Help - Former USAID contractor -- zero interviews in a year

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My only advice is to apply out of the area, maybe even out of the country (like those countries that your DH has experience with). For years, we've been telling coal miners in WV to move to where the jobs are. I think white collar workers in DC need to be willing to do the same.

FWIW, I despise Trump and fully support USAID. I actually thought about working for them decades ago. If/when USAID ever comes back, you could potentially move back.

It sucks, but I also had to move to where the jobs were. In my case, it was the best decision ever. My career really took off, and I made a ton more money.

NP. What field are you in and where did you move to

This was a long time ago (I'm talking 30years), and not in the government. But, the point remains, when you are out of a job, and clearly need a new one, and the area you live in doesn't have jobs that fit you, you need to move to an area that has some jobs that you may be a fit for. That could be in a different city (me since the state I lived in was huge), or a different state, or even a different country.

IMO, it sucks to start over, but doubly so in your 50s (I'm 55). But, if you don't have much tying you to this area, like HS kids whom a move would be difficult for, with the DH's background, I'd look into jobs in other countries since OP can work anywhere.

I guess I'm projecting because if I could get a job in Spain, for example, I'd move there in a heartbeat right now. But my kids are in college, so it would be easier for us.

I appreciate the empathy but moving jobs and locations when you are 25 and have say 3 years of full time work experience is very very different

It's so clueless as to be offensive

IMO, you people are the clueless ones. Why can't a 55 yr old move to where the job offer is? What did you tell the 50 yr old coal miners in WV who have been out of a job for a year? You probably told them to pivot or move to where the jobs are, right?

It's offensive for exFed white collared workers who had cushy jobs to think they shouldn't have to move but expect blue collared workers to do so for jobs.

FWIW, my parents were uneducated blue collared workers who immigrated to this country with 4 kids under 10, without knowing how to speak English. I think if you can speak English, are educated, you can absolutely move to a different state/city at the age of 55 for a job. You just don't want to.

People move for jobs all the time. Companies relocate; close. Why do exFeds think they are special and shouldn't be expected to do this?

I'm sorry, but you guys come across as entitled and helpless. Very unbecoming. And I feel awful for DOGE'd feds.

Please read before you spout off. The OP said on page 1 that they would be open to moving and that he would be open to taking a lower salary. Everything is harder job wise in your 50s. Whether you are a coal miner or a white collar professional. Show some empathy.

I have empathy (as a 55 yr old). I was responding to the "It's so clueless as to be offensive " poster. And I bet lots of 50 yr old feds 5, 10 years ago didn't have that much empathy for coal miners when they kept saying that they wanted to stay in their jobs and not have to move and retrain.

What exactly am I clueless about? I've been laid off before; I was a contractor and have had several contracts termed (all private sector); I've moved for jobs.

So, if OP's DH is willing to move for a lower paying job, why is the poster saying "It's so clueless as to be offensive " to my post?

Because, if I am following the thread correctly, you blithely told the story of a move in your 20s before you were established in what you do. To compare that in any way to what the OP’s DH is going through is tone deaf.

I prefaced that by saying it's harder as you get older. But, those are the options. There are 25 yr olds who refuse to move to where the jobs are, too.

Like I said, my parents moved to this country with 4 kids < 10 without knowing the language for better opportunities/jobs. Back then, there was no support services for immigrants or nonEnglish speakers. If people like that are able to do it, surely a well educated person who knows the language can move to a different city/state to get a job, right? It's done deaf for you to say that a well educated English speaker cannot move to a different city/state while probably telling coal miners that they should retrain and move to where the jobs are.

Life can be tough, and sometimes you have to make tough choices. I've had this discussion recently with my 18 yr old. I would think you as an adult would know that better.

Were your parents over 50 when they made this move and found jobs?

