My Career Advice

If you want to engage with the world, through 'IR', diplomacy or activism, here are my suggestions. They are very different from what I used to say.

It’s a joy and privilege that I’m quite often approached by young people who want advice about their futures. They’re interested in the world; they want to work internationally; sometimes they want to be diplomats. I try to help when I can but I’m writing this post for the times when I can’t.

My advice has changed over the years. Despite my history with the British Foreign Office, I’m often asked how to join the diplomatic service. I used to say that it was worth doing, not least for the extraordinary experience of inside-track diplomacy it gives you. I no longer say this.

I used to say that you can try to change the system from within. This was naïve. When I was an official, I didn’t change the system. It changed me. For evidence, just see what I did - to my great present shame - on sanctions on Iraq. I helped perpetrate and enforce them even though they did immense harm. I was a happy, careerist colluder in the system. People like me made it work. I was ambitious for myself; my values were very much a secondary concern, one I was too often prepared to sacrifice.

I have become critical of if not actively hostile to the state. The state is permitted a morality not permitted to the rest of us, including reserving to itself the right to use violence and, ultimately, kill. That’s what I did. I was part of several wars as well as those sanctions - themselves a form of violence. And as a diplomat, even for nice western democracies (the few that are left), sooner or later you will have to lie for your country, make nice to dictatorships and repressive states, or help sell arms or - worst - justify war.

I met recently with a friend who joined ‘the office’, as we called it, at the same time as me. He told me about how he had helped sell British-made fighter aircraft in the country where he had been posted as British ambassador, a job I might once have sought. That country has never had elections, human rights are routinely abused and the government supports Islamist extremist groups across the Middle East. Yet he seemed proud of his accomplishment.

Some of the people with whom I joined the foreign office are now busy in senior positions expelling ‘illegal’ migrants and punishing peaceful protest. They think of themselves as nice people; you might think they’re nice (I’m connected with some of them on LinkedIn). Others are right now approving arms sales to genocidal governments. It’s what you do that matters, not who you think you are. I’d only recommend becoming a diplomat if it’s for somewhere like Mexico, South Africa (who’s been great on Gaza war crimes) or Norway (apart from their hypocrisy over oil). Germany, France (which supports Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara), the UK and US not so much. I apologise to my friends currently in those jobs. Please don’t take it personally. Were it not for Iraq, I would still be with you.

In any case, there isn’t time now to think about the long arc of a career - spend a few years doing this in order later to do that. I used to recommend this approach too, but no more. The manifestations of systems collapse are upon us now - fascism in America, the rising far right across Europe, the climate emergency, need I go on? We need everyone to get on this. Indeed, the idea of career seems to me increasingly misplaced. AI is busy destroying the ‘knowledge’ jobs i.e. middle class jobs. Even before that, capitalism had created an ‘everyone for themselves’ economy. I now know very few people of my age who are in ‘permanent’ jobs. At my age, we should be enjoying the apogee of our careers with a comfortable retirement in prospect, but most people of my generation I know are in more or less temporary gigs, worrying about the next one or their non-existent pensions. Even the foreign office has become a much less secure employer, as it ejects the unwanted into unwanted ‘early retirement’.

I’m sorry to be the bearer of such disillusioning news. But there is freedom in this realisation too. No longer are you obliged to toe the line for all your working life, to fit in, grovel to the bosses etc, because you want ultimately to make it to the top.

So that’s what not to do. What to do instead?

Well, here my advice gets a little less conventional. Don’t start by thinking of ‘careers’ or other labels, at least in the realm of ‘international relations’ and diplomacy (not for doctors, obviously). What really matters doesn’t have a label, and certainly not that of ‘career’. The first task in making any choice is to locate what you love (or hate).

This can be hard and take a long time - perhaps a lifetime - but it is the most important struggle, the battle to become fully oneself. One answer is to explore and by that I mean literally. Get out into the world. Happily, this is also the best thing to do to ‘build up’ your resumé or CV for that career in ‘IR’.

I’m often approached by young people who want to get into international relations, but they’re sitting in London or Amsterdam. The best way to learn about the rest of the world - and indeed find what you might love - is to go and live there, not just visit as a tourist. You can’t learn about the rest of the world by sitting in Washington. Living in Gaza or Myanmar will be life-changing in one way or another. Every place I’ve lived - Germany, Norway, the US, Kosovo or Afghanistan (or Zimbabwe where I once worked as a teacher) - has taught me something fundamental. Those places changed my life. Whether they further your job prospects or not, the experience will be rich beyond your imagination.

The other thing about living and working overseas, perhaps first as a volunteer, is that it’s easier to get an international job overseas than at home ie London, Washington etc.. The competition for jobs at good NGOs for example, say in conflict prevention or mediation, or thinktanks, is ferocious. When I ran Independent Diplomat, we would get hundreds of applications for every vacancy. I still get letters now asking for internships etc (btw, I cannot help with this, at all). The best way to sidestep this crowd is to work overseas in a local position, say, with a humanitarian NGO or even the UN (a very problematic employer, but that’s another story, and extremely difficult to join if you are American or British). Do a great job and you’ll start to worm your way in. Or find out that the work doesn’t suit you. Either way, you’ve made progress.

Learn languages. Again, pretty obvious. But if you do you will be ahead of most of the competition. If you want to specialise in the Middle East, for goodness sake learn Arabic (or Hebrew or Kurmanji) and go and live there. Ditto the Balkans, Africa or Venezuela. You will understand that place better than 98% of the people who pontificate about it. This is all saying the same thing: to ‘do’ international relations, practice it, go and ‘have’ international relations (including ‘having’ relationships). That’s probably my most important bit of advice.

Finally, something that has taken me far too long to learn, and I hope you avoid my mistakes. Seek out something you love and makes you proud. This isn’t about status. Status is for the weak-minded, as I once was and doubtless still am. Teaching kids in a refugee camp in Bangladesh doesn’t have much status, but it will give you far more satisfaction, richer experience and, I expect, pride than some boring office job back at home trying to sell crap no one needs.

This is not the advice you will receive in university career offices, or perhaps from parents or peers, and I do get that paying off enormous student loans is also a major concern. What I’m proposing is a harder road than that neatly-packaged ‘career’, but it will be your road and no-one else’s, and its triumphs will be yours - as well as its disappointments.

Learn to listen to your heart: take note of the moments which moved you - or enraged you. Then go and work on that thing. Find others who do. Talk to them (most people are open to sharing their knowledge if you ask politely). Get their advice. Say thank you after you’ve gotten the advice (I’m shocked at how many fail to do this). Make contacts (‘network’ is the awful term). Show and then tell that you’re working hard to get the necessary experience or qualifications. Be persistent and thoughtful and respectful of busy people (but not sycophantic), not an annoying pest. Don’t quit.

Some of the best advice I ever got is this: ‘don’t settle’ i.e. settle for second best. Insist - to yourself above all - that you will only do what you really want. If you don’t, you will end up with second best. Of course, this requires determination and strength of will. This is all a bit Nietzschean and Ayn Rand-ian, but this rule has really helped me. When I first mooted what became Independent Diplomat to friends and family, my sister said ‘If it’s such a good idea, why hasn’t someone else done it?’. Thus are dreams annihilated. Don’t let that happen to you. Keep going. If you fail, at least you tried, which is more than most people can say.

This is how to get jobs that work for you and a life that you may love, at least in this regard. If you have any other tips, please share in the comments.

I gladly share this advice for free: lots of people helped me on my journey, asking and getting nothing in return. All I ask that if you like this post, please share it and ask people to subscribe to future posts here (also free).

Hope this is helpful. Good luck!