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Want to Boost Your Career in Monitoring & Evaluation in 2021? Read These Tips

Are you an M&E practitioner who wishes to advance your M&E skills?

Project monitoring and evaluation professionals are in high demand and having relevant M&E skills opens doors to career growth in different sectors.

How then can you boost your career in M&E?

Here are essential 6 tips that are effective.

1. Find a Mentor

Identify personalities in line with the M&E field. They should be the people that you admire and would love to learn more from. Build networks with a potential mentor by attending seminars, networking events, or webinars.  Find out the projects the mentors may be involved and you can volunteer to take part.

2. Be an Expert in Specialized Areas

If you want to be an M&E expert, then you should have specialized knowledge on the development areas in which you hope to work. Being a generalist and knowing about a lot of subject areas can be counter-productive but selecting a few areas of development work and then know about them is the key to a successful career.

3. Acquire the Knowledge and Skills.

Enroll in a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) course that will help you acquire hands-on skills and competencies. You can also participate in webinars, and attend M&E conferences to connect with other professionals.

Ensure that you stay sharp and on top of your game by refreshing your skills and be on the lookout for information and training on new and innovative M&E techniques.

4. Acquire Good Communication Skills

The M&E profession involves collaborating with stakeholders at various levels. During an evaluation, you will interact with different people to explain technical M&E terms, and the ability to communicate complex concepts simply is key.

Learn to communicate effectively and spend time to develop soft skills like listening coordination, and interpersonal skills.

5. Join an Evaluation Society or Association

Join and be a member of a national or regional evaluation society or association as this gives you credibility, provides an avenue for networking and you will be kept abreast of the developments.

6. Join Community of Practice Groups on Monitoring and Evaluation

There are various community and practice groups on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Join these groups and be an active participant and attend events whenever you can.

Use these groups to ask questions, share a problem related to M&E and if you are unemployed, you can connect with professionals who will hold your hand. If you are experienced, you can share your best practices with the group for other people to learn.

Bottom-Line

Building your expertise in M&E is essential because employers will always go for someone who is well-equipped with skills.

Want to take your M&E career to the next level?

Register for this M&E course and be equipped with skills for you to set up and implement results-based monitoring and evaluation systems.