Not the original poster. But my parents were both in their early 50s when a grant project they were working on got cancelled due to lack of funding. I was very young at the time, maybe 10. So, in their early 50s my parents were both unemployed, facing age discrimination, and had a young child. Their only real assets involved a paid off house (my mom was fanatical about paying off the mortgage) and two modest IRAs. My dad tried to do the consulting thing for awhile while frenetically sending out resumes. Literally they applied everywhere. My mom got tired of facing discrimination as an older woman. She pivoted to something that had almost no connection to her academic field. Eventually started her own business and got my dad involved. My dad now says getting dumped from the academic adjacent world was the best thing that ever happened to him emotionally and financially. Private business allowed him to be more himself. They also did well financially in a low prestige but lucrative small business. Some of my dad's old friends from corporate America made fun of him for going down in status. I'll probably inherit 8 figures from my parents. They made most of their money after the age of 55. Maybe stop looking for someone to hire you and figure out a way to hire yourself.

Does that low prestige lucrative industry still exist? I think technology and PE have really squeezed out a lot of opportunities (like Taxi medallions were worth $$$ and Home Depot does lots of easy plumbing jobs with techs etc)

It’s also oblivious to the reality of starting a business. The vast majority fail. By all means, try it as it is hard to get hired past a certain age. But we are talking about thousands of people who cannot all count on this as an option just because someone has an anecdote about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband, like thousands of others in the area, has been out of work for over a year now. He has literally not gotten ONE interview from the hundreds of jobs he's applied for. I'm at my wits end. Will he ever work again? I think after 25 years in the same job, his network is all in his field. He's highly skilled, willing to go down in level, salary, all of it. But ... are there any jobs out there? Are there recruiters that would be good for someone with skills in program development management, grants, social impact? He has experience in South American, Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. He's managed portfolios of hundreds of millions of dollars. Do they care about people that have this amazing government experience doing the work internationally? How do you make it transferable?

We've done all that work to adapt the resume, put in the key words, etc. etc. I've networked as much as I can with my network. Does the rest of the country realize how bad it is for these people thanks to Elon Musk?

I'm ranting... thanks for letting me rant... Most days I keep my stress in check, but this year plus mark is really getting to me.

Any advice welcome... especially about local networking events even.

Does he know how English-language bachelor’s degree programs in the Netherlands work?

Could he somehow get a lot of old government officials in Leiden, The Hague and Amsterdam to rent their spare bedrooms to students?

If he could somehow help U.S. students figure out how to get into a Dutch university; get the students visas, phones and bank accounts; AND connect the students with old people willing to rent out rooms that could be registered, maybe he could easily charge $5,000 per student for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ex-USAID here. Successfully pivoted to another job. Almost one year in and very happy. Pay is less than 40% of USAID salary but I am in my early 50s and was extremely successful at USAID so I was at the top of the pay scale there. I looked at teaching and ultimately decided against it........but it could work for some. Last summer, I had managed to obtain two teaching positions and one very small non-profit offer, all of which paid very little compared to what I was used to. I was very happy to have those offers though and am happy where I settled. I did not apply through LinkedIn or company websites; only local jobs/nonprofits (email addresses) and schools.

In the job search, I found that I had many transferrable skills from USAID and I believe they apply to a wide range of jobs:
- cultural understanding and ability create connections with many different types of people all over country/world
- negotiation skills
- project management skills (also got PMP)
- people management skills (eg how to give feedback, how to encourage, how to inspire)
- presentation and public speaking skills (great for teaching/training jobs)
- ability to deal with fast moving, chaotic environments (work trips in DRC, South Sudan etc. make jobs in the US look like a piece of cake)
- ability to LEARN very quickly (had to learn the politics and economics of each new country I traveled to for work before speaking with national counterparts)
- 'spin' - otherwise known as communications
- representing viewpoints that you don't believe in and selling them to other people
- ability to respond to random requests and solve unexpected problems
- skill navigating regulatory environments
- strong writing skills (think proposals, memos, etc)
- foreign language skills

Areas that I felt that I needed to 'skill up':
- AI AI AI
- Canva for design (& also using AI)
- project management software
- social media comms

The problem is that companies often look for the hard skills first and then look at soft skills. USAID's hard skills very suddenly became completely irrelevant. My IR MA and MPH degrees are totally useless. Fun times.

