Sujani Sivanantharajah, the founder of PHSPOT.org sits down with public health heroes of our time to share career stories, inspiration, and guidance for building public health careers.
The message she hopes to share through these conversations is that building a career is not only about climbing up the ranks, but about crafting a life that you want, around your unique needs, and one that gives importance to your mental health, wellbeing, and building relationships and friendships: you can only do good in the world if you take care of yourself.
Through PH SPOTlight, you will connect with peers you have never met before, and build relationships in a deep and meaningful way.
Landing that first public health job can feel impossible when every posting requires experience you don't yet have. We explore four powerful strategies to break this cycle and position yourself as a strong candidate even without traditional job experience.
Reframing what counts as experience beyond full-time paid positions
Using course projects, volunteering, internships, and part-time work to showcase relevant skills
Presenting skills-based experiences with action-oriented language on your resume
Tailoring applications to mirror job description terminology and sector-specific language
Building relationships through informational interviews rather than just applying to posted jobs
Creating your own experience through volunteering, writing, and continuous learning
Staying motivated during your job search by actively developing skills and connections
Join our Public Health Career Club for our upcoming workshop on translating volunteer activities into evidence-based experience on your resume! The doors are now open for enrollment!
Welcome to PHSpotlight, a community for you to build your public health career with. Join us weekly right here, and I'll be here too, your host, sujani Siva from PHSpot. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Public Health Spotlight podcast, where we share stories, inspirations and guidance to help you build your dream public health career. I'm your host, sujani Siva, and today we're talking about something that I know many of you struggle with and it's also something that I, you know, had a lot of challenges with early on in my career, and that's landing that first public health job, especially when you don't feel like you have enough experience to show for what you're capable of doing, right. So it's a question that we get all the time inside the club on LinkedIn, wherever I'm talking, and it's about like, how do I break into public health if every job posting is asking you for experience, but you haven't had your first job yet, right? So you often feel stuck when you're kind of thinking about this question. But by the end of this episode, I hope that you will walk away with a few clear strategies to really help you position yourself as a strong candidate, even if you feel like you're starting from scratch, and I just want to let you know that inside the Public Health Career Club, this is our membership community for public health professionals. This week, wednesday March 26, we're actually hosting a live session on translating volunteer activities to evidence-based experience on your resume. So this is for anyone who's kind of struggling to figure out how do I showcase my volunteer experiences for a job application right, and that's going to be one of the strategies that we'll talk about in today's episode. But I just wanted to mention that up front to let you know that that session is happening this Wednesday. So if it sounds like it's something that you might benefit from, definitely join the Public Health Career Club at phspotorg slash club.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so, first off, we want to just talk a little bit about kind of like this, like foundational piece of information that you really need to have, right, and that's understanding the public health job market. So before we jump into strategies, let's take a step back and talk about why entry-level jobs in public health entry-level jobs in public health, they're often looking for experience. So you know, in other fields I guess new grads can jump into roles and kind of learn on the job, and with public health it's a hands-on role and often I think, employers want to know that you understand the community that they're serving, right. So, like do you understand community health? Do you understand how to do basic data analysis? Do you know how to implement a program or like whatever specialty that you're applying to? And so what you need to kind of you know, understand and shift your mindset around is that when these job postings are asking for experience, it doesn't necessarily need to only come from a paid job. And so that brings us to our first key point is for you to reframe what counts as experience that you're going to speak about in your application. So if you're only thinking about full-time, paid jobs, I think you're missing out on a lot of relevant experience you probably already have. And what employers are looking for, what they care about, are skills that you have and not the job title that you held, not the job title that you held.
Speaker 1:
Okay. So let's go through some examples of things that you can use to showcase quote unquote experience or skills for an entry level job. So, course projects and research, you know, think about the courses that you've been involved in, projects that you've worked on, and, for example, you could ask yourself did I analyze any help data for a class? Did I create some sort of a program implementation plan? Are there certain things from your courses that you could pull out to really showcase that you have that skill set? And that's actually something that I did for the first job that I landed. They had asked about whether I had knowledge, experience or any skills around infectious diseases, and at the time I had never held a job a full time job where I worked on like infectious disease. So what I did instead is talked about this large project where I had to synthesize some information on Lyme disease, and so I really talked about the approach I took in order to deliver on that project, to showcase that I had the skill set and that I had the ability to learn this new topic essentially right.
Speaker 1:
So course projects are one place that you can kind of reflect on to see if you have experience. Another one is volunteering and I just mentioned that because of the upcoming workshop that we have inside the club and so in your volunteer roles, have you helped organize a health event, have you assisted a research team, or have you worked with a non-profit right? All of these things count because they are skills that you've developed. These are experiences you've had, whether you've been paid for it or not. It's about how you're going to frame it in your application. Another area that you can reflect on are internships and fellowships. So even short-term placements give you hands-on experience and those are some great areas for you to focus on in your job application.
