Best-Kept-Secret Career: Program Evaluator

Reader Comments
Back to article

This career may work out poorly if you want to make a real difference in people's lives, seek real insights about government programs, want to deal with people or want to do high quality work. Depending on the employer, there may be pressure to bend the results a certain way or to draw conclusions not supported by the evidence. Government clients (e.g. state department) have threatened to sue if report findings are not altered. You might spend months or years on a study that few people will read, that does not discover much of use, or that gets shelved by an agency director. Notice how agencies in the Bush administration (and others') bullied agencies to change their report findings, including GAO, HHS, GAO and notice the extremely flawed if not fraudulent nation security studies of NIST and FEMA. Private sector analysts working for clients, without financial independence from them, may experience the same problems. Finally, if you are hired for a project in the private sector, will they have a position for you after the project is completed? However, if you don't need those things, such jobs have the benefit that you are using your mind and the pay is substantial. See program analyst.
http://www.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2008/12/11/best-kept-secret-career-program-analyst.html?msg=1 If you don't have a Ph.D. you can work as a research assistant for a program evaluator or analyst. Decide if you expect to do qualitative or quantitative style reports. If quantitative, you will usually need knowledge of statistics and perhaps software such as SAS or SPSS or STATA. I dissent from the statement above that you are key to making programs better, or deciding whether one is worth continuing. Many programs are cut or continued not based on such studies but rather based on ideology, anecdotes or political slogans.

John of IL 2:27PM January 06, 2010

what's the salary range for a program evaluator

Raymond Carver of MD 12:07AM January 03, 2010

The AEA conference draws in about 3,000 evaluators every year and is a fantastic opportunity to get a feel for the discipline and meet experienced evaluators you can job shadow or learn from in other ways. The conference is incredibly welcoming for newbies, with 'ambassadors' assigned to look after first-time attendees. This year the meeting is on Orlando, FL Nov 11-15, with some fantastic (and very reasonably priced!) pre-conference professional development workshops on offer. Unlike many professional conferences, the Big Names have a strong presence and actually talk to the little people. Come along! More info at http://eval.org

Jane Davidson 6:08PM September 22, 2009

John Jay College has launched a fully-accredited online Master of Public Administration program in affiliation with the Association of Inspectors General. The link is here:
http://jjcweb.jjay.cuny.edu/mpa/online
The specialized program focuses on oversight of public agencies and programs, and includes both investigation and evaluation courses.
The article is right that there is growth in positions related to regulation, oversight and evaluation of public programs.

Ned Benton of NY 10:55AM September 21, 2009

I am an evaluator / analyst. Pay can be good but is based on your statistics skills (Learn SPSS!!!), ability to work with data (excel, access, text, programming, etc), and "social skills". My trainng includes counseling, psychology, biology, health care, education, math (statistics) and life. Knowing how to negotiate the politics and egos of the organization is critical to being hired again. I have worked in health care, education, and finance. I liked health care the best because it is more concrete. In my opinion, education can be very political and finance is cut throat. You easiest career path is go to college - take research design and statisitics courses usually in the psychology department. Epidemiology is also a good program for health care. Organizational psych is good foundation too. Get a job as an research assistant someplace and get some experience. Usually college dept that have grants are most willing to hire you and also train you - even as an undergrad or grad. Work on grants for a few years and then move to a company or college (better pay). Once you have some experience start networking. In this age of accountability many programs/ companies/ grants are looking for evaluators because their funders demand it. Contact the AEA for local evaluators to shadow. 7-10% of a grant budget should be for evaluation - depending on the complexity of the design.
Great career but can be isolated sometimes - much time is spent with your computer.

BZ of NY 1:20PM June 30, 2009

I currently a student with a Masters in Social work and am completing a second Masters in Public Administration. I have worked in K-12 & higher education. I have also worked for public and private agencies. I currenlty work in Student Life at my university and am seeking a job with the federal governement as a Social Worker and hope to become a program analyst. I have also tossed around the idea of obtaining a PhD in Organizational Development & Leadership Studies. Where/How would/do I find a program analyst to study under and/or gain practical experience?

S. J. Hampton of WA 11:32AM June 25, 2009

what are the annual earnings of an evaluator? Do you feel uneasy when you have to hand in an evaluation recommending termination of a program knowing that the livelyhood of people depend on these jobs? If you had the chance to study in college again, what would be the best set of courses or degree you would like to have? how much time do you spend working with people? is freelancing possible? do you know of good online programs in this subject? how did you get into this field in the first place? it was pointed to me by a friend that | should consider this field for a return to the workforce since I naturally question the pros and cons of lots of things. what are the hightlights for you in this work and the lowest points? I would really appricate an answer and more comments to the above, thanks, ciao

basil freeman of NY 6:28AM May 19, 2009

I am not even into highschool yet and I am pondering what I REALLY want to be later on........ what does a program evaluator really do?????

of GA 7:48PM January 21, 2009

Program evaluators come from all different kinds of social science fields, not just public administration/policy. I'm a sociologist. I know people with degrees in psych and social work as well.

of DC 4:48PM January 09, 2009

I have been a program evaluator for nearly 10 years and LOVE my job. I get to help committed professionals in the service fields determine the difference their hard work makes, and find ways to do their work better. I get to learn new things every day, puzzle out ways of getting, understanding and sharing information, and meet phenomonally committed people. It's fun to have that recognized in such an unexpected way!

Leah Goldstein Moses of MN 5:15PM January 07, 2009