Career advice from across the Apolitical community - part 1

What’s the best advice you ever received? What tips did you wish you knew earlier? How did this help you on your career journey?

We’ve spoken to members of the Apolitical community to share their top three pieces of career advice with us. In this article, a number of members give their top tips.

Your first piece of advice: Serve without expectations.

Your second piece of advice: Be willing to sacrifice your pride to build your career.

Your third piece of advice: Failure sometimes is inevitable. Embrace it, learn from it and move on!

-Kanny Ekanem, Executive Assistant to the Country Director at SOS Nigeria (sos-nigeria.org).

Your first piece of advice: A job should always bring you personal, financial and intellectual satisfaction. Always seek to balance these three conditions as much as possible.

Your second piece of advice: We always have time to do things twice, but never to do them right. Take your time to do them just once.

Your third piece of advice: Learn, think and delegate.

-Carla Vázquez Wallach, Directora General Adjunta de Política Mercantil.

Your first piece of advice: Be bold in providing evidence-based advice to inform responsible decision-making.

Your second piece of advice: Be humble. You will never know everything so stay curious and ask questions. Never lose the drive to learn, and embrace the knowledge and the expertise that is around you.

Your third piece of advice: Have grit and stay focused to keep on the course that will bring the desired goal.

-Natasha Chai, Director, Workforce Development, at the Government of Alberta, Canada.

Your first piece of advice: Working with people needs emotional connection. With head knowledge, one can develop strategies but it is with your Heart that relationships are built.

Your second piece of advice: Trust is important in any relationship. Without trust, interactions are meaningless.

Your third piece of advice: Dignity is how well we treat others. Respect is the foundation of a relationship.

-Godfred Paul, Country Director at helpagemyanmar.org.

Your first piece of advice: Go out and talk to the people who will be impacted by the policy/programs you are working on.

Your second piece of advice: Look at what has happened in the past. Much can be learnt from the successes and even more from the failures.

Your third piece of advice: Be inquisitive and think laterally.

-Margaret Piper, Advisor/ Director at Margaret Piper and Associates.

Want to share your own career advice with the Apolitical community? Use this form to let us know!

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