The summer has come to an end and so have your fellowships. Now that you have gained more experience to add to your resume, what should you do next? Start the school year and write it off as just another professional experience? Or should you take a different approach to turn this fellowship into something more concrete?
During my tenure in law school, I went from being a mayoral fellow to a full-time employee because I refused to ask permission for securing my spot. I earned it. This week’s #stopaskingpermission is my way of showing you how I turned my fellowship into a full-time job. You can too.
The summer before my last year of law school, I was given the opportunity to serve as a Mayoral Fellow to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in Baltimore. The experience was life changing to say the least. It positioned me in front of senior-level city officials that I would not normally have access to as well as helped connect me to other prominent officials in positions that I was interested in.
Overall, the fellowship gave me the experience that I needed to work in my current line of work.
During my fellowship, I took as many personal meetings as I could with members in and outside of the mayor’s staff. I followed up with an email after each meeting thanking them for taking time out of their busy schedules to meet with me. I continued introducing myself to as many local contacts as I could until I found a person who I trusted and thought highly enough of to become my mentor.
It’s important that you not pick a random person to mentor you. The work that she was doing for the city aligned with my future career ambitions .
Once my fellowship came to a close, I had developed a work product distinguishing me from other fellows. I created something the city could utilize across agencies and found a niche that no one was pursuing. I used this innovation to my advantage and my mentor shopped the product around internally to help secure my job at the agency I was placed in during my fellowship.
I was consistent and persistent without being overly aggressive. My confidence came from one of the senior staff members who also happened to be one of the most high-ranking black women working for the city. She told me to stop asking permission to get a seat at the table and act like I deserved to be there. The minute I realized I didn’t have to stand on the sidelines and wait for success to come my way was the minute I realized I was qualified to be a part of any organization. I did the work and others took notice. This was almost four years ago. Today, I am a policy analyst at anon-profit in DC
So how does this apply to your fellowship?
Stay consistent. Be persistent. Keep in touch. Write thank you notes and most importantly remember that you deserve a seat at the table. #Stopaskingpermission and start making your fellowships your full time jobs.
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