So You Want to Work in Washington D.C.?
Advice for Aspiring Policy Analysts
Each year, I am contacted by 100–200 college students and recent graduates seeking a meeting to discuss how to become a think tank fellow in Washington, D.C. While I enjoy mentoring (I was once that ambitious student), my busy schedule does not allow for this many meetings. Instead, I am offering my standard advice to young aspiring policy fellows below.
(While this advice is designed for think tank jobs, much of it also applies to jobs in Congress)
Before we start: Sorry, I cannot get you a job or internship
I have no role in hiring at my — or any — workplace. Such decisions are made by hiring committees above my pay grade. I do not have a dedicated research assistant position, nor do I select interns. Moreover, requests to “put in a good word” do not really help, because entry-level hiring decisions are made entirely on the strength of one’s application materials rather than on pre-existing relationships with fellows — relationships we likely do not have anyway. Your best bet for a think tank position is to put in a terrific application, and for that, my insider’s advice is below.
The Four Keys to Landing Your First Washington Policy Job or Internship
First: Build a strong academic record. College and graduate school transcripts are typically required, and you are likely competing against strong students from elite colleges. You need not attend an elite college, but you should be able to demonstrate that you have mastered the relevant coursework.
Second: Be willing to volunteer and intern. During my college and graduate school years, I put in 2,000 hours of unpaid volunteering and internships. It began during summer vacation after my sophomore year, when I simply walked into a hometown Congressional campaign office as a 20-year-old nobody and asked how I could help. That summer, I spent my nights working the lonely 11pm-7am shift at a 24-hour convenience store (a good time to read economic and policy books), and my afternoons lit-dropping, stuffing envelopes, handing out stickers at parades, getting ballot signatures, and driving the candidate (unfortunately he lost). Back at school, my political organization skills and (provocative) university newspaper opinion columns got me elected state chairman of the College Republicans.
These two roles earned me a junior and senior-year internship in my governor’s office (just down the street from campus), where for two afternoons each week I drafted constituent letters, made photocopies, ran errands… and then started receiving small policy research assignments, which over time grew into larger legislative analyses, policy memos, and even briefings with the governor. Upon graduating from college, this experience got me a Congressional campaign job back in my home district (this time we defeated the incumbent),1 then a full-time policy analyst position for the governor, and finally a personal recommendation letter from the governor that helped me get accepted into elite MPP programs. All in 36 (admittedly-exhausting) months.
So volunteer on campaigns, apply for internships with state legislatures, governors, Congress, think tanks, agencies, etc. Be willing to run errands and do low-level work. Nothing is beneath you because everything is a steppingstone. This is how you learn politics from the inside, and how you make contacts and earn the responsibilities that turn into full-time jobs.
Third: Develop a niche. Knowing a little bit about everything is great for conversation and bad for landing a policy job. Think tanks, congressional offices, and agency positions are typically siloed. Employers will be looking to fill slots for a health care legislative assistant, tax policy advisor, immigration research assistant, or China expert. This makes generalists difficult to place. Have one or two policy areas — or skills, such as press and communications — where you have legitimate expertise to offer and can shorten the learning curve. Note: Do not worry that you are locking yourself into a policy area for life. Once inside, experts move around across issues — but you need a niche to get your foot in the door.
Fourth: Be an excellent writer. Despite being an anonymous 26-year-old fresh out of my MPP program with no notable Washington experience or connections, I managed to get hired as the Heritage Foundation’s lead research fellow in federal budget policy (this was at Heritage’s peak of power and influence in Washington, long before it went off the deep end).
The key was showing up to my interviews with a full binder of writing samples for each person I met with. The goal was to demonstrate a broad range of policy writing — from college newspaper op-eds to shorter class essays to my senior honors thesis analyzing Wisconsin’s innovative welfare reforms. Being an excellent writer and communicator is a must, and it requires years of practice, improvement, and portfolio-building. If you are not writing regularly, start now.
