Partner Employment

As I read, “once you get on that plane and leave the US, your professional career is over” in a cautionary tale blog entry about EFM employment, I cringed. This, I have to admit, is my deepest fear right out there, in the real world, exposed. My professional career is over? Really, damn, I feel like I barely started…at 4 AM as I can’t sleep it seems even scarier. It is dark outside and the post about employment options that I was planning to re-read and publish tomorrow morning seems much more upbeat than I am feeling at the moment.  This quote ranks towards the top of the “shudder” list along with a senior staffer at my old consulting firm telling me that I was unqualified to work in the Indian market with the exception of “teaching English to businessmen and writing press releases for an Indian firm interested in breaking into the US market,” whoa really? There is no place in the Indian market I can use my international economics degree, hard to believe right?

Those are words which are much more powerful at 4 AM than they are in daylight hours, when I feel much more confident about my abilities to forge my own way. During one of our Shabbat dinners, a friend, with whom I spent the last two years studying in one of the top and toughest international economics programs in the country suggested that “well if you can’t find a job, India is I hear a great place to start a family.” While appreciate all the time taken to offer me sage advice, I will make that rather important decision with my own husband. 

My friend and I went to the same grad program, took identical classes and the difference between the two of us? He was one of the very few of my classmates that passed the oral part of the Foreign Service exam. For one reason or other, some of the smartest people in my grad program and I did not pass the oral assessment stage, at which point I decided to strike out on my own – since besides acquiring a number of stellar analytical, writing and quantitative skills, what SAIS taught me is that this world is a big place with lots of options. My friend also sent a calendar that the Chennai EFM husbands put together outlining their daily pursuits, because he thought it was really funny. 

EFM unemployment is not a joke. Out of a high 40^th percentile, the exact figure escapes me, of EMFs that want to work, only 25 % actually find employment. The overwhelming majority work at US missions abroad, while a much smaller percentage works in the local economy, bi-lateral employment agreements permitting, while an even smaller group telecommutes and runs online businesses from their homes. Local economy employment requires work permits, work permits take time. 

I seemingly achieved the impossible; I got a job offer to work in a local office of an American firm. I worked really hard to find the said job. Since August of last year, I have been talking to just about anyone that would listen that I was moving to India and I was interested in finding local professional employment offside the US mission. Personally, I feel that the local mission does not currently offer employment that fits my professional goals. I talked to friends, family, and former classmates asking for contacts and advice. My hard work paid off, I got an offer through an alumni contact. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to the alumni and co-worker that helped me make that happen. I am in a privileged position, but I’ll leave you with this (as I hope to get back to sleep); spouse and partner employment ranks towards the top of concerns of those considering and entering the Foreign Service. Although one of the reasons that you see so many single income families in the Foreign Service (meaning one partner is in the FS the other takes care of the family) this is the only government service where you can afford to have a stay at home partner, but the other reason is that it extremely difficult to have two professional careers with one of them within the FS. Ok, I said my piece, time to get off the soapbox, and wake up confident that in fact the job offer will be there tomorrow and when I get my work permit from the Indian government. Good night and thanks for listening.