Career resources

Alumni career paths

Here are just a few career paths our over 32,000 alumni have entered after serving with City Year:

Business

Serving with City Year will provide you with unique experience, making you a standout candidate in the business world. Your experience serving as a City Year AmeriCorps member will set you apart from your peers. Through your daily responsibilities, you’ll develop skills that are essential in business: making data informed decisions, goal setting, project management, working on a diverse team, managing difficult conversations, practicing social responsibility and more. City Year AmeriCorps members have gone on to pursue careers in many different business capacities including sales, marketing, corporate social responsibility and consulting and cite their City Year experience as an important factor in advancing to their leadership positions.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Teamwork
• Communication
• Problem solving
• Making data-informed decisions
• Public speaking
• Experience managing difficult conversations

Medicine

For those interested in pursuing careers in medicine or public health, City Year provides valuable perspective. Working with students every day and forging personal relationships with students and their families requires a deep sense of compassion and empathy. In this role, you must be hardworking and persistent, constantly honing the skills that’ll one day turn you into both a competent and caring practitioner. You’ll also witness first-hand the impact a lack of access to high-quality health care can have on a person, a community and society. City Year alumni working in the medical field say City Year provided a solid foundation for their medical career.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Practicing compassion and empathy
• Understanding the impact that a lack of access to high-quality health care can have on an individual and a community
• Resilience
• Time management
• Communication

Technology

Starting a successful career in technology not only requires technical ability and knowledge but also key soft skills. IT professionals need to be well-versed in giving and receiving feedback, effectively communicating their ideas, working collaboratively on a team and managing multiple projects at once. As a City Year AmeriCorps member in a school facing challenges every day, you will gain applicable soft skills by collaborating with a diverse team to develop and implement solutions aimed at ensuring all students are on track. You will also gain practical experience with job responsibilities transferable to the IT world such as organization, project management, and marking data-informed decisions.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Collaborate with a diverse team to implement solutions to complex issues
• Manage and execute multiple projects with excellence
• Experience giving and receiving constructive feedback
• Organization
• Creativity

Law

Working as a City Year AmeriCorps member in our nation’s highest-need schools requires analytical and strategic thinking to come up with solutions to difficult problems on a daily basis. These experiences provide a strong foundation for the law field. As a City Year AmeriCorps member, you’ll develop your ability to understand and analyze complicated situations and hone your ability to communicate clearly and effectively. Many City Year alumni have gone on to pursue careers in the field of public and private law. No matter the field of law, they hold their City Year experience as an important one because it helped them to better relate to people, shaped their path within the field and taught them to take initiative and be resourceful.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Strategic thinking
• Complex problem solving
• Extensive public speaking practice
• Communication

Public policy

AmeriCorps members experience the effects that local and national policies have on urban schools and the communities. By working with an education-focused nonprofit, AmeriCorps members gain first-hand experience implementing education policy and theory into practice. City Year training equips AmeriCorps members to collaborate on diverse teams, implement programming that targets identified needs and analyze the success of those programs. The City Year AmeriCorps member experience gives insight into the dimensions of complex issues in urban communities and the interdependencies that exist among social issues of poverty, education, access to high-quality healthcare and others.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Communication
• Strategic planning
• Decision making

Marketing/Communications

City Year AmeriCorps members spend each day working in the classroom with students, teachers and their teammates. In this fast-paced environment, strategic thinking, creative problem solving and data analysis are used on a daily basis. These skills are all essential for building the foundation needed to enter the Marketing and Communications field. As a City Year AmeriCorps member, you’ll also gain practical experience with job responsibilities transferable to the Marketing and Communications field such as accomplishing complex tasks under tight deadlines, project management, working as a member of a diverse team, managing difficult conversations and practicing social responsibility. City Year AmeriCorps members have gone on to pursue careers in many different capacities in the fields of Marketing and Communications, including radio, television, journalism and advertising and cite their City Year experience as key to landing leadership positions.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Extensive public speaking experience
• Collaborating on a diverse team
• Persuasive writing

Education

City Year provides a strong foundation for AmeriCorps members planning to pursue a career in education. As a City Year AmeriCorps member, you’ll gain an understanding of the challenges students face in high-need urban schools. You’ll also see firsthand how a school operates and gain experience in building relationships with faculty and staff. City Year provides training in research-based socio-emotional learning, literacy, and math. AmeriCorps members also receive training through partnerships with the school administration, where they get exposure to pedagogical theories and behavior management practices. From lesson planning to tracking student progress with data to interacting with school administration, our alumni say their City Year classroom experience has been especially useful before becoming a full-time teacher. Given the experiences our AmeriCorps members have, graduate schools in education highly value City Year alumni. School principals, districts, and teacher training programs actively seek out City Year alumni for open positions.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Classroom management
• Leadership
• Data analysis
• Organization

Nonprofit

As a City Year AmeriCorps member, you’ll receive first-hand experience working at a nationally recognized and respected nonprofit organization. With a focus on education, City Year provides you with the skills necessary to make an impact in the lives of students by putting innovative nonprofit theory into practice. During your service year you’ll learn to resource map communities, develop plans and strategies to meet those needs and measure the impact of program implementation. City Year will empower you to lead your peers, build relationships with students and the communities you serve and partner with other organizations within the community.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Implement innovative nonprofit theory into practice
• Develop strategies to meet needs and measure impact
• Project Management
• Event Planning
• Communication
• Leadership

Psychology

City Year provides a strong foundation for AmeriCorps members planning to pursue a career in psychology and counseling. Since City Year provides training in research-based social emotional training, AmeriCorps members are able to support students in their development as lifelong learners and leaders who strive to reach their aspirations. AmeriCorps members help students set goals around behavior improvement, relationship building and positive decision making while encouraging students to display acts of leadership in school and the community. A year of service with City Year allows AmeriCorps members to strengthen soft skills that will build them into strong psychologists and counselors, such as effective communication, empathy, open-mindedness and patience.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Practice empathy, patience and effective communication
• Relationship building
• Social-emotional learning training
• Resilience

Social work

City Year provides a solid foundation for those interested in pursuing a career in Social Work. Working alongside students in the classroom every day, City Year AmeriCorps members are able to develop relationships with students and help them set individualized goals aimed to keep them on track and graduate on time. Additionally, City Year AmeriCorps member receive training in research-based social-emotional support tactics. The City Year AmeriCorps member experience will help future social workers gain key skills needed to be successful in this field including empathy, patience, reliance, active listening and communication.

Skills developed by City Year:

• Communication
• Time management
• Relationship building
• Advocacy
• Provide students with emotional support