Excellent post - and, glad you found something.

I don't work for USAID but I have worked alongside many former USAID employees - many were extremely competent and operating at a very high level; others, less so.

I think one thing that's hard about a lot of these jobs (and the people who recently lost them) is that it's extremely difficult in just an interview or resume to differentiate between the two categories above. Hopefully recs can help with that part, but it's hard to even make it that far in the application process.

I was coaching a RIFed colleague recently on how to update her resume and was strongly advising that she review tech industry resumes to get ideas on how to update hers. Those resumes can be very metrics-driven (for better and for worse) but they are also good at demonstrating clear impact. If you can be really concrete about what you did and the impact it had (e.g. led 10+ international trips to set cross-team budgets with attendees from 12 different stakeholder countries; improved response times to in-country clinician feedback by implementing a ticketing system for a digital health platform that decreased lag time in IT support by 40%) you might be in a stronger position.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I hate to say this, but most USAID federal employees or contractors simply do not have the technical skills needed to succeed in the private sector, especially in the financial industry. I work in the technology division of the financial services industry, and in 2025 we interviewed about 50 individuals affected by DOGE-related cuts because our CIO felt bad for them and thought we might be able to hire some of them. After the initial interview, we gave them a two-hour technical exam with lab scenarios, and they had to score at least 80% to move on to the next stage of the hiring process. None of them scored above 50%. Even our CIO admitted that they were not qualified to work for us. It’s sad, but it’s true.

Except most USAID employees had nothing to do with financial services or technology, so this comment is irrelevant.

“Hey guys they don’t have the skills to cut it at SpaceX that’s why they are unemployed” like, what kind of reasoning is this.

Geez, you sound like a government worker. There are technology people at USAID to connect the agency with other agencies, contractors, and vendors. There are networking, software developers, application developers. Without those technologies, USAID would not exist.

But are they “most”? No, no they are not. So drawing a conclusion about the rest of USAID based on government IT workers (which are notoriously subpar) is stupid.

What make you think that USAID government non-IT workers are not subpar?

[Anonymous]

OP, just want to wish you and your husband the best. It’s been a rough 2 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, just want to wish you and your husband the best. It’s been a rough 2 years.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate to say this, but most USAID federal employees or contractors simply do not have the technical skills needed to succeed in the private sector, especially in the financial industry. I work in the technology division of the financial services industry, and in 2025 we interviewed about 50 individuals affected by DOGE-related cuts because our CIO felt bad for them and thought we might be able to hire some of them. After the initial interview, we gave them a two-hour technical exam with lab scenarios, and they had to score at least 80% to move on to the next stage of the hiring process. None of them scored above 50%. Even our CIO admitted that they were not qualified to work for us. It’s sad, but it’s true.

Except most USAID employees had nothing to do with financial services or technology, so this comment is irrelevant.

“Hey guys they don’t have the skills to cut it at SpaceX that’s why they are unemployed” like, what kind of reasoning is this.

Geez, you sound like a government worker. There are technology people at USAID to connect the agency with other agencies, contractors, and vendors. There are networking, software developers, application developers. Without those technologies, USAID would not exist.

But are they “most”? No, no they are not. So drawing a conclusion about the rest of USAID based on government IT workers (which are notoriously subpar) is stupid.

What make you think that USAID government non-IT workers are not subpar?

