17/XII/2010: First Career Day with the E.MAlumni Association

The year 2010 marked a true milestone in the relations of EIUC and the E.MAlumni Association. The first E.MAlumni General Assembly took place in Brussels on 21 May 2010 – hosting a lot of masterini from the current academic year 2010/2011 – and the first E.MAlumni Association Board was elected shortly thereafter. As career service was naturally one of the central topics of the Board’s strategy and action plan, EIUC and the E.MAlumni Association jointly organised a “Career Day” as part of the academic curriculum through a call of application and the recruiting of speakers/facilitators amongst former Masterini.

The Career Day was launched on 17 December 2010 and was a whole day event targeted for current masterini in order to facilitate career choices, give practical advice and get some “field” experience of how to find the right job in the human rights field from fellow alumni.

The day consisted in a general introduction – motivation for career choice, practicalities and application process – (Sara Melkko, E.MA 2003/2004), public sector perspectives (Maaria Seppänen, E.MA 2009/2010), career opportunities in IGOs (Samuel de Jaegere, E.MA 2002/2003), career opportunities in NGOs (Lynn Schweisfurth and Ram Kumar Bhandari, both E.MA 2010/2011), career opportunities in government/state institutions (Maaria Seppänen, E.MA 2009/2010) and finally career opportunities in the academia (Julia Hermann, teaching fellow E.MA 2010/2011).

In general, the day was successful and found helpful by the participants, although there is always room for improvement, e.g. the missing of a specific lecture on the recruitment of EU institutions.

It was the first time ever during the E.MA programme’s existence that a practical day for current Masterini was organised and the general feeling afterwards was to make this a permanent institution. There is a huge amount of know-how, work experience, life stories and success stories and an even bigger network that we can and should use to promote each other’s careers. Every Masterona/Masterone who is successful in a “prominent” position or by simply being a professionally happy human being is a contribution to our programme’s reputation and thus to all of us. Thus it should be our common goal to improve each other’s career perspectives. We can commit ourselves in different ways: be it a short article of your daily job routine in the field or an organisation for the E.MAlumni Association’s newsletter or committing yourself as mentor in the mentoring programme.

Dear fellow Masteroni, let me wish you all the best for your personal and professional future. May you find your dream job with a lot of happiness and in which you will be able to promote and protect human rights. All the best!

(*) Text by Sara Melkko, Executive Search Consultant, E.MA 2003/2004, former E.MA Student Representative and member of the E.MAlumni Association Board (2010-2012), published in Masterini Yearbook 2010/2011).