This website offers a lot of advice on securing entry-level opportunities for careers in public policy, like internships, short-term policy programs, fellowships, and graduate school. But all of these opportunities are primarily steps toward full-time employment in public service. This page focuses on how to find and apply for full-time policy positions.

Relevant resources

If you’re specifically interested in working in Congress, please see our in-depth guide on full-time roles in Congress. And if you’re seeking to work in a think tank, please read part 4 of our think tank guide on “Getting a think tank job.” In the future, we also plan to write up more advice on how to get a job in the executive branch and other policy institutions.

There are also many other helpful resources on how to get a job in public policy and what it’s like. For example, the website GoGovernment (created by the Partnership for Public Service) offers brief guides on many relevant topics, including

1. background information on working in the federal government, salaries, and benefits; 
2. application resources on using USAJobs, application materials, federal resumes, security clearances, and interviews; and 
3. career guides on various employment types in the federal workforce (e.g. administration, legal, and IT). 

Other helpful online resources include the websites Tech to Gov (e.g. see the Federal Government Hiring Playbook), US of Tech, Digital Policy Guide, Network on Emerging Threats, and Public-Interest Technology Resources.

Job boards

If you’ve come far enough in exploring your fit to be ready to apply for full-time policy roles, there are a variety of job boards to find employment opportunities in public service, including (but not limited to):

• USAJobs.gov is the government’s central job board for federal agencies (see also these guides on using USAJobs). But you should not rely on USAJobs alone to find relevant opportunities, since many agencies post jobs on their specific agency websites instead of using USAJobs (or posting on both). Also, when there’s information on an open position available both from an agency website and from USAJobs, the agency site will often be more informative. Unfortunately, USAJobs can be difficult to navigate and often requires sorting through lots of irrelevant postings and legalese to get to useful information on relevant opportunities.
• Congressional positions are often (but not always) advertised via the employment Bulletins for the House and Senate. See also the resume banks for the House and Senate.
• There are some paid job boards that aggregate employment opportunities, such as Traverse Jobs (focus on Congress and advocacy), Tom Manatos Jobs focus on (Congress and federal agencies), and Daybook (focus on political, policy, and non-profit jobs).
• If you’re looking for job opportunities in technology and policy, check out the TechCongress newsletter Policy Opportunities for Technologists, the Tech and Innovation Public Sector Job Board, the Responsible Tech Job Board, the 80,000 Hours Job Board, and the American Institute of Physics newsletter FYI This Week.
• If you’re interested in working in progressive policy or advocacy, check out this list of job boards; if instead, you want to work in conservative policy organizations, check out GOP Jobs, Conservative Jobs, the Heritage Foundation’s Job Bank, and the Conservative Partnership Institute’s Job Bank Initiative.

Common career paths

Looking at the career journeys of senior policy practitioners in the US, you’ll often notice that their career hasn’t followed a linear progression, rising up through a specific organizational hierarchy.¹

Instead, it’s common for policy professionals to move between policy jobs in different parts of the policy ecosystem, such as switching from a think tank to the executive branch and back. Many policy professionals don’t stay on one specific path long-term (e.g. only working in think tanks their entire career). Policy practitioners often switch roles or employers every few years, when new opportunities open up to advance professionally and use their expertise. Thus, public policy careers are often interestingly varied, but this also means it can be difficult to predict where you will work in 5-10 years. 

If you’re early in your career, the most important step—and also often the hardest—is getting a foot in the door. Once you have your first job, you can frequently use the network you’re building on the job (e.g. colleagues, supervisors, collaborators) to get your next position. Many recent graduates—including some with master’s degrees—have to start as interns and apply for full-time jobs while interning; this is not necessarily a long-term commitment and could take as little as 1-3 months. Given the large professional development boost your first policy job offers, it’s typically most important just to get started somehow—even if your first job at a policy institution isn’t perfect (e.g. not necessarily focused on your issues of interest).