Because I’ve worked with them, unlike you. I’ve worked in government. I’ve worked outside of government. There is a big gap between the lower quality of IT and admins and the much higher quality policy and program people. And even amongst the former there are some good people but it is more inconsistent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ex-USAID here. Successfully pivoted to another job. Almost one year in and very happy. Pay is less than 40% of USAID salary but I am in my early 50s and was extremely successful at USAID so I was at the top of the pay scale there. I looked at teaching and ultimately decided against it........but it could work for some. Last summer, I had managed to obtain two teaching positions and one very small non-profit offer, all of which paid very little compared to what I was used to. I was very happy to have those offers though and am happy where I settled. I did not apply through LinkedIn or company websites; only local jobs/nonprofits (email addresses) and schools.

In the job search, I found that I had many transferrable skills from USAID and I believe they apply to a wide range of jobs:
- cultural understanding and ability create connections with many different types of people all over country/world
- negotiation skills
- project management skills (also got PMP)
- people management skills (eg how to give feedback, how to encourage, how to inspire)
- presentation and public speaking skills (great for teaching/training jobs)
- ability to deal with fast moving, chaotic environments (work trips in DRC, South Sudan etc. make jobs in the US look like a piece of cake)
- ability to LEARN very quickly (had to learn the politics and economics of each new country I traveled to for work before speaking with national counterparts)
- 'spin' - otherwise known as communications
- representing viewpoints that you don't believe in and selling them to other people
- ability to respond to random requests and solve unexpected problems
- skill navigating regulatory environments
- strong writing skills (think proposals, memos, etc)
- foreign language skills

Areas that I felt that I needed to 'skill up':
- AI AI AI
- Canva for design (& also using AI)
- project management software
- social media comms

The problem is that companies often look for the hard skills first and then look at soft skills. USAID's hard skills very suddenly became completely irrelevant. My IR MA and MPH degrees are totally useless. Fun times.

This great, PP. I'm the one who posted "People skills" and I know they are there but nobody was chiming in with specfics. That is a fantastic list, and as somebody who works with lots of outsourced labor, I see huge gaps in these soft skills. They are truly, truly important and it will only take us all devolving to literal order takers where nothing works well or right to see that these are important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

Your work sounds interesting and fulfilling but I’m not sure that you answered the question. Why were you paid so much money to do that work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

Your work sounds interesting and fulfilling but I’m not sure that you answered the question. Why were you paid so much money to do that work?

I don’t know that I was paid that much. I was in senior leadership, managing programs and budgets totaling $100 million/year and overseeing a staffing structure of 800 people. I made $140,000. I’m always told here on DCUM that makes me poor. I thought it was very fair pay for a job that meant a lot to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate to say this, but most USAID federal employees or contractors simply do not have the technical skills needed to succeed in the private sector, especially in the financial industry. I work in the technology division of the financial services industry, and in 2025 we interviewed about 50 individuals affected by DOGE-related cuts because our CIO felt bad for them and thought we might be able to hire some of them. After the initial interview, we gave them a two-hour technical exam with lab scenarios, and they had to score at least 80% to move on to the next stage of the hiring process. None of them scored above 50%. Even our CIO admitted that they were not qualified to work for us. It’s sad, but it’s true.

Except most USAID employees had nothing to do with financial services or technology, so this comment is irrelevant.

“Hey guys they don’t have the skills to cut it at SpaceX that’s why they are unemployed” like, what kind of reasoning is this.

Geez, you sound like a government worker. There are technology people at USAID to connect the agency with other agencies, contractors, and vendors. There are networking, software developers, application developers. Without those technologies, USAID would not exist.

But are they “most”? No, no they are not. So drawing a conclusion about the rest of USAID based on government IT workers (which are notoriously subpar) is stupid.

What make you think that USAID government non-IT workers are not subpar?

Because I’ve worked with them, unlike you. I’ve worked in government. I’ve worked outside of government. There is a big gap between the lower quality of IT and admins and the much higher quality policy and program people. And even amongst the former there are some good people but it is more inconsistent.

USAID people who work in policy and program think very highly of themselves while trashing IT and admins people. That's just unbelievable. That might be the reason why they are still looking for jobs after DOGE.