[1] After completing her PhD, Jarvie joined the Australian Public Service in the Bureau of Labour Market Research.
[2] During her time at DEST, Jarvie was involved with, among other things, policy behind Australia's Vocational and Technical Education System.
[2] In addition she worked for three years in the World Bank in Washington (1998-2001), initially in the Operations Evaluation Department where she was a manager of corporate evaluations and evaluation methods, and later in Operations and Country Strategies where she worked on small states issues, and managed a taskforce on Bank strategies for middle income countries.
In 2010, while a visiting professor at the University of New South Wales, Jarvie spoke on implementing and sustaining reforms in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
[4] In 2012, Jarvie was appointed to be a member of the AusAID Independent Evaluation Committee.