General

Category: General

Credible Non-Profit Job Boards

While you will find non-profit jobs on any reliable job board like Handshake or Indeed, there are job search sites that specialize in non-profit positions. A few of them are described and reviewed below.

NationalNonProfits.org

Nationalnonprofits.org is fully free and easy to use. You can search by a specific organization and geographical location in order to find the opportunity that is right for you. This website sadly does not give many internship options, however, they do have a few. Most of the opportunities found on this job board are full-time job positions, so it might be best to use this site for post-graduation. You can apply for each opportunity directly through the website.

Foundationlist.org

Foundationlist.org is great for those looking for specific foundation jobs. Sadly, this website does not feature any internship search tools and is mainly for those finding part-time and full-time non-profit work. Each opportunity has a “How To Apply” section, where it lists the requirements and also whether to apply through the Foundationlist website or if you will be redirected to the company website. 

Check out our previous review of Idealist.org, which is another great tool for those interested in working in the non-profit industry.

Foundationlist also has a list of other nonprofit job boards here. 

If you seek non-profit opportunities in Wisconsin, visit Jobs That Help.

Career Highlight: Data Analyst

Adapted from northeastern.edu and snhu.edu 

Job Duties: 

Responsibilities of data analysts will vary depending on the type of organization and the extent to which a business has adopted data-driven decision-making practices.  Usually, the responsibilities of a data analyst include: 

  • Designing and maintaining data systems and databases; this involves fixing coding errors and other data-related problems.  
  • Mining data from primary and secondary sources then reorganizing it in a format that humans or machines can easily read. 
  • Using statistical tools to interpret data sets, highlighting trends and patterns important for diagnostic and predictive analytics efforts. 
  • Preparing reports for leadership that effectively communicate trends, patterns, and predictions using relevant data.  
  • Collaborating with programmers, engineers, and organizational leaders to improve processes, recommend system modifications, and develop policies for data governance. 
  • Creating documentation that allows stakeholders to understand the data analysis process and duplicate or replicate the process if necessary. 

Data Analyst vs. Data Scientist vs. Business Analyst 

When reading about data analysts, you might also be wondering about the similarities and differences between other related careers like data scientist and business analyst. The differences between what they do comes down to how the three roles use data: 

  • The data analyst gatekeeps an organization’s data so stakeholders can understand and use data to make strategic business decisions. It is a technical role that requires an undergraduate degree or a master’s degree in analytics, computer modeling, science, or math. 
  • A business analyst serves a strategic role focused on using the data analyst’s information to find problems and propose solutions. These analysts typically earn a degree in a major such as business administration, economics, or finance.    
  • The data scientist takes the data visualizations created by data analysts and sifts through them to find weaknesses, trends, or opportunities to organize the data. This role also requires a background in math or computer science, along with some study or insight into human behavior to help make informed predictions. At startups and other small organizations however, it is not uncommon for a data analyst to take on some of the predictive modeling or decision-making responsibilities that may otherwise be assigned to a data scientist.   

Education and Training: 

A bachelor’s degree is necessary to get started in the field. While many people begin a data analytics career with a degree in math, statistics or economics, Lawrence’s Statistics and Data Science minor would be a nice supplement to any student with a quantitative skillset who is interested in a post-graduate role as a data analyst. 

Within a bachelor’s program, you may wish to explore courses in mathematics while also pursuing classes and research projects focused on data mining, simulation and optimization. You can learn to find and define data challenges across industries, gain hands-on practice collecting and organizing information from many sources and explore how to examine data to find relevant information.  

A master’s in data analytics can further your career, exploring how to use data to make predictions and how data relates to risk management. This also helps you dive deeper into data-driven decision-making, explore project management and develop communication and leadership skills. Finding an internship can give hands-on experience that helps you stand out when applying for data analyst jobs. 

Pay and Job Outlook: 

The average salary ranges from approximately $60,000 to $138,000. Roles at financial and technology firms tend to pay higher than average. The data analyst role can also act as a gateway for more senior data-driven jobs. According to PayScale, data analysts move on to roles such as senior data analyst, data scientist, analytics manager, and business analyst which also come with substantial increases in pay. According to IBM, the annual salary of data scientists will start at nearly $95,000, while analytics managers will make nearly $106,000 per year. Moreover, demand for mathematicians and statisticians is projected to grow by 33% and jobs for database administrators are expected to grow by 8% through 2030 according to the BLS. 

Job Search Resources for Film Students: Mandy.com & StaffMeUp.com

Mandy.com

Mandy is a simple job search tool for those in the film and theater industries which functions a lot like LinkedIn. You can easily find casting and crew calls for all sorts of productions and apply for them safely directly through the website. All you need is a free account to start seeing the listings, however, you have to pay for a subscription in order to apply for the positions and make sure your profile is seen. The nice thing about Mandy is that it organizes opportunities by employer. That way if you find an employer you would like to work for it lists all of their available positions in one place, rather than having to weed through all other listings to find that particular employer. 

StaffMeUp.com

StaffMeUp is a great resource for those looking for film jobs and internships. Unlike Mandy, it does not feature theater internships and only showcases film and crew opportunities. The website is extremely easy to navigate and you just need to make a free profile to start applying for positions. With the free version, you are allowed to apply to 5 opportunities every month, but if you would like to apply to more you must pay for a subscription. The paid subscription also gives you access to the status of your application to see when it is being reviewed. Overall, StaffMeUp’s free version is much more useful than Mandy’s since you can actually start applying for positions right away without having to pay anything.

