Lived experience and adjacent skills

Lived experience provides unique insights that help build trust and connections with evaluation participants, while complementary skills like knowledge translation, public engagement, and data visualization can enhance the effectiveness of your work.

Your lived experience and adjacent skills can be just as valuable as technical expertise. This section explores how these personal and adjacent skills can contribute to a more meaningful and impactful evaluation career.

Lived experience

Your lived experience helps you develop experiential skills. These skills come from your personal experiences and can help you bring a unique lens to the evaluation process. For example, shared lived experiences with those involved in an evaluation can help build a sense of trust and rapport with evaluation participants. Previous experiences, either from your personal life, volunteering, or work, can also help you draw insights and connections that strengthen the evaluation.

Tips from an emerging evaluator

My very first evaluation-like job involved conducting research on a program for immigrants and newcomers to Canada. In my job application, I highlighted my lived experience as an immigrant and my volunteering experiences with initiatives supporting other immigrants. These were assets I brought to the job that helped me understand the population the organisation worked with.

Your experiential skills cannot only add value to the job duties but may also speak to your interest and commitment to working in a specific sector. Do not undervalue them when applying for jobs or networking!

Adjacent skills

Adjacent skills are not directly related to the core function of evaluation but can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your work and your impact. There are many adjacent skills that can be helpful in evaluation. These are a few examples:

• Knowledge translation: This involves communicating information in a clear way that leads to changes in practices. In evaluation, these skills can help you share evaluation findings in a way that increases the likelihood of evaluations being used.

• Public engagement: This involves skills that bring together researchers or public officers with the public through two-way communication. Public engagement can support data collection and promote transparency and credibility in evaluation processes.

• Visualization and design: The ability to present data visually can make complex findings more understandable and impactful. It can highlight key points and trends in a compelling way that promotes use.

• Social media campaigns: Skills that allow you to leverage social media can help you reach a wider audience throughout the evaluation process, including when recruiting evaluation participants and disseminating findings.