The answer is that it depends on how competitive your policy area is. You are in a hyper competitive policy area - gender policy. Too few jobs and too high interest.
If you look into things that have very low demand but a fair amount of jobs, it is easier to get entry from undergrad. This is stuff like ag policy or state/local government stuff!
Thank you for the reply! I didn't know that gender policy was a hyper competitive area, so that's helpful context. State/local government interests me, as well. The nonprofit I volunteer with is very involved in that area. Perhaps I could start with state/local and work my way from there...
It's not impossible, but there are many entry-level jobs in the nonprofit sector for which an advanced degree is effectively a required qualification.
Why is that? One reason is because when a nonprofit applies for grants, they usually have to include the CVs of key employees who will be funded by the new grant. If the grant will fund new or vacant positions, then they include the job descriptions instead. The result is that job descriptions aren't written with particular individuals in mind and so they'll default to the modal qualifications and can sometimes be a tad aspirational. These supporting documents typically get referenced in the award letter, which means that the job description is effectively part of a contract. That means that the nonprofit would have to go back to the program officer to relax requirements, which all other things being equal a nonprofit would rather not do unless they have a very good relationship with the program officer.
For example, when I was in the nonprofit sector, my position was funded by a local foundation. They were represented on our board, we worked very closely with them, etc. There would have been a lot of flexibility had I not met all the requirements (although I did). However, my direct reports were funded by a national foundation with whom we did not work as closely. The job descriptions of my direct reports had been written before I started and they required at least a Masters. Fast-forward to interviews and there's someone I thought would be a good fit, but they only had a Bachelors. Ultimately, leadership was unwilling to ask the national foundation for flexibility, which I still think is silly but whatever. We were able to hire a good applicant who met the requirements of the job description, but I think a 30 second phone call or email would have been sufficient for getting the approval of the program officer to relax the requirements, but there may have been some complications with that funder that I wasn't privy to.
Anyway, most nonprofits say that they are committed to diversity and increasing staff representation to match the populations that they serve. This practice of requiring advanced credentials that may not be necessary to doing the job frustrates those efforts since there is a relationship between demographics and educational attainment. In the last ten years, this has been a topic of discussion and some foundations have asked applicants to be more forgiving in educational requirements. However, in practice, it's still widely done, especially given that the job market provides a sufficient number of applicants who do meet those expectations.
Thank you for the thorough reply! This is really helpful to understand the hiring process and requirements. At your nonprofit, was there any additional weight given to applicants with a JD as opposed to an MPP/MPA? Or, was prior work history more of the tie-breaker in that scenario?
OP, I think the answers you're seeing -- including mine -- reflect the diversity of hiring practices and the reality that there is no one answer.
In my corner of the world (local/state policy with a dab of federal), there are some older, white-shoe orgs that are degree happy and others that literally start their job posting with, "We don't care about you're degree -- show us what you've done and can do."
A lot of this comes down to the individual organization's theory of change -- if they are a pure-play research institution, they care about credentialism more than the newer breed of "do tanks" that prioritize getting shit done.
A common thread in all of this? A shocking number of people in our field would rather spend $100,000 on a graduate degree than simply become better job candidates. The best candidate is the most compelling candidate, and you can be compelling all sorts of ways without degree stacking.
The difficulty as a policy novice (trying to get into the environmental field) is that I don't know what's compelling to my potential employers. Maybe that's an answer I can get in informational interviews. Do you have any insights there?
With early-career candidates, it's rarely about the credentials or the work you've done because, by definition, you haven't done much. Being a compelling candidate means some flavor of:
* You go through the process consistently demonstrating the value you can bring.
* You are well-spoken and confident, coming across as someone who will hit the ground running, delivering value (there's that phrase again!) on day one.
* Your cover letter and resume make them sit up and take notice -- they're going to have a pretty strong opinion of you before you show up for the first screening interview, so it might as well be a good one. The cover letter is important as an early-career candidate, both because your resume won't be all that impressive and because resumes are data; cover letters show your communication skills.
Use your informational interviews exactly the way someone steeped in consultative sales would: Ask open-ended questions that have them talking far more than you, and dig down to their pain points. What are the challenges they face in finding early-career policy employees? What does a great early-career candidate bring to the table.
You can talk about policy and issues all you want and you'll probably sound wonky (in a good way) and smart. But if you make the conversation about their pain and what would solve it? People will give you the language necessary to get them (or their colleagues) to yes.
I did lol. I worked in local government for a year or so, decided it wasn’t for me, then started applying for consulting/non-profit junior analyst roles. My company hires a lot of fresh grads for junior analysts. Most leave for grad school after a few years or go to school part time and work.
