Five Career Mistakes I've made

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-04-29 21:45:00 UTC
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(photo credit: eurleif)

Swine flu or not, Wednesday is career day. Here are five career mistakes I have personally made.

1. My degree was too general. I have an MPH, in international health. That's pretty much just a big pile of intro courses. I got lucky; my Central Asia focus was enough of specialty to get me an internship that got me a job. But I know it was luck. With nothing to make me stand out, I could easily have ended up on an endless series of program assistant jobs in DC.

2. I didn't pay enough attention to who I worked for. I once took a job solely on the basis of the big title, without paying enough attention to the corporate culture or the quality of the project we were implementing. The big title got me my next job, one that I loved. But I was miserable the whole time I was there.

3. I started off setting my goals too low, and I chose them wrong. It was once my career goal to be a country director. When I got that job, at 27, I had no idea what to aim for next. I decided I wanted to be a chief of party. Two years later I was deputy chief of party, and I hated it. (see #2). Now my career goals are based on ideas, not titles. I want work I enjoy that has meaning for me, at an organization that values innovation. Beyond that, I take life as it comes.

4. I had a baby. This isn't exactly a mistake, because my husband and I decided to reproduce, and knew it would impact both our careers. But there are now choices neither of us can make, because of our son. I am pretty sure we'd be in Afghanistan right now if we were not parents.

5. I failed to negotiate. I took jobs without negotiating on salary an embarrassing number of times. It turns out, you can always negotiate. If your request is reasonable, they will either agree or reaffirm the original offer, and you can take the original. No one will withdraw a job offer because you asked for a 5% higher salary. I know we don't do these jobs for the money, but if you don't make enough money, you can't afford to keep working in global health. So always ask.

Alanna Shaikh
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