Speaker 1:
And then part-time work. So maybe you've worked at a clinic, like some sort of a healthcare clinic or assisted in an admin role clinic or assisted in an admin role. Think about what experiences you've developed in those roles that you can essentially use in your application to say like hey, hiring manager, I do have that experience right. So step one is to make a list of all of your experiences and frame them in a way that highlights your public health skills. So this is where the real work is. You got to take all of these different experiences you've had that were not part of a full-time, paid like big person, adult job, if you will, and think about how do these experiences, these skills I've developed, showcase that I'm a strong candidate for this full-time job that I'm applying to Okay?
Speaker 1:
Number two is to tailor your application, and so one of the biggest mistakes I see is people sending out generic resumes and cover letters. So yes, public health is a generally a broad field, and so if your resume doesn't clearly show how your skills match a specific job, your application likely will not stand out, right? So here's how you can fix that, for example. You know we'll go back to. Here's how you can fix that, for example. You know we'll go back to a case where you don't have full time job to highlight on your resume.
Speaker 1:
So let's take the example of coursework. So if a job requires knowledge of epidemiology or biostats and you've taken those courses or biostats and you've taken those courses, we're going to talk about them, okay. And we're going to talk about how those skills or those experiences you've had in those courses align with what the job application is looking for. And you're going to use action-oriented bullet points to talk about those things. So maybe for a course you had to go out and collect some of your own data to then analyze, then to write a report to submit as a paper, right? So instead of saying I assisted with data collection, you're going to make that bit more action oriented and say collected and analyzed health data on more than 500 participants to identify key trends in chronic disease, right? So try to be very specific and very action-oriented.
Speaker 1:
And the final kind of thing that you want to do is try to mirror the language that's used in the job description into your own resume, right? So if the posting says community outreach, use that phrase instead of public engagement, for example, like if public engagement is the word that you're used to and it's the word that you kind of use to describe your experience. But all over the job application you're seeing community outreach. Try to use those terminologies, right. And I think this is especially important when you are applying to different sectors. So the way, for example, government uses some of these terminologies or the way they write their job description, is going to look different to how the private sector is going to write their job description and the lingo and the words that they use. So really study the job applications to see how are they explaining the role and what are the terminologies, what is that lingo that they're using and how can I replicate that in my own resume? Because you have to speak the language that a hiring manager is going to be using, right? So these are some small tweaks that you want to think about to increase your chances of getting noticed by the hiring manager, or like an applicant tracking system right. You want that tracking system to be able to identify these keywords so that your resume gets picked up, essentially, okay.
Speaker 1:
Number three. And number three is about informational interviews and getting started with them. So let's talk about networking. I think if you've been following the podcast or Peach Spot, you know it's one of my most favorite things to talk about and also one of the advice that keeps coming up over and over again. So, again, if you take one thing from this episode, let it be this your first job that you are eventually going to land is going to probably come from a conversation you have with somebody, and so, as part of your strategy, like your job application strategy, I want you to not only focus on applying to jobs that are posted on job boards, so don't invest like 100% of your energy in just applying to posted jobs. I want you to also include conversations, networking, building relationships as part of your strategy, and a great way to do this is through informational interviews, and so I have a whole episode, or maybe a couple of episodes, on informational interviews. So if you go into Google and type in phspotorg informational interviews, I'm sure you'll find some of those, but essentially, you know the summary of what an informational interview is.
Speaker 1:
Is you reaching out to somebody in a job or an organization that you can't just send three messages and determine for yourself that nobody wants to talk to you? You do have to reach out and make them genuine reach outs, not like an email blast to 100 people where there's no indication that you are genuinely interested in connecting with them, learning about their career journey. And a part of that is to also see if they've already published, like a blog post, or written something on LinkedIn or been on a podcast where they've talked about their journey. And so when you reach out to them, you can say, hey, I heard your episode on this podcast and learned about your career journey. And so when you reach out to them, you can say, hey, I heard your episode on this podcast and learned about your career journey. I'd love it if you you'd be able to give me like 15 minutes of your time, because I really want to know about X, right? So you want to ask them something very specific. Show them that you took the time to learn about them already and that a little bit more time with them could be beneficial to you, right?
