I’m David Keyes and I’m an independent consultant based in Portland, Oregon.
Like many who work in evaluation, my career path been less than completely straight. This, of course, mirrors the field of evaluation, which brings together many disciplines and is often a bit amorphous. One challenge this presents, and one I’ve struggled with myself, is how to find jobs in evaluation.
Given the fractured nature of evaluation, it is not surprising that jobs in the field are posted far and wide. Those looking for evaluation jobs can, of course, look in the usual places: LinkedIn, Indeed, Idealist, and the like. But that often ends up being a needle-in-a-haystack endeavor, having to sort through hundreds of irrelevant jobs to find the few that are focused on evaluation.
Many of us also rely on local AEA affiliates to find jobs. My local affiliate, the Oregon Program Evaluators Network, does an excellent job of keeping its members aware of opportunities in the area. But these local affiliates are, by definition, local. If you want to find jobs beyond a single area, you’ll have to find the local affiliate in each area you’re interested in and hope they post jobs.
There are other places to look for evaluation jobs (Matthew Von Hendy brought together many of them recently), but here’s the point: there is no single place to find evaluation jobs.
Rad Resource:
That’s why I started a new website: Evaluation Jobs. By aggregating evaluation jobs from multiple sources, Evaluation Jobs provides a one-stop shop for those looking for work in this field. The website filters through the general jobs websites to pull out evaluation jobs, combines them with those posted on local AEA affiliate websites and sprinkles in job postings from various other dark corners of the internet. There are currently over 300 jobs posted and I anticipate being able to add several dozen new ones each week. On the website, you can filter the jobs by location, keyword, and more to identify opportunities that are relevant to you.
Having just launched Evaluation Jobs, I would love to get feedback on it. Please feel free to contact me through the website and let me know what you think. Above all, I hope that Evaluation Jobs might help you find your next opportunity in evaluation!
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.