Richard Gray has a thoughtful piece in the Pacific Polarity Substack on ways for young people to enter the foreign policy community in a current era when many of the natural entry points no longer exist. I’m not part of this community, other than unpaid nonresident affiliations with a couple of thinktanks, but many of my students are looking to become part of it, so I found it very valuable. A few excerpts that jumped out to me:
“Do not expect to get a research internship for a well-known think tank for your first role. These are fiercely competitive roles that will receive hundreds of applicants every cycle. Your early internships are unlikely to fall neatly within foreign policy. As such, your goal is to pursue internships that are both interesting and broadly applicable to your long-term objectives”
“if you have the time and capacity, do something eccentric.
During undergrad, I directed a conference with National Taiwan University, the first undergraduate conference of its kind between an American and Taiwanese university (you can read about here). It took me hundreds of hours in preparation and was the second most stressful thing I have ever done, but the event and its consequences were pivotal for my later career stages. Part of the reason I landed my first think tank internship was that a guest speaker at my conference was a fellow at the organization, which made me recognizable to the hiring team. The conference also positioned me well as someone who had an idea and executed it without dramatic failure”
“You want to be specialized enough to be taken seriously as a young person, but broad enough to adapt to geopolitical swings.
On one hand, your areas of interest cannot be as broad as “foreign policy,” “international affairs,” or “international security.” Many high-profile figures operate as generalists, but they are typically people with many years of experience who either have a Dr. by their name or have intimate knowledge of how the American bureaucracy functions. As an early-career person, you need greater regional and subject matter focus, whether that is maritime security in the South China Sea, critical mineral security in Sub-Saharan Africa, or industrial strategies in Central America.
On the other hand, you don’t want to become so specialized that your skills are inflexible and fail to match most job opportunities. The policy environment shifts at a breakneck pace, and you do not want to be left behind current events. “
“I have sat on both sides of the hiring-applying equation, and recognize how dispiriting it can be to be at the mercy of decisions made by someone else, decisions that are often hasty, arbitrary, and sometimes preferential. There is a restlessness in preparing application materials, submitting on career portals, gaming out interviews, scouring LinkedIn, and … waiting. There are thousands just like you at this very moment, feeling that same emptiness in the pit of their stomach, at a standstill as the world appears to move beyond them.
Nevertheless, what an exciting moment in human history. China is now a mammoth, Southeast Asia is bustling, technologies are advancing at the frontier and diffusing throughout societies, and global challenges are interlocking at a dizzying pace and magnitude.”
“Ask yourself: if you were fielding hundreds of applicants, would you choose yourself? If not, what would it take to get there? Becoming more defined in your lane will make it more difficult for you to be replaced and insulate you from the whims of government or specific funding sources. With accumulated expertise, targeted networking, and differentiation comes a cosmos of your own creation.”
Paul Staniland 