Government / ThinkTank Job Advice

[Baylen]

Does anyone have any advice for interviewing for Government / ThinkTank jobs at ASA? There are a few that will be there.

[damastes]

Well, the normal rules of showing your competence, social skills, and abilities apply. So these interviews should not differ too widely from universities, in this regard.

With think tanks, my experience is that they are looking for people who are flexible in interests/abilities, work well in teams, and are good at writing grants. In the long run, you would be expected to more-or-less be self-supporting from grants/contracts. There is also a focus on things which impact public policy, so you will need to be able to make a leap from your dissertation & academic research to direct social policy. i.e., the implications of a statistical correlation to applied settings vs. whether or not the correlation is robust to sensitivity analysis. Also the ability to relate findings to a general audience.

I have less experience with government, but I would imagine it is more job specific. Certainly, the ability to be non-partisan, follow procedures, and meet requests.

[tnrd]

You'd likely want to make sure that you don't seem like this is a fall-back position for you. That is, no place wants to think you'll join them only if your much preferred options don't come through.

[Oaxaca]

One thing to note is that the hiring schedules are usually timed to the economics job market, so job talks tend to occur a couple of months after sociology's academic cycle. So while places may interview folks at ASA, if they want to see more of you the process is still likely to unfold pretty slowly. If you're really interested, and they seem interested in you, but you need the schedule to move more quickly, you have to push for that to happen.

[Oaxaca]

Aug 3, 2009 13:34:28 GMT -5 damastes said:

With think tanks, my experience is that they are looking for people who are flexible in interests/abilities, work well in teams, and are good at writing grants. In the long run, you would be expected to more-or-less be self-supporting from grants/contracts.

The emphasis on being self-supporting varies across organizations. Is seems to be more true of places that focus more on grants (RAND, Urban Institute) and less true of places that focus more on contract work (RTI, Mathematica, MDRC). That also means there tends to be somewhat more autonomy in what you do in the places where you're expected to be more self-supporting.

[Wikiwatchy]

In jobs like these, how does it actually work out that you're able to be self-supported based upon grants, etc? What happens if you don't get the grant money for next year? Are collaborations encouraged, or will you be moonlighting at Starbucks? Also, it seems there would be tremendous variability in the reimbursement that similarly-qualified researchers would receive - is this correct?

[soc annon]

I am in a research position in medicine, so this advice is coming from my experience navigating that soft money world. We are expected to raise 70% of our salary. Beyond that, where you get grants matters. For example, NIH money is considered most prestigious. So if you get grant support from NIH, but have a year with out 70% of your salary covered you are given more wiggle room. As far as differences in pay...your institution sets your salary and then you apply for grants according to that. So getting more grants doesn’t really mean making more money. So if I make 50k and I get a lot of grants, the total of those grants can only equal 50k. You can't give yourself a raise because you get more grants (but of course, getting grants is considered when you are negotiating your package).

That said, I have had an absolutely wonderful experience in this position. My mentors cautioned me against taking this position because of the dependence on grants...and I am really happy I didn’t take their advice. Because there is so much grant money, our department is extremely resource rich (for example, I was given a 90k start up research account....as a post doc). There is continued incentive to be productive, so those senior professors who haven’t published anything in 15 years don’t exist in my department. There is also an enormous amount of support in applying for grants, because we are so grant driven.

If you are thinking of going to a soft money position I would recommend trying for a post-doc in one of these institutions. That will give you protected time to see if you like/ can survive in a grant hungry world. It will also provide you with an environment to have a few really productive years which will help your career whichever path you decide upon after.

[Wikiwatchy]

This is really excellent advice - thank you!