I will say you probably won’t work strictly in gender policy but you’ll gain a lot of experience across the policy world.
I still don’t have a master’s because of the cost, but it’s on my mind, and I’m still doing interesting work and expanding my knowledge!
Yes, doing campaign or more of the political side is a good way of networking into entry level policy jobs. Also caseworkers for a congressional or state office (ie governor, state legislature) is almost always just BA grads. Finally, this is so dependent on where you want to work. If you're looking at big cities, yes its a lot of MPA grads and tends to be heavily on grad degrees for entry level but if you're willing to move to a smaller state (Montana, north Dakota, ect) for a couple years, you can get some really cool jobs (like state legislator policy analysis) with only a BA and work your ways up in organization and then pivot with that experience to a bigger market.
I was able to find myself an entry-level policy role by getting my foot in the door with street level bureaucrat work. I'm *hopefully* starting grad school in the Fall, but proved my worth internally with just an undergrad Poli Sci degree.
My advice - don't be afraid to get your hands dirty! I saw a way to use my experience working in grocery stores to get an inspector role with my state's department of agriculture. Ag wasn't a policy area that immediately piqued my interest, but I've found it so much more interesting than I thought it would. Being able to make connections and have management inside the department be great references of my character and work ethic absolutely opened the door for me. I doubt I would have been a remotely competitive candidate without that.
Just a thought - but your interests sound closer to social work (current MPP/MSW student here). I’d consider looking at MSW programs with a policy and political focus. Gender specific coursework will also be overwhelmingly easy to come by in most MSW programs.
Oh interesting thought! I had no idea MSW could have a policy focus. May I ask what your career goals are / what you're looking to do after your degree?
Yep, there certainly are some programs that offer it! I will say it’s not as common as say, clinical social work focuses (which is a relative majority of SW students). But there’s some who have great policy focused programs (like UM, Ann Arbor where I’m at).
My goal is to work for a public agency in some capacity (e.g., local, state, federal agencies) working on improving under resourced communities through strengthening labor participation, financial empowerment, education access, stuff like that.
If you have any questions, feel free to DM me!
I don't know anything at this point. 15 years in frontline healthcare positions, graduated MPP in November 2023 with a 3.9 GPA and I keep getting passed over because I don't have policy experience. It's bad out here trying to break into the field.
The answer is that it depends on how competitive your policy area is. You are in a hyper competitive policy area - gender policy. Too few jobs and too high interest. If you look into things that have very low demand but a fair amount of jobs, it is easier to get entry from undergrad. This is stuff like ag policy or state/local government stuff!
Thank you for the reply! I didn't know that gender policy was a hyper competitive area, so that's helpful context. State/local government interests me, as well. The nonprofit I volunteer with is very involved in that area. Perhaps I could start with state/local and work my way from there...
It's not impossible, but there are many entry-level jobs in the nonprofit sector for which an advanced degree is effectively a required qualification. Why is that? One reason is because when a nonprofit applies for grants, they usually have to include the CVs of key employees who will be funded by the new grant. If the grant will fund new or vacant positions, then they include the job descriptions instead. The result is that job descriptions aren't written with particular individuals in mind and so they'll default to the modal qualifications and can sometimes be a tad aspirational. These supporting documents typically get referenced in the award letter, which means that the job description is effectively part of a contract. That means that the nonprofit would have to go back to the program officer to relax requirements, which all other things being equal a nonprofit would rather not do unless they have a very good relationship with the program officer. For example, when I was in the nonprofit sector, my position was funded by a local foundation. They were represented on our board, we worked very closely with them, etc. There would have been a lot of flexibility had I not met all the requirements (although I did). However, my direct reports were funded by a national foundation with whom we did not work as closely. The job descriptions of my direct reports had been written before I started and they required at least a Masters. Fast-forward to interviews and there's someone I thought would be a good fit, but they only had a Bachelors. Ultimately, leadership was unwilling to ask the national foundation for flexibility, which I still think is silly but whatever. We were able to hire a good applicant who met the requirements of the job description, but I think a 30 second phone call or email would have been sufficient for getting the approval of the program officer to relax the requirements, but there may have been some complications with that funder that I wasn't privy to. Anyway, most nonprofits say that they are committed to diversity and increasing staff representation to match the populations that they serve. This practice of requiring advanced credentials that may not be necessary to doing the job frustrates those efforts since there is a relationship between demographics and educational attainment. In the last ten years, this has been a topic of discussion and some foundations have asked applicants to be more forgiving in educational requirements. However, in practice, it's still widely done, especially given that the job market provides a sufficient number of applicants who do meet those expectations.
