Fours questions to ask
On working in the public sector and decision-making in my career
I read urban and regional planning for my undergraduate course, which would translate to a career in the public sector for many Indonesian. Though the idea was never wrong, there are many aspects I wish I had known earlier, even before I started my mandatory internship in the summer after Year 3. Working in the public sector felt like a double-edged sword in my own experience—you get recognition from the general public while also struggling to define your career pathway to become well-rounded. So, after two years of leaving the public sector, here are four questions I’d like to ask myself if I could turn back time.
What kind of person do I want to be?
When I started my study at a department that was relatively young, I had minimum resources compared to my peers who were trained at a well-established one. None of the alumnae were working at a senior level, hence my ‘reference’ for the ideal career pathway was limited. I am grateful because I could compensate for it with my parents’ network, especially the people who have been introduced to me through informal meetings since I was young. Knowing the kind of person you want to become can help you to define clarity—a principle that should be put before writing your CV.
What kind of skills do I have?
At first, I hate to admit that life is about competition, but gradually I build my own resilience without fighting back. Understanding my study materials, including their history, theory, and application, has helped me to figure out the various ways of solving problems. Although I don’t end up using Matlab or SPSS at work (thankfully), the effort of understanding their mechanisms has honed my thinking process. Moreover, as a person who finds the confidence of having missions in life, assessing my own skills and building my own road map is a good combination of nurturing the spirit of being a long-life learner.
What kind of contribution do I want to make?
Now that I have my clarity and understand my ‘weapons’, it’s time to define my next steps—the contribution. Working in the public sector at the surface level is all about delivering changes for a better future. Forget that jargon for a while because everybody has it in their mind. I can’t win every battle, so I have to choose one, or two, wisely. In my early career, I had the opportunity to work at a ministry for a while. Given my interest in environmental governance, I was in charge of delivering analysis for a renewable energy project in East Java, which I later display as my experience before applying for an international think-tank. The coherence lies in the willingness to learn from as many issues as possible, under the same umbrella.
What if my field of work is far from perfect?
This question is inspired by one chapter from Brene Brown’s popular book, Atlas of The Heart, about regret. There were a few times when I took a short pause only to contemplate my awfully-made decisions. Some of those moments were triggered by being exposed to a high intensity of negative opinion on a policy I worked on. Living in an age where expressing your stream of thoughts is only at the tip of our thumbs has taught me the importance to manage to feel empowered without having to rely on external validations. Yet, being drowned in rumination will not fix anything. My advice for my younger self is simple—don’t let social media define you, start building real connections.
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This post was inspired by a recent birthday wish to a close friend.