It's
the middle of week seven of Peace Corps training. Just
three-and-a-half more weeks and I'll be off to my site. I learn where
exactly that'll be on Tuesday, just six days from now.
On Monday, the Acting Director of the Peace Corps was in country for a regional conference, and dropped by the training center for a couple hours to observe our sessions and sit down for a chat with my training group. Among other things, which included a pair of extremely inspiring stories from her own life, she told us about a planned revamp of the Peace Corps application process, which sounds like a huge step in the right direction for the organization. I'm not at liberty to go into details (nor do I have all of them), but I can say that the new recruitment process is designed to make the process more streamlined, shorten the time from application to invitation, and, most importantly (in my opinion), give applicants more opportunities to specify their preferences for service (with respect to geographical location and work sector).
The latter change has the potential to land more applicants in programs that fit their past experiences and career objectives. Previously, expressing a geographical or thematic preference on a Peace Corps application was viewed as an indication of inflexibility (and flexibility is a huge requirement of PCVs, so applicants hesitated to specify preferences for fear that doing so would diminish the competitiveness of their applications), but this mentality is rightfully being abandoned as Peace Corps becomes more welcoming to applicants who hope to accomplish specific career objectives through their service. I hope this reform helps Peace Corps attract high-achieving and serious applicants who view Peace Corps service as a integral component of an envisioned career path. I think it will, thereby enhancing the professionalism of the organization without sacrificing its commitment to improving the lives of people in under-developed countries (in fact, attracting more focused and ambitious people should enable Peace Corps to serve these populations even more effectively).
The more I think about how Peace Corps can boost its standing with high-achieving college students who want to achieve specific goals though their first job out of college, the more I wonder how much Peace Corps could learn from the success of Teach for America*, which attracts tremendously accomplished applicants and enjoys excellent brand equity at top American universities. (I might elaborate on this in a later post, but I'd need to do more research first).
*That being said, a wonderful peculiarity of Peace Corps that a program like TFA does not share is that Peace Corps is not just geared toward recent graduates, but to people of all ages, some of whom have amassed significant work experience in fields relevant to Peace Corps service. For this reason, I am not suggesting that Peace Corps should exclusively look to high-achieving college students and recent graduates as its recruitment targets.
On Monday, the Acting Director of the Peace Corps was in country for a regional conference, and dropped by the training center for a couple hours to observe our sessions and sit down for a chat with my training group. Among other things, which included a pair of extremely inspiring stories from her own life, she told us about a planned revamp of the Peace Corps application process, which sounds like a huge step in the right direction for the organization. I'm not at liberty to go into details (nor do I have all of them), but I can say that the new recruitment process is designed to make the process more streamlined, shorten the time from application to invitation, and, most importantly (in my opinion), give applicants more opportunities to specify their preferences for service (with respect to geographical location and work sector).
The latter change has the potential to land more applicants in programs that fit their past experiences and career objectives. Previously, expressing a geographical or thematic preference on a Peace Corps application was viewed as an indication of inflexibility (and flexibility is a huge requirement of PCVs, so applicants hesitated to specify preferences for fear that doing so would diminish the competitiveness of their applications), but this mentality is rightfully being abandoned as Peace Corps becomes more welcoming to applicants who hope to accomplish specific career objectives through their service. I hope this reform helps Peace Corps attract high-achieving and serious applicants who view Peace Corps service as a integral component of an envisioned career path. I think it will, thereby enhancing the professionalism of the organization without sacrificing its commitment to improving the lives of people in under-developed countries (in fact, attracting more focused and ambitious people should enable Peace Corps to serve these populations even more effectively).
The more I think about how Peace Corps can boost its standing with high-achieving college students who want to achieve specific goals though their first job out of college, the more I wonder how much Peace Corps could learn from the success of Teach for America*, which attracts tremendously accomplished applicants and enjoys excellent brand equity at top American universities. (I might elaborate on this in a later post, but I'd need to do more research first).
*That being said, a wonderful peculiarity of Peace Corps that a program like TFA does not share is that Peace Corps is not just geared toward recent graduates, but to people of all ages, some of whom have amassed significant work experience in fields relevant to Peace Corps service. For this reason, I am not suggesting that Peace Corps should exclusively look to high-achieving college students and recent graduates as its recruitment targets.
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