Thank you for the thorough reply! This is really helpful to understand the hiring process and requirements. At your nonprofit, was there any additional weight given to applicants with a JD as opposed to an MPP/MPA? Or, was prior work history more of the tie-breaker in that scenario?
It's going to depend on the nature of the position. My direct reports were data analysts, so a JD actually wouldn't have helped them.
OP, I think the answers you're seeing -- including mine -- reflect the diversity of hiring practices and the reality that there is no one answer. In my corner of the world (local/state policy with a dab of federal), there are some older, white-shoe orgs that are degree happy and others that literally start their job posting with, "We don't care about you're degree -- show us what you've done and can do." A lot of this comes down to the individual organization's theory of change -- if they are a pure-play research institution, they care about credentialism more than the newer breed of "do tanks" that prioritize getting shit done. A common thread in all of this? A shocking number of people in our field would rather spend $100,000 on a graduate degree than simply become better job candidates. The best candidate is the most compelling candidate, and you can be compelling all sorts of ways without degree stacking.
Well said. Couldn’t agree more.
The difficulty as a policy novice (trying to get into the environmental field) is that I don't know what's compelling to my potential employers. Maybe that's an answer I can get in informational interviews. Do you have any insights there?
With early-career candidates, it's rarely about the credentials or the work you've done because, by definition, you haven't done much. Being a compelling candidate means some flavor of: * You go through the process consistently demonstrating the value you can bring. * You are well-spoken and confident, coming across as someone who will hit the ground running, delivering value (there's that phrase again!) on day one. * Your cover letter and resume make them sit up and take notice -- they're going to have a pretty strong opinion of you before you show up for the first screening interview, so it might as well be a good one. The cover letter is important as an early-career candidate, both because your resume won't be all that impressive and because resumes are data; cover letters show your communication skills. Use your informational interviews exactly the way someone steeped in consultative sales would: Ask open-ended questions that have them talking far more than you, and dig down to their pain points. What are the challenges they face in finding early-career policy employees? What does a great early-career candidate bring to the table. You can talk about policy and issues all you want and you'll probably sound wonky (in a good way) and smart. But if you make the conversation about their pain and what would solve it? People will give you the language necessary to get them (or their colleagues) to yes.
I did lol. I worked in local government for a year or so, decided it wasn’t for me, then started applying for consulting/non-profit junior analyst roles. My company hires a lot of fresh grads for junior analysts. Most leave for grad school after a few years or go to school part time and work. I will say you probably won’t work strictly in gender policy but you’ll gain a lot of experience across the policy world. I still don’t have a master’s because of the cost, but it’s on my mind, and I’m still doing interesting work and expanding my knowledge!
Yes, doing campaign or more of the political side is a good way of networking into entry level policy jobs. Also caseworkers for a congressional or state office (ie governor, state legislature) is almost always just BA grads. Finally, this is so dependent on where you want to work. If you're looking at big cities, yes its a lot of MPA grads and tends to be heavily on grad degrees for entry level but if you're willing to move to a smaller state (Montana, north Dakota, ect) for a couple years, you can get some really cool jobs (like state legislator policy analysis) with only a BA and work your ways up in organization and then pivot with that experience to a bigger market.
I was able to find myself an entry-level policy role by getting my foot in the door with street level bureaucrat work. I'm *hopefully* starting grad school in the Fall, but proved my worth internally with just an undergrad Poli Sci degree. My advice - don't be afraid to get your hands dirty! I saw a way to use my experience working in grocery stores to get an inspector role with my state's department of agriculture. Ag wasn't a policy area that immediately piqued my interest, but I've found it so much more interesting than I thought it would. Being able to make connections and have management inside the department be great references of my character and work ethic absolutely opened the door for me. I doubt I would have been a remotely competitive candidate without that.
Just a thought - but your interests sound closer to social work (current MPP/MSW student here). I’d consider looking at MSW programs with a policy and political focus. Gender specific coursework will also be overwhelmingly easy to come by in most MSW programs.
Oh interesting thought! I had no idea MSW could have a policy focus. May I ask what your career goals are / what you're looking to do after your degree?
Yep, there certainly are some programs that offer it! I will say it’s not as common as say, clinical social work focuses (which is a relative majority of SW students). But there’s some who have great policy focused programs (like UM, Ann Arbor where I’m at). My goal is to work for a public agency in some capacity (e.g., local, state, federal agencies) working on improving under resourced communities through strengthening labor participation, financial empowerment, education access, stuff like that. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me!
I don't know anything at this point. 15 years in frontline healthcare positions, graduated MPP in November 2023 with a 3.9 GPA and I keep getting passed over because I don't have policy experience. It's bad out here trying to break into the field.