If you’re an experienced technologist or subject-matter expert seeking to switch into policy, it’s possible that you will find yourself both too senior for the typical early-career policy opportunities like internships and entry-level jobs, yet have too little policy experience to qualify for mid-level or senior roles in policy organizations. If this is the case for you, consider applying to policy fellowships, many of which specifically aim to help experienced professionals switch into policy or government. In addition, if you would like to contribute to policy development but struggle to get a relevant role, consider as an intermediate step applying for non-policy roles at government(-adjacent) organizations that make use of your professional skills (e.g. an IT expert with private sector experience moving into an IT role at a government agency, or an academic switching into a research role at a national lab or agency). 

People without a graduate degree seeking to work in public policy might consider completing a degree designed to be compatible with working part-time or even full-time in a policy role. Such degrees are offered, for example, by several DC-based schools. This can be a great way to reduce the opportunity cost of graduate school and create a tight feedback loop between your education and day-to-day work. But of course, graduate school is not for everyone.

Where to apply?

Policy opportunities in Washington DC 

There are a great many DC-based organizations where you might be able to do policy-relevant work, such as: 

1. Congress (see our full-time roles in Congress guide for more details): There are more than 8,000 staffers working in Congress, spread across the 535 personal offices, ~200 (sub)committees, and three support agencies (CRS, CBO, GAO). This includes various legislative, administrative, communications, and even some research roles. 
2. Executive branch, including the White House and more than 100 federal agencies (some agencies are located outside the DC area). This includes standard civil service positions (structured via the “General Schedule”), the ~8,000 positions in the senior executive service, and the ~4,000 political appointee positions. Given its immense size, the executive branch offers an extreme diversity of role types, including for people from almost any professional background. 
3. Think tanks (see Getting a think tank job), including more than 100 in DC alone. This includes many roles that can be categorized as research, external affairs (e.g. outreach and advocacy, or convening and education), and internal affairs (e.g. fundraising, HR, administration). 
4. Government contractors (e.g. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon) or public sector consultancies (e.g. Deloitte, Grant Thornton, Accenture, Boston Consulting Group). These are private sector companies consulting for the government, implementing government programs, or building things for the government.
5. DC-based international organizations (e.g. the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or Pan American Health Organization). There are also several United Nations organizations with DC offices (though their headquarters are elsewhere).
6. Advocacy organizations (e.g. non-profit or for-profit interest groups), many of which have their headquarters (or at least an office) in DC.

Policy opportunities outside of Washington DC

If you are looking for policy opportunities outside of DC, you might want to consider opportunities that are remote, overseas, or at the state or local level in the US, such as:

• District offices of members of Congress: Compared to staffers in the DC office of a Member, district office staffers typically spend more of their time on constituent services rather than substantive legislative work.
• State-level and city-level legislative offices and government agencies: These resemble the work in similar institutions at the federal level and can be a great stepping stone to federal employment. Of course, state and local-level public sector work is a viable goal in its own right.
• Academic research positions involving policy-relevant research: Most academic research—even in social and political science—doesn’t aim to inform policymakers directly. But some academics maintain close professional relationships with DC policy circles and even switch between academic and policy roles.
• National labs (e.g. Los Alamos, Sandia) and other ​​federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) (e.g. RAND Corporation, Aerospace Corporation): FFRDCs inform government policy and advance science and technology, particularly in national security. They offer valuable career opportunities—especially for STEM graduates—and can serve as launching pads for careers in public service.
• Working in the foreign service: The US government employs about 15,600 foreign service officers (FSOs) who work primarily for the State Department and USAID. FSOs carry out US foreign policy and typically move to a new country every few years. 
• Internships with US embassies abroad or the US Mission to the United Nations in New York or the US Mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium
• International organizations, like NATO, OECD, and the United Nations, including the UN’s 15 specialized agencies (e.g. WHO, UNESCO): If you want to work for the UN, consider applying for internships, UN Volunteers, or the UN’s Junior Professional Officer Program. 
• Some think tanks, like the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City

Narrowing down your options

The sheer number and diversity of organizations doing policy-relevant work means that people from all backgrounds can find exciting employment opportunities in public service. But this is not to say that it’s always easy to get full-time employment in public policy, particularly if you have strong preferences over the roles, organizations, and issues you want to work on.

