Posted: July 5, 2024
After graduating from Dal's Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology (SOSA) in 2014, I moved out west with a master’s degree and the student loans to match. At that time, I was not considering a PhD program and instead had my sights set on a career conducting social science research in some kind of public service capacity.
After graduation, I did what most of us do. I found temporary work and started applying to any job with "analyst" or "research" in the title. It took me about a year before I was able to find secure employment in my field, and while that was a trying time it gave me a crash course in translating the skills and knowledge that I learned in the SOSA department into desirable, and more importantly, hirable qualities.
As this was a new and challenging period, to keep myself from becoming overwhelmed or discouraged I decided to treat “finding a career as a social science researcher” like another research project. I spent time reviewing analyst positions, research assistant positions, even admin positions at a variety of public and private organizations, trying to identify what skills or qualifications I needed but did not yet have. Rather than worry how I was going to go from new grad with no real-world experience to professional researcher, I instead focused on what I could control, what skills I could develop, and how I could check one more box off on each new job application.
Eventually, this work paid off – I was the successful candidate for a social research policy analyst position at the City of Calgary working for the Calgary Neighbourhoods department. This was as part of a dedicated research team that specialized in analyzing and reporting on social data, as well as evaluating programs and service delivery. I have enjoyed a career there for the past eight years, working on a wide range of projects and topics ranging from analyzing and working with Federal Census data, evaluating youth justice programs, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and analyzing data collected from dozens of programs delivering service to citizens.
The point I want to illustrate in this short piece is that the skills and techniques we are taught in the SOSA department: writing, critical thinking, conducting environmental scans, knowledge of qualitative and quantitative methods, research literacy, are the kinds of skills that many organizations need right now. Further, the ability to evaluate and translate data into information that can be used to make decisions is vitally important to almost every organization, and SOSA grads are trained to do exactly that. Tactically you need to be able to check off enough boxes to get into the interview (so start doing your research now on what you'll need to be competitive), but the ability to collect and review data, defend your methods of doing so, and then synthesize and translate data for decision makers is critically important in the current job market.
If you are willing to be flexible, if you are willing to evaluate your own skills, think critically, see yourself as an asset to any organization, and be willing to move if needed, you can have a great career leveraging the skills and knowledge you have gained in the SOSA department. Good luck!