Want to change the world? Get in line.
Teach For America is full until the 2010-11 school year. Online applications to AmeriCorps -- where pay averages about $11,800 annually -- have tripled in the past year. And jobs at nonprofits aren't as easy to get as you might think.
Here's what they're hearing, a lot: "I just need a job" and "I want to give back."
That won't cut it.
In Fast Company magazine, Nancy Lublin of a nonprofit called DoSomething.org put job hunters on notice: "Working in the not-for-profit sector is a career. It isn't a sabbatical from your 'real' job," the CEO wrote. "Please stop thinking that 'We'd be lucky to have you' when you have no experience in our world."
Yet work that makes a difference can be had, and it can be life-changing. AmeriCorps and Teach For America are short-term gigs but provide the chance to travel and to learn skills that can make the post-service job hunt easier. Here's what you need to know about nonprofit and public-service jobs before you apply.
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The nonprofit sector employs 11.7 million people, or nearly 9% of the U.S. work force. In years past this sector "hired whoever they were lucky enough to get," says Laura Otting, the founder of the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group.What's changed? Just about everything, including the unemployment rate.
But you can also point to President Barack Obama's call for public service, to the rise of social networking that can easily link like-minded adults from coast to coast, to a growing sense among the young that something -- everything -- has to change.
Now, just as in the for-profit sector, you'll get hired only if you can demonstrate skills, a work ethic and the ability to fit in. You also need to believe in a nonprofit's mission -- memorizing the talking points from an organization's brochure isn't good enough -- and to show that this isn't your first attempt at service.
Most importantly, you need to realize that the nonprofit field is neither a place for new graduates to spin their wheels nor a soft place for laid-off workers to land until the economy rebounds.
Small salaries, great opportunities
AmeriCorps spokeswoman Siobhan Dugan says there are three hopefuls for every available slot, despite the low pay and the fact that only some of the programs provide housing and uniforms.However, workers can defer their student loans while in the program, receive $400 a month in child care assistance and up to $4,725 a year toward further education or student loan repayment. AmeriCorps positions are among those that qualify for public-service loan forgiveness programs. Volunteers can serve in their own areas of the country or request assignment in places they've never been, including Guam, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands.
"But you're not going to be sitting on a beach sipping mai tais. You're going to be working very, very hard," Dugan says.
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AmeriCorps consists of several different programs, including a modern version of the Depression era's Civilian Conservation Corps. Workers receive on-the-job training in specializations such as disaster relief, elder care, ex-offender re-entry, park and trail restoration, housing, public safety, and children and youths.
That experience may look very good to future employers. Dugan cited the example of a young man who spent a year recruiting, training and managing volunteers at Habitat for Humanity construction sites, giving him "management experience you wouldn't (normally) have had at the age of 20."
Or it may simply provide focus to the worker. Shannon H., a 29-year-old AmeriCorps alum, felt "a lot of uncertainty" after graduating with a sociology degree. She spent her AmeriCorps year working in an after-school program and an elementary school in Camden, N.J. Living on the stipend was tough, but "you can handle anything for a year," she notes.
The experience took her from "I have no idea what I want to do with my life" to "I want to make a difference" and led to a return to college. Now Shannon has a master's degree and teaches elementary school in the Washington, D.C., area.
All in all, she says, AmeriCorps was "one of the hardest and most rewarding years of my life."
To find out more or to apply, click here.
Continued: Teaching at home and abroad
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