The world at your feet: How to build a career in foreign relations, by Gareth Evans

"There are a great many students who are enormously attracted by the idea of a diplomatic career. Or if not in the foreign service as such, certainly a job which takes you out and about internationally and gets you engaged with international policy issues, be they to do with peace and security, aid and development, trade or any one of the innumerable transnational policy issues – from climate change to people trafficking to managing health pandemics – which former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan once described as “problems without passports”.

It’s no surprise that so many young people should want to get into these jobs. They sound inherently fascinating, and they are.

So how can you best prepare yourself for a foreign policy related career? How can you maximise your chances of cracking it in what is always going to be a very competitive field?"

Read the rest of the article here.