Forage.com Highlight – Gain real-life experience for free!

Forage.com is an online platform that provides students with free virtual work simulations from corporations including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, and others. Each application is meant to mimic a real-world working environment and the types of activities that may be encountered if you worked for one of these firms. Students can obtain more knowledge about whether they are truly willing to work in that field and have a better chance of getting employed by displaying a proactive approach and readiness to learn by finishing one of these programs.

These seminars might last anywhere from two to ten hours. As a result, they are brief yet intense courses. Even if they’re only a few minutes long, they’re still a terrific way to get some exercise and gain long-lasting experience.

You can sign up for Forage at this link.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at oliver.decroock@lawrence.edu or grace.kutney@lawrence.edu if you have any questions, or to make an appointment.

Intro to R

Adapted from simplilearn.com and psychologicalscience.org 

R is an open-source programming language often used as a data analysis and statistical software tool. It’s particularly useful for machine learning operations and data wrangling. If R is widely used, what are some potential advantages and drawbacks and is it really worth learning? 

Here are some advantages: 

  • It’s open source. No fees or licenses are needed, which is why if you’re developing a new program, it’s a low-risk venture. 
  • It’s platform-independent, which means that it runs on all operating systems. This allows developers to only create one program that can work on competing systems. This is also why R is cost-effective. 
  • R is great for statistics – it can do many things from regression equations to frequentist and Bayesian statistics. It can bootstrap, simulate, randomize and resample your data which is why it’s widely used in the data sciences. 
  • It’s well suited for Machine Learning. R is ideal for machine learning operations such as regression and classification.  
  • R lets you perform data wrangling which involves turning unstructured, messy data into a structured format. This involves merging data sets, cleaning data and identifying important rows or columns. R also creates formatted tables, complete with significance stars. For this reason, R is often used in financial tech industries and in academia.  
  • It visualizes data well because there are packages dedicated to making pretty plots.  

Drawbacks include: 

  • It has a steep learning curve. It’s best suited for people who have some previous programming experience. 
  • It’s not as secure. R doesn’t have basic security measures. Consequently, it’s not a good choice for making web-safe applications and it can’t be embedded in web browsers. 
  • It’s slow. R is slower than other programming languages like Python or MATLAB. 
  • It has bad memory management, so it takes up a lot of memory when running code. R’s data must be stored in physical memory however, the increasing use of cloud-based memory may eventually lessen the negative effects of this drawback.  
  • It doesn’t have consistent documentation/package quality. Docs and packages can be patchy and inconsistent, or incomplete because it doesn’t have official support and instead is maintained and added to by the community.  

Some stat classes at Lawrence already teach people how to use R like STAT 255, CMSC 205 and ECON 380. You can also install RStudio yourself since it’s free and use online teaching and coding resources like Datacamp to do so as well.  

Fighting Displacement: Three resettlement NGO’s that support the most vulnerable populations

You can see – and feel – the despair and fear on the faces of over 4 million Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s advancing army.  Sadly, this is only the latest of many refugee crises our planet has faced in recent years.  From Afghanistan to Sudan, millions have been displaced as they flee war, poverty and oppression. 

Organizations, including the UN, struggle to process the massive waves of people searching for safety and an opportunity to live life with dignity, leading to a greater need for integrative services in countries offering asylum. If you have been exploring the NGO career path, here are three of the best known resettlement agencies:

International Rescue Committee (IRC) 

If you’ve ever spent a considerable amount of time on YouTube, you might have come across a heart-wrenching ad from the IRC. The IRC helps displaced people within countries in crisis. Provisions in crisis areas include shelter, cash assistance, food and water. Programs elevating long-term growth in-country include access to education, minority empowerment (working on policy with local governments), health programs treating preventable diseases and ensuring access to reproductive health. 

In situations like Ukraine where safety is not guaranteed, many find themselves leaving their home-countries entirely. IRC offers resettlement services helping refugees in their transition to the United States, where they receive assistance in a variety of areas including medical, housing, education, legal services, employment and more. 

World Relief

World Relief is a Christian organization founded in 1940 to provide recovery aid after World War II. Since then, World Relief has joined President Kennedy’s “Food for Peace” committee, responded to earthquake disaster areas, and provided aid to thousands of refugees. As of 2015, World Relief has worked in over 100 countries, has partnered with 6,000 churches, and has recruited over 95,000 volunteers. 

Much like the IRC, there are departments supporting refugees including immigration services, youth support, case management, education, and employment.

Refugees International 

Refugees International is an advocacy group founded in 1979 in response to the crises in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Their main functions are to “investigate displacement crises, create policy solutions and advocate for change”. Their Refugee Advocacy Lab dedicates resources to working with US representatives on creating supportive policies for refugees among other efforts.  The four main issues this organization focuses on is climate displacement, Covid-19, access to employment, and minority empowerment in over 40 countries. 

If you are wondering about NGO work and want to see if this work is for you? World Relief, Refugees International and IRC all offer internships available to undergraduates and graduates. Learn more about these organizations by clicking on their websites posted below:

https://www.refugeesinternational.org/

https://www.rescue.org/

https://worldrelief.org/