Kathryn Erskine (Washington, DC)

Teaching former Central American gang members the job skills needed to reenter the workforce. Providing grants to make it safe for Afghan girls to attend school. Improving academic performance through self-esteem training in Morocco. Training rural farmers in Yemen on the benefits of composting and pesticides. Helping build the capacity of nascent civil society organizations in Libya.

As a Senior Recruiter at Creative, I recruit the people who directly implement program activities like the ones above. These employees often live in dangerous or austere conditions in order to improve the lives of others, which is a very rewarding experience.

But I also recruit the people that support our programs from our headquarters office in Washington, DC – people who coordinate the proposal efforts that win such projects, or people who manage the budgets and logistics of program administration. While these positions may seem less romantic, they are also rewarding, because they contribute to Creative’s mission: To support people around the world to realize the positive change they seek.

Everyone that comes together to work at Creative – both those that implement our programs and those that support our programs — strongly believes in Creative’s mission. This mission permeates everything we do, and is the driving force behind why people choose to work here. That is because Creative is one of the few for-profit international development contractors that will eschew profit if there is a project that speaks to our mission and technical expertise. Also, Employees are regularly reminded by senior management that our work is extremely important and highly valued.

Once, I was sitting in a meeting with a very senior consultant who was looking at internal processes. He went around the table and asked everyone why they worked at Creative, and everyone mentioned the mission – that they worked there because they were making a difference. Obviously, this positive energy then trickles down to other important aspects of one’s quality of life at work: people come to work happy, people are good team players, people work hard to excel at what they do, and people are then rewarded for excellent performance.

Many employers can lure employees with phenomenal benefits, high salaries, or flexible schedules; Creative is clearly competitive in providing these extras. But a strong mission has heart and soul; its rewards are inherent. It is priceless.

For a listing of current opportunities and application requirements, please visit Creative’s website.