One of the great things about working in an association is the breadth of experience you can build.
In a small team, your job title might only tell a fraction of the story. You could be responsible for member engagement, events, communications, sponsorship, stakeholder relationships, projects, systems and administration – sometimes all in the same week.
That breadth can make you incredibly valuable to an organisation. But when you're ready for your next career move, it can also make it surprisingly difficult to explain exactly what you do and where your experience could take you next.
I recently spoke with an association professional who described exactly this challenge. She'd built broad experience across a number of areas and could see herself in many of the roles she was looking at but wasn't sure how to position herself when she didn't have one obvious specialisation.
It's a conversation I have regularly with candidates, particularly those who have spent time working in smaller organisations.
So, how do you turn broad experience into a clear and compelling career story?
1. Don't undersell being a generalist
Being a generalist isn't the same as lacking specialist skills.
If you've worked across multiple functions, you've likely developed an ability to juggle competing priorities, build relationships with different audiences, understand how different parts of an organisation fit together, and step into whatever needs doing.
Those are valuable skills, particularly in small organisations.
The key is being able to articulate where your strongest capabilities sit within that breadth.
Think about the parts of your role where you add the most value. What are people most likely to come to you for? What do you particularly enjoy? Where have you delivered your strongest results?
Those answers can start to reveal the themes running through what might otherwise look like a very broad collection of responsibilities.
2. Position your experience for where you want to go
When you’re applying for a role, you don't need to give every part of your experience equal weight.
If you're applying for a membership role, bring your member engagement, relationship management and retention experience to the forefront. If you're interested in operations, focus more heavily on systems, processes, projects and organisational coordination.
The experience hasn't changed – you’re simply helping the person reviewing your application understand which parts of it are most relevant to the opportunity in front of you.
This applies to your CV, cover letter and interview. Rather than trying to explain everything you've ever done, think about what the organisation needs and make it easy for them to see the connection.
3. Focus on what you've achieved, not everything you've done
Broad association roles can lead to very long lists of responsibilities on a CV:
- Managed the database
- Coordinated the conference
- Prepared Board papers
- Wrote and sent member communications
- Updated the website
- Managed sponsorship
-
Organised webinars
All useful experience, but a list of tasks doesn't necessarily show the value you've added. Where you can, add some context and evidence.
Perhaps you increased conference attendance, improved member retention, introduced a new system, grew sponsorship revenue, streamlined an administrative process, increased engagement or successfully delivered a significant project.
You don't need a statistic for everything, but examples of what changed or improved because of your work make your contribution much easier to understand.
4. Don't let your job title define you
Job titles vary enormously between organisations, and this is particularly true in the association sector.
An "Administrator" in one organisation might have responsibility that would sit with an Operations Coordinator or Membership Advisor somewhere else. A Manager in a small association may have a much broader remit than their title suggests.
Don't assume someone reading your CV will understand the scope of your role from your title alone.
In addition to your responsibilities and achievements, a short sentence underneath each position explaining the organisation, the purpose of your role and the breadth of your responsibility can provide valuable context.
5. Recognise the value of transferable skills
You don't necessarily need to have done the exact job before to be a strong candidate for it.
Someone who has coordinated conferences may have highly transferable project management, stakeholder engagement and supplier management skills. Someone responsible for membership may have strong relationship management, communications, data and member experience capability.
Think beyond the tasks you've performed and consider the underlying skills you've developed through doing them.
This becomes particularly important if you're looking to move into a different function, take a step up, or move beyond the association sector altogether.
6. Be clear about what you want next
Sometimes the hardest part of having broad experience isn't explaining what you've done – it’s deciding what you want to do with it.
You may genuinely be capable of moving in several different directions.
Rather than starting with job titles, think about the work you want more of.
Which parts of your current and previous roles give you energy? What do you want to keep doing? What would you happily leave behind? Do you want greater responsibility, deeper specialisation, broader leadership, or simply a different environment?
You don't need to have your entire career mapped out, but having some clarity about what you want next makes it much easier to position your experience for it.
A final thought
Broad experience isn't something you need to apologise for or explain away.
Working across multiple areas can give you a valuable understanding of how organisations operate, an ability to adapt quickly, and a range of skills that can open up several different career paths.
The challenge is making sure other people can see the value in that breadth.
Be clear about your strengths, focus on the experience most relevant to where you want to go, and don't let a broad job description, or an understated job title, define what you're capable of doing next.
Kirsty McLaren is Director of McLaren Recruitment and has worked alongside New Zealand’s membership and not-for-profit organisations for over 20 years. She specialises in recruiting across the association sector – from operational roles such as CPD, events, communications and member engagement through to General Manager and Chief Executive appointments – and is passionate about supporting people to build rewarding careers within the association sector.
04 499 1069 | www.mclaren.co.nz | kirsty@mclaren.co.nz