Speaker 1:
So, in summary, you want to find somebody on LinkedIn or through your alumni network maybe through friends, colleagues and send them a short friendly message like hey, my name is Sujani, I'm a recent MPH grad and I'm really interested in the field of epidemiology or community development and I really love the work that you've done at this organization. I've read about your work and I would really like to hear about how you were able to break into this organization, which I hear is very difficult to get into right. Would you be open to a quick virtual coffee chat? I can send an invitation for us if you have the time and you know. Hopefully this person gets back to you and in preparation for that call, you want to prepare some thoughtful questions based on you know their path, the challenges, advice that they may have, and you have this call and then you follow up with the thank you email and you keep in touch and the goal here is to establish genuine relationships with these individuals, because not every conversation, and likely not many conversations, are going to lead to a job offer immediately, but these connections will be a game changer for future opportunities.
Speaker 1:
So, even if the first job that you get ends up being from a job application, the future opportunities that are going to come your way are likely going to be because of relationships that you've established early on in your career, okay, and the final strategy is going to be about not just, you know, sticking to applying to jobs when you're looking for jobs, but it's about gaining experience while you're also searching for jobs, right? So job hunting can take a lot of time, especially in, like, the current environment and the market that we're in. The current environment, in the market that we're in, we are seeing that there's a lot of kind of shrinking of available funds in public health and government. So give yourself a lot of time and recognize that things will take a little bit more time than they used to in the current environment that we're in. So, instead of applying and waiting around, make sure you're also creating your own opportunities, right, and creating ways for you to develop some of those skills, develop some of the experiences that you'd like to, and for you to do that, you got to get a little bit creative and figure out like, how can I still keep myself interested, motivated and inspired in this field? And here are three things that you can do.
Speaker 1:
Number one is you can volunteer with the public health organization. You know, even just one or two hours a week at a nonprofit organization can give you the experience, the motivation, the inspiration, keep you connected to the public health community and it's, you know, similar to how you were. You would reach out to somebody for an informational interview. Find some organizations that you're really passionate about and pitch to them one of your skill sets right. Like, hey, can I come and do some social media marketing for you? Or can I come and do an environmental scan in this space? I saw that you will be starting some work in this area. So think about, like, what are some areas or skills that you want to develop and see if you can go and pitch that to an organization. You can also contribute to a public health blog or a podcast by writing articles or speaking on topics to show thought leadership.
Speaker 1:
Writing on LinkedIn is one of the easiest and kind of like no barrier to entry option that you can consider If there is an area that you really want to become a thought leader in, see if you can consider If there is an area that you really want to become a thought leader in, see if you can maybe start reading some articles and reflecting on it and summarizing it on LinkedIn. It's a great way to kind of develop those skill sets. Other things you can do is take some free online courses, right. You could use platforms like Coursera or even some of the government organizations WHO. They might have training portals with different types of training to really boost your skill. Keep up to date with things. A great topic is you know, how are people using AI in public health? Are there things that you could learn so that you could stay ahead even if you're not working in that area? Right? So think about these options.
Speaker 1:
And again, like, another pro tip here is if you are going to be doing some unpaid work and you really want to talk about that experience in your resume, make sure to frame it like a consulting project, right, like something. Don't just leave that off your resume. So, instead of saying, like I volunteered at this organization, say, I led a community health initiative which reached 200 individuals, right, so make sure you are framing this experience that you're gaining through different, you know creative channels in your resume in a way that showcases those skills and experiences that you're developing. Okay. So, um, those are my four tips, or like strategies to really, um, yeah, think about, like, how you can land that first public health job without having prior experience in the sense of, like that traditional full-time job. So, as a recap, you want to reframe what counts as experience right. Tell yourself that you have more than what you think and you just got to dig a little bit deeper into your past, all the skills that you've developed, all the experiences that you have, and make sure it's all reflected on your resume.
Speaker 1:
Number two you want to tailor your application. Make sure it matches the job description, using similar words, that lingo. Number three you want to use networking and informational interviews, because you need to understand that and informational interviews because you need to understand that these conversations are going to lead to future opportunities. And then, number four, make sure you're gaining experience while you're job searching. Right, you want to stay active. You want to keep building your skills, understanding the market that we're currently in it's it's really important that you're keeping yourself motivated and inspired so that you don't lose that momentum. So apply these strategies and see if you're able to progress a little bit more in your job application. And I really think that if you can think about these four strategies, you will be able to have a much stronger application if you're trying to land that first public health job.
Speaker 1:
Okay, you do belong in this field. Your contribution is going to be so valuable. So don't let imposter syndrome stop you. Don't let kind of the situation the the market right now bring you down. Talk to people, don't do it alone. And, you know, join our membership community, the public health career club, phspotorg slash club, if you are looking for a community of peers and mentors to help you along with this journey. We have opened up the doors for enrollment, so definitely check that out. And if you found today's episode helpful, share it with someone else who's job searching. And if you'd like more resources or tips or just more support along this journey of yours, check out phspaorg. And thank you for tuning in and I will see you in the next episode.
