I have gotten a job offer that is the caricature of ngo work. It's paid well under the nominal value of my degree, but unlike most other jobs I could do, it's minimally copish, doesn't directly serve imperialism and doesnt leave me with a broken back or trauma. I can live with it, but it will not be "fun" treatlerite living (small or remote flat, holidays I need to be frugal with, not that I am into flying anyway). Having a family is out of the question on that salary if I dont want the kids to be poor. I could probably keep doing that kind of job forever, there is a risk funding for the project being cut for political reasons though, which is pretty uncomfortable. The city is nice, but extremely anti-left "left" liberal, blue city in red state kinda deal, so liberals are entrenched in many spaces.
yeah the question is if this doesnt end up being a dead-end job. Org looks big enough but the jobs interview was kinda underwhelming from their side, like I have some trouble seeing them as serious stepping stones
I've worked in the NGO sector. Obviously it will vary between countries but by and large the experience of interviews with NGOs leaves you scratching your head wondering if they're a serious operation.
Thing is though, it's the really slick NGOs that give a strong impression of being serious that are the ones to avoid, at least most of the time. Sure, the poor quality interviewer NGOs come with plenty of their own flaws but if the NGO is slick and corporate then most often they are the worst of the for-profit world with being ruthless and cutthroat while also paying like a non-profit and expecting workers to do their jobs (with plenty of unpaid overtime) because of their passion or dedication to a social cause.
The other NGO is the militant sort. Those ones are rare and they'll mean business in a completely different way to a corporatised NGOs. Hard to find, hard to get into but if you're good at what you do and you don't fuck around then they can be really good places to work. Or they can be toxic as fuck but because everyone's so single-pointedly focused on achieving outcomes, nobody rocks the boat and the culture of the NGO becomes worse each year.
It's a weird corner of employment tbh.
Good point. I haven't considered the opposite scenario. Compared to the calm and collected professional tie-wearers that were all serious and proper and then started to scream like
g'mers during work, the people were messy, but I didnt get THOSE vibes
phd positions have grants attached, so I would like try to get by for one year while attempting to get good ones, same for journo training (it's more media training)