By Martin Tillman
Are you just getting started on your career path out of graduate school and looking for work in the international education field? Perhaps you’ve been working your first campus job for a few years and are looking ahead to your next career move. Well, there’s good and bad news out there in the job market.
The good news is that international education professionals are exceptionally helpful to young professionals and the points of access—for networking, information, and advice—are easy to identify. There are also opportunities for employment—sometimes more diverse and in greater numbers—outside the United States. The not-so-good news is that the global economic downturn has resulted in serious budget shortfalls in many U.S. states, and many universities have been forced to freeze salaries, implement involuntary furloughs of staff, and reduce operating budgets at both public and private institutions.
To be an effective job-seeker, you need to understand current hiring trends in the field, take advantage of available means to network, gain insights into local and regional job markets, and focus on the area of specialization you’re interested in. As you’ve heard from many friends and family members, it’s about who you know and who you cultivate as a mentor.
NAFSA affords you multiple ways to advance your knowledge and develop important professional contacts. Be sure to ask others how they broke into the profession, what hurdles they had to jump over, and who was helpful.
Let us hear how you got started!
Read Marty’s full article on the NAFSA Web site.
Marty Tillman has been a NAFSA member since 1977 and recent chair of the NAFSA Task Force on Career Development Resources. He has over 30 years of senior management experience in higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations. Tillman is currently the president of Global Career Compass, an international consultancy; formerly, he was associate director of Career Services at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His consulting focuses upon the impact of education abroad on career development. An authority on global workforce issues, he is a frequent NAFSA speaker and regularly writes for the International Educator magazine.
This is a great idea and resource, Martin! I’m writing about getting a job in study abroad on my website http://www.InsideStudyAbroad.com. Hopefully, aspiring study abroad pros find it helpful.
Brooke….you rock.. and you helped me within in the field!
I got back from my second study abroad and worked in my study abroad center at Springfield College. After I graduated, I spent time working three jobs and trying to find a full time position. One of my 3 part-time jobs was at CIS in Northampton, MA. It was a temporary, part-time position but after the 6 months I was offered a full-time position in Fort Collins, CO for CIS. I worked for CIS for about a year and a half and just moved to Boston to work for CAPA International Education! It was the help of my many co-workers and helpful words that I was able to keep moving in the Education Abroad field. I found it helpful to send out emails with my resume attached just asking for a informational interview!
Being flexible – as you’ve been – is really critical to building a foundation of professional competencies when starting out.
I think that most people entering the field have limited views of ALL the possibilities of a job in international education. bravo, marty, for this article!
I worked in Study Abroad at Michigan State; then got my PhD in Int’l Ed at U-MN with Mestenhauser, Paige, Thomas, Fry, etc. I feel so lucky to have worked with these strong international educators!
Now, we publish a travel site for global educators. I love it.
I agree. Great group of professionals at UMN & MSU. All of us are quite fortunate to be able to leverage our opportunities to work in this field and apply our interests and knowledge in creative ways in and out of academia. On Friday, June 3, at the Vancouver conference, I’ll be leading a discussion with colleagues on “Building a Career in International Education.”
Marty:
It sounds like you have had a wonderful job exploring the realm of education from a local, national and international perspective. I am a Walden University doctoral student working on my Ed.D and would love an opportunity to travel aboard and work with who are reinventing themselves through adult education.
Wanda Carter
Wanda Carter,
My name is Kathy-Ann Bernard, and this information might be usefull to you.
CEPA Europe offer many programs for individual students – please have a look online, http://www.cepa-europe.com/
The team was also at the Annual NAFSA Conference May 30 – June 3.
Booth in the Expo Hall: Booth # 1131
Feel free to contact;
Ms. Heide Oelklaus :: Director of University Relations
CEPA Europe :: Customized Educational Programs Abroad
Im Schloss, 74379 Ingersheim, Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 7142 95 65 66
Fax: +49 (0) 7142 95 65 44
Email: heide@cepa-europe.com
Web: http://www.cepa-europe.com
No offense, but I don’t find international education professionals to be all that helpful or supportive. On the contrary, it seems like a pretty insular field that isn’t very welcoming to newcomers. At least in my experience…
Nordic: Wonder where you live and work. I would not characterize the U.S. members of NAFSA as being insular; on the contrary, the Association has made great strides to welcome young professionals and mentor newcomers who attend its annual meetings. Sorry for the experience you’ve had–I have not attended a meeting of the European Assn. of International Educators and cannot speak to its structure or process. If you are based in the U.S. and have an opportunity to attend a regional meeting, it may be a quite useful way to engage other professionals as these are much smaller in scale than the national conference.
I had a very hard time breaking into the field and it took me years, but I was very persistent. Networking and volunteering at conferences was what helped me. Presently I work for my NAFSA mentor, so I’m a big fan of the NAFSA Mentor program. I’ve also given and received informational interviews. Also I recommend interning as a great way to learn more about the field while gaining work experience.