So, how can you narrow down this long list of potential opportunities to decide where to apply? There are many potential filters you could use, depending on your preferences and background, including:

1. Institutions: For most people interested in building a federal-level public policy career, we recommend beginning by considering opportunities in government (like Congress and the executive branch) and organizations aiming to inform the government (primarily think tanks). There are many resources available—including many on this website—to learn more about the day-to-day work in these institutions, which can help you determine if you’d be a good fit and would enjoy working there.
2. Types of roles: Reflect on your “fit”—your skills, strengths, and interests—and how this maps onto different roles in policy organizations. If you excel at research, you might consider think tanks or government research organizations (like an FFRDC or the Congressional Research Service); if you enjoy fast-paced, collaborative work on legislation, consider working as a legislative staffer in Congress; if you enjoy politics and have strong communication skills, you could become an advocate for an interest group or work in a congressional campaign; and if you have strong project and people management skills, you might find appealing opportunities to work on policy implementation in agencies.
3. Policy issues: If you prefer to work on a particular (set of) policy issue(s), it can make sense to begin your job search by looking for opportunities that are directly relevant (or at least adjacent) to that issue. If you’re interested in working on AI policy, for example, you could initially look for opportunities with “AI policy” in the title or adjacent ones like “technology policy”, “science policy”, etc. But don’t stop your search there, especially if your issue of interest is relatively niche and you’re early in your career. A common mistake we see early-career people make is narrowing down their options too early when they would benefit from casting a wider net instead. As mentioned above, what’s most important early in your career is to get a foot in the door—even if your first policy job doesn’t focus on your issue(s) of interest. 
4. Policy levers: Besides specific policy issues, you can also specialize in different policy levers (e.g. budgets and appropriations, regulatory policy, technical standards, taxes and subsidies, diplomacy, export controls, and many others). Understanding one or more of these levers deeply is a valuable form of policy expertise that can be applied to many different issues.
5. Culture and mentorship: As in all sectors, the work culture of policy organizations varies greatly in terms of, for example, work-life balance, professional development support, mentorship opportunities, etc. A supportive work culture and mentorship are incredibly important, especially for people just starting their careers. A good mentor will not only be more likely to give you substantive work in areas that you care about, but they will be able to vouch for you for the remainder of your career, including for future job and graduate school applications. 
6. Location: Most US federal policymaking positions are based in or near Washington DC. Few roles are fully remote, and even those typically benefit substantially from prior in-person DC experience and may require regular visits. Still, if you have a location constraint outside of DC, there are policy opportunities elsewhere as the above list highlights.

Networking matters for finding and getting jobs

There are many benefits to building and leveraging your professional network when looking for full-time policy roles.

For one thing, it’s very helpful for information gathering. If you know (or could get to know) people working in institutions or roles you’re interested in, we highly recommend speaking to them to learn about their day-to-day work, work culture, application tips, etc. There’s only so much you can learn through online research, and it’s often much easier for other people with relevant experience to highlight opportunities you might have missed or spot flaws in your plans. 

For another, your network can help you learn about and actually get a job. Our networking in policy guide explains that 

Many policy job opportunities both inside and outside of government are never advertised publicly but are filled with trusted contacts from the organization’s network…

Developing a strong network…makes it more likely you will (1) get valuable advice, (2) hear of relevant job openings, (3) be successful when you apply, and (4) excel at and have an impact on the job (e.g. by collaborating with your professional contacts).

In fact, it’s difficult to get certain types of policy positions—particularly as a congressional staffer—without extensive networking. As explained in our networking guide, 

Many [congressional] jobs are never posted publicly, with candidate recruitment happening solely through internal listservs and/or word-of-mouth. And jobs get so many applicants that you almost never even get interviewed unless someone “flags” your application with the hiring manager.

Compared to Congress, these dynamics are typically less extreme (though often still significant) in the executive branch and think tanks, where you can also be successful using the traditional, formal approach of responding to job postings and submitting applications online.

Related articles

Advice for undergraduates interested in US policy

Advice and resources for underrepresented groups in policy

Graduate school

Information for foreign nationals

Policy fellowships

Policy internships

Short-term policy programs

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Footnotes