Other Tips for Success in Washington Policy Communities
Communication skills are as important as policy expertise. This builds on item four above. Politics is a persuasion business. Your expertise is irrelevant if you cannot communicate effectively, and the most successful policy entrepreneurs are brilliant communicators. This requires knowing how to reach vastly different audiences with different ideological frameworks and levels of expertise. Why should people care about your research issue? How would you present your analysis to a liberal audience? To a conservative one? How would you explain it to a general reader with a short attention span and children interrupting? Or to a college student group? A member of Congress? Your peers in the policy community? This requires meeting each group where it is and understanding the frameworks, ideas, and biases they bring to an issue. I believe any success I have had in the policy world has stemmed from being a pretty good economist, but a top-tier policy communicator.
The best communicators see themselves as teachers. Don’t be the narcissistic academic deploying incomprehensible jargon to show off your intelligence. If your audience does not understand your oh-so-brilliant points, you have failed as a communicator and policy entrepreneur.
See yourself as an enthusiastic teacher. Your job is to explain complicated issues in ways that are simple and accessible, whatever the audience. People remember the relatable expert who taught them something cool, not the egghead who “must be really smart because I didn’t understand a thing.” If you cannot clearly explain the issue to your mother, your success will be limited. Not sure where to start? Try George Orwell and Peggy Noonan.
Don’t be a partisan jerk. There is a widespread misconception that everyone in Washington is fighting the nasty partisan war they see on television and social media. In reality, this describes perhaps 200 lawmakers and administration officials performing for cameras and social media. Beneath the surface are 10,000 other lawmakers, Hill staff, and administration officials who — even amid partisan disagreements — quietly maintain cordial working relationships across the aisle.
Think tanks are even less partisan. Washington is a small town, and each issue area is generally siloed — there are, for example, about 40 of us think tankers working on budget policy, and we all know each other well. Even when we sit across the political divide, we often peer-review each other’s research, grab lunch together, appear on panels, and team up to advance areas of agreement.
Being friendly and approachable is not only ethical — it is also effective. You cannot persuade and influence experts on the other side by alienating them. I have seen young think tankers — and even organizations — go in all-guns blazing with partisan venom and quickly sideline themselves from the policy conversation. Besides, today’s adversary is tomorrow’s ally on the next issue. You may be part of your policy community for 40 years, so don’t burn bridges or sabotage your influence. Kill them with kindness, build coalitions, play the long game, and stay above the partisan fray. Leave the partisan warfare to politicians and cable news screamers.
Soft skills still matter. I understand — your brilliance makes you indispensable. Except most of your colleagues will also be brilliant. The easiest way to build professional capital is by being exceedingly pleasant and easy to work with. This means being polite and friendly to everyone, both above and below you, while avoiding drama and gossip — and handling constructive criticism gracefully rather than throwing a tantrum when the editing team bleeds red ink all over your flawless, beautiful, draft report (pick your fights carefully). You may be a genius, but egomaniacs and narcissists wear thin in an organization and tend to become the scholars who cycle through 15 employers by age 40.
I have aimed to be a “plug-and-play” scholar: an employer can place me in the federal budget policy role and not have to actively manage me or even think about me. I show up on time, am friendly, do my job, manage myself, and free my directors to focus their energies elsewhere. Even if you are not a policy superstar, being solid, dependable, and pleasant has real value.
Remain intellectually curious and honest. In many parts of the policy community, the distinction is less “right versus left” than “serious scholars versus political hacks” — and we can all tell the difference immediately. We all have our general policy frameworks and broadly liberal or conservative ways of reading the world. But “scholars” who clearly begin with partisan conclusions and work backward to fill in half-baked arguments — and who never concede a weakness on their side or a strength on the other — will draw eye-rolls and quickly get dismissed. Even their own side will stop listening, because no one wants to go into a policy battle armed with shallow research that the opposition will quickly shred.
Ultimately, your reputation for solid, credible analysis and intellectual honesty is all you have in the policy community. Once you sacrifice it for lazy partisan hackery, it is nearly impossible to get back.
On a related note: before publishing any research, fact-check it repeatedly until you can’t stand it anymore. Then fact-check it again in the voice of top intellectual critics who may poke at your work or demand your underlying data — because they will. It’s ok when critics publicly disagree with your policy conclusions. It is catastrophic when they publicly call out your embarrassing factual or data errors.
Avoid certain résumé gaps. You can probably land a two-year think tank research assistant position with just a bachelor’s degree. If you want to make a career of being a policy fellow, you should eventually pursue an advanced degree — a master’s, Ph.D., law degree, or MBA. Additionally, many think tanks prefer some Capitol Hill experience, which builds contacts and gives you a view of the legislative process from the inside. Finally, seek out mentors in Washington to help guide you along.
Be persistent in the face of rejection. Your career progress will not be linear, free of rejection, or respectful of your perfectly-laid plans. It will not be fair. You will likely be rejected for jobs for which you are qualified, under-appreciated by some bosses, and at times have to take a step back before you can move forward. The question is not whether this will happen (everyone experiences it to a certain degree), but whether you allow it to defeat you… or you persist and adjust.
I’m satisfied with my career, and on paper it may look reasonably accomplished. What people do not see is how much rejection even successful careers include. The several times I was passed over for jobs that I had painstakingly done everything necessary to earn. The times I was recruited for an exciting job and had it enthusiastically promised, only to be subsequently ghosted without ever receiving an explanation. I’ve worked in organizations where (relative to others) I did twice the work and accomplished twice as much for half the pay and none of the recognition. I’ve been openly discriminated against for my relative youth (earlier in my career), and especially my LGBT status (more recently). People see my impressive new article in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or The Atlantic — but not my many article submissions that are coldly rejected by elite publications. It keeps you humble.
I offer these personal examples not because they are extraordinary, but because they are so ordinary. So many of my successful colleagues can tell similar stories of doors slammed in their faces. And if you build a successful career, you will surely have persisted past your own challenges. Keep your chin up.
A Little About My Own Career
Why I love my career choice. I originally entered the think tank world to get some policymaking experience while waiting to run for Congress and then hopefully governor of Wisconsin. I ultimately decided that think tank life is even better. I get to do all the substantive policy work without spending countless hours soliciting strangers for money, driving across a district to shake endless hands, barely seeing my family, or worrying about losing the next election if I follow my policy or ethical convictions. Especially in today’s grandstanding politics — where a principled, ethical, problem-solving approach is essentially disqualifying — I’d never have lasted as a politician.
Instead, I am a full-service policy entrepreneur. Within my issue area (federal budget policy), I track all major developments and master the latest research. I then develop my own solutions and support or help defeat proposals in Congress. This includes authoring policy studies, testifying before Congress, and advising lawmakers and White House officials. To influence the broader public, I write op-eds, travel for speeches and panels, speak with reporters and columnists, and appear on television, radio, and podcasts.
While serving as a chief economist to a senator was more of a support role (but still fascinating), my think tank positions have provided the intellectual flexibility to set my own research agenda and reach my own policy conclusions.
Best federal budget resources. I am often asked how one can build a career as a federal budget scholar. A degree in economics — and preferably an advanced degree in economics or public policy — is essential to provide the foundation for analyzing policy.
Once you have that base of economic and statistical fluency, federal budget policy is surprisingly accessible. Nearly all necessary data is readily available on the websites of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with helpful contributions from the U.S. Treasury (tax data), Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), Government Accountability Office (GAO), and agencies such as the Social Security Administration (SSA), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Read the reports on these sites to get up to speed on the issues, then dive into the statistical tables to begin the real fun. Much of my time is spent downloading, studying, and playing around with these databases in Excel. Get your hands dirty in the numbers until you are fluent; use your economic and policy training to spot trends, merge databases, and build new ones to answer your own policy questions.
It is also important to learn from experts in the field. Read the think tank reports and books written by current practitioners to see how they approach the issues. Spend time in the footnotes, hyperlinks, and bibliographies — they are essentially blueprints for how a policy expert constructed their research. Look up those footnotes and try to replicate their work; you may even discover better approaches of your own. Then apply your own knowledge to the issue. Over time, your expertise and fluency will grow.
Good luck!
This 1998 Congressional race was notable for two reasons. First, my boss, Mark Green became the only GOP challenger in America to defeat an incumbent House Democrat in 1998 (Republicans nationwide were slaughtered for planning to impeach Bill Clinton). Second, we shared some campaign resources with another first-time House candidate downstate—a whip-smart 28-year-old newcomer that I was able to spend some time with at the HQ. You may have heard of him: Paul Ryan.
Terrific advice! Definitely bookmarking this to send out in the future.
Fascinating and encouraging, thank you!