How can entry-level professionals, who don’t yet have hands-on experience in the M&E field, write a strong M&E CV? Here’s Leticia’s advice:
Let’s say you’re just out of university so you have no experience. But your research projects that you did at university are part of your experience, right? Writing your thesis for your undergraduate degree demonstrates your ability to conduct desktop research (and at times also some data collection). You can say, for example: ‘Synthesized information to produce a 10,000-word thesis on XXXX topic.’
You can talk about any leadership positions that you’ve held, even if it is in your community church, where you had to engage with different youth. Or maybe you had to develop and administer a survey, or you just conducted interviews or group discussions, things like that. You might think this kind of experience isn’t relevant, but it demonstrates your ability to be an interesting candidate for an M&E opportunity or internship.
I’ve also noticed that sometimes people leave out short-term opportunities that they’ve had. Perhaps you worked for four weeks as a data collector for a project – you might leave that out because you think it’s not relevant, and you should only list permanent or more long-term positions.
But those short experiences add a lot of value and understanding to the skill set that you have. You can even have a section on your CV that says ‘Selected Consulting Projects’, and under you can list different bullets using the same format that I was explaining earlier.”
Another great way to demonstrate your experience is to include short quotes from your references that demonstrate why they would recommend you for a position. Don’t make these too long, and make sure they speak to the position you are applying for.
Make sure to join platforms to learn form other evaluators – these are great to grow your skill-set and shows me you are keen on being part of the M&E space. Make sure to join our national M&E association as well!
P2p+: https://p2pevaladvisory.wixsite.com/p2p-eval
EvalYouth: https://evalyouth.org/