How I Got Hired: Consultant, Guild Education
MPA graduate Chelsea Segal talks about how community involvement and LinkedIn helped her launch a career in the nonprofit sector.
Middlebury Institute graduates discuss where they are working today, how the Institute helped them get there, and what advice they’d give to current and future MIIS students.
My name is Orestes Betancourt and I graduated with an MPA from the Middlebury Institute in 2018. My language of study was French. I interned with the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., and now I am a talent acquisition partner with Abt Associates in Rockville, Maryland.
After graduating from the Middlebury Institute, I interned at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, where I focused on research, data gathering, and writing reports on various international economic and social indicators, while helping to maintain a portfolio on Latin America and updating scholars on major global news affecting this region.
In my next role, as an international staffing specialist with Tetra Tech ARD, I collaborated with proposal teams on full-cycle proposal development, program start-up, new business, and live program recruitment processes for USAID and U.S. Department of the Interior development agencies. My work was focused in the following technical areas: agriculture and economic growth, democracy and governance, environment and natural resources, land tenure and property rights, and water resources and infrastructure.
I am currently a talent acquisition partner with Abt Associates, a global leader in research, evaluation, and program implementation, specializing in the fields of health, social and environmental policy, and international development. My work is to collaborate with proposals and current projects related to health around the globe seeking the personnel who will lead these efforts.
As I was getting my career launched after graduation, my career advisor Scott Webb put me in contact with Kalab Frisby MPA ’17, an employee at Tetra Tech. Kalab described to me the different opportunities at Tetra Tech and how the organization worked. My best advice for current students is to take advantage of the MIIS alumni network and individual career advice—both were a key part of me getting to where I am today.
MPA graduate Chelsea Segal talks about how community involvement and LinkedIn helped her launch a career in the nonprofit sector.
International Policy and Development graduate Grant Tuioti shares how class projects and alumni connections helped him launch a career in policy-focused data analysis.
| by Paulina Corrales MPA/MAIEM ’19
Joint MPA/International Education Management graduate Paulina Corrales shares how networking with Middlebury Institute alumni helped her launch a career in global development and education.