Moderately confident about the below; I know several people working in the UK civil service, and have some experience of the US->UK immigration process, but I don’t work in government/policy myself. My prior in general is that people underestimate the importance of personal fit, as the majority of impact comes relatively late in a career, so leaving early has large costs. IIRC this view was expressed by Rob Wiblin, maybe on a guest appearance he had on another podcast which was x-posted to the 80k podcast, but I’m much less certain about that.
I would be somewhat surprised if the impact difference for doing a similar type of role in US/UK policy was a dominating factor compared to personal fit and probability of getting such a role, at least for most people.
If you’re young, single (or have a partner who works remotely), and have reason to think moving to a different country would not be particularly difficult or stressful for you, or if you live in neither country but want to move to one of them, then asking these questions seems prudent. If that’s not the case, I would expect that your expected impact would be higher going for roles in the country where you currently live, once you control for thnigs like how long you’ll be able to stay in the role, how likely you are to get the job, perform well, understand the culture etc.
I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give a bit more info around my motivation for asking. I am a dual citizen US/UK but currently live in UK. I am young, single (at least for now!) and am quite open to moving to the US. I even have some family over there, so overall it wouldn’t be too stressful/difficult to move.
If I were eligible for good government roles in the US, I would just make that a priority. However, rather unfortunately, I never signed up for the US Selective Service (essentially their military draft) which you have to do before age 26 (I realised this when I was 26) and not having signed up to this makes you ineligible for many US federal jobs. Living in the UK I basically never even heard about this, and I know I’m not the only one this has happened to.
So now I want to think about if I should still go to the US for another type of role, or to go into policy in UK (these aren’t the only two options I am considering but for the purposes of this question I am narrowing it to these). I think what you’re saying is that, if I would go for policy roles in the US, then I may as well go for them in the UK as well (provided I have decent personal fit for policy). Is that fair?
Would you be able to at least say become a staffer or something even if you couldn’t become a senior civil servant?
Good point. I need to look into this further and figure out what I may still be able to do from a policy/government focus in the US even without having signed up for the selective service.
I know very little about the UK and its influence but I would imagine it to have diminished considerably since leaving the EU
Another good point that I surprisingly have not really considered much. It seems plausible that Brexit could have significant implications for the potential to do good in the UK. Perhaps this is something that should be discussed more.
Thanks for your comment, you’ve given me some things to think about!
I think that is fair, though as your situation is prety much exactly the unusual one I described I’d rather you asked someone with better knowledge, as in your case personal fit seems much less likely to dominate.
Moderately confident about the below; I know several people working in the UK civil service, and have some experience of the US->UK immigration process, but I don’t work in government/policy myself. My prior in general is that people underestimate the importance of personal fit, as the majority of impact comes relatively late in a career, so leaving early has large costs. IIRC this view was expressed by Rob Wiblin, maybe on a guest appearance he had on another podcast which was x-posted to the 80k podcast, but I’m much less certain about that.
I would be somewhat surprised if the impact difference for doing a similar type of role in US/UK policy was a dominating factor compared to personal fit and probability of getting such a role, at least for most people.
If you’re young, single (or have a partner who works remotely), and have reason to think moving to a different country would not be particularly difficult or stressful for you, or if you live in neither country but want to move to one of them, then asking these questions seems prudent. If that’s not the case, I would expect that your expected impact would be higher going for roles in the country where you currently live, once you control for thnigs like how long you’ll be able to stay in the role, how likely you are to get the job, perform well, understand the culture etc.
Thanks for this Alex, that certainly makes sense.
I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give a bit more info around my motivation for asking. I am a dual citizen US/UK but currently live in UK. I am young, single (at least for now!) and am quite open to moving to the US. I even have some family over there, so overall it wouldn’t be too stressful/difficult to move.
If I were eligible for good government roles in the US, I would just make that a priority. However, rather unfortunately, I never signed up for the US Selective Service (essentially their military draft) which you have to do before age 26 (I realised this when I was 26) and not having signed up to this makes you ineligible for many US federal jobs. Living in the UK I basically never even heard about this, and I know I’m not the only one this has happened to.
So now I want to think about if I should still go to the US for another type of role, or to go into policy in UK (these aren’t the only two options I am considering but for the purposes of this question I am narrowing it to these). I think what you’re saying is that, if I would go for policy roles in the US, then I may as well go for them in the UK as well (provided I have decent personal fit for policy). Is that fair?
.
Good point. I need to look into this further and figure out what I may still be able to do from a policy/government focus in the US even without having signed up for the selective service.
Another good point that I surprisingly have not really considered much. It seems plausible that Brexit could have significant implications for the potential to do good in the UK. Perhaps this is something that should be discussed more.
Thanks for your comment, you’ve given me some things to think about!
I think that is fair, though as your situation is prety much exactly the unusual one I described I’d rather you asked someone with better knowledge, as in your case personal fit seems much less likely to dominate.
Yep fair enough. I probably should have given my personal situation up front.
Thanks for your thoughts though, still helpful.
I’