job in social impact?’
In most cases when I prod for more detail about what type of role or organization, the answer will be vague: ‘policy’, ‘a NGO or foundation’, ‘human rights’, etc.
As if, when you asked someone for more specificity about their desire to work in fashion, they would not be able to tell you whether they wanted to be a model, fashion designer, marketer, or seamstress; whether they want to work for Chanel or for H&M, a big powerhouse or start something from scratch for themselves. There seems to be a view that wanting to do something good is enough although clearly it’s not, because these people are not working in social impact (yet, at least).
So my first piece of advice to anyone who wants to start their career in the social impact world or switch from the private sector is to start with this one question:
What are my superpowers?
Or, put in less cool terms: What unique skills, lived experience, or value add can I bring to the table?
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” Rumie, 13th century.
And I do firmly believe we need everyone.
We need your talents, your creativity, your skills, your time, your influence and networks, your resources, your blood, sweat and tears if we are going to make real change. Or as Ann Friedman recently put it: “Practicing for the world I want to inhabit (thank you again, Mariame Kaba!) requires a plan that is aligned with my skills, my life, the power I hold, the people I'm invested in, the communities I'm part of.”
But first you need to know what makes you special. As Margaret Mead says:
“Also remember you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else”.
And understanding and auditing your skills, experience, and resources are critical as idealism and enthusiasm alone are not enough. Now the good news: not everyone is, or needs to be, a multi-lingual UN policy wonk, a monitoring and evaluation specialist, a community activist, or a technology entrepreneur.
As MIT President L. Rafael Reif said during Solve at MIT in 2017: “Everyone has a seat at the problem-solving table.”
Whatever your skills, experiences, and resources, you have a role to play. You can be a software developer working on EdTech, a lawyer working for a non-profit, a filmmaker, and so much more. I was a management consultant initially and then started out at Save the Children as an internal consultant working with Country Offices around the world helping to merge programs – who knew that job even existed in a children’s NGO?
And it is not only about working full-time for an organization or starting one, although those are key levers, given it will occupy the majority of your working hours.
It’s also about what you do in your spare time: your giving, your volunteering, where you invest your money, what you buy, and more, all of which you can read about in other yourImpact articles.
In terms of careers in the social impact field, how to do you find your own superpowers?
A few helpful sub-questions:
1. What are the skills and experience you bring with you from your current job and/or your studies?
2. What are you good at?
3. What do you enjoy doing?
And now, some harder ones which may take time to reveal:
1. Putting aside your ego to do the hard work: are you ready to roll up your sleeves to get to where you need to be?
2. What are the wounds and trauma you carry with you? Just like superheroes, very often, your superpowers may in fact stem from there
3. To what resources do you have access? Think about your time, your money, your influence, your purchasing decisions, your investing and more.
4. What are the institutions and systems you can operate at and in, influence, and change? Think about your family, your community, your country, the organizations you work in or volunteer for, and more.
5. Who can you call upon to help and complement you?
6. Out of all the above questions then, what makes you uniquely qualified to solve a real problem that affects the most underserved, one that could become your purpose?
If the answer to that last question is unclear to you, you might face a hard truth – you might not be qualified yet, or it may be the wrong problem for you. I’ll publish soon about how to think about real problems and finding your purpose.
I know a number of lawyers and accountants who are frustrated and want to do good. I tell them: “Great! The social impact sector needs lawyers and accountants.” It then becomes clear that they no longer want to be lawyers or accountants in fact..! The issue there is that their skills and experience are not in writing policy papers, or whatever they in fact dream of doing.
I always tell people it’s hard to change sectors, job function, and geography, while getting a promotion or even keeping the same salary… It does not mean it’s impossible, it’s often easier however to change one or two of these things, so you’ll have a better foot in the door if you start with your existing skills and experience.
If you are not yet sure of what makes you uniquely qualified, that does not mean you should give up, but instead you may need to learn and work hard and be patient to get to a place where you have a good answer.
For those of you just starting out, that might mean an internship or a Masters (more on that here), or gaining real experience in a specific profession in the private sector first as the social impact sector may not always be the right place to ‘train’.
Indeed, entry-level jobs in the social impact sector —when they are available— are super competitive, pay generally badly, and can be quite administrative. Also, they might recruit mostly from the intern pool. And in all honesty, it’s not necessarily clear where the progression lies. So you get a job for a human rights NGO doing data entry or booking important people’s hotels and airfares? It’s not like you doing a great job there means you can then be a human rights advocate in the Middle East (in fact, I imagine being amazing at one of those jobs might make you rubbish at the other).
For those of you looking to switch careers, it might be good to start by joining a board of an organization you admire, skills-based volunteering, and so much more. It might also still be about going to back to school, taking a big step back in terms of pay or responsibilities to learn a new job, or accepting that being an accountant at UNICEF is still working for UNICEF even if it’s not being a program officer.
Don’t give up though – it is hard work, and it can be dispiriting when you want to do good but the pathways are not clear.
But there is no question in my mind that this is the type of work that will give you purpose and will bring you alive.
And we need everyone to measure themselves against what impact they have in the world, not how many dollars they have in their bank account.
As Solve advisor, and 3rd US Chief Technology Officer of the United States under President Obama, Megan Smith, loves to say:
“If we include everyone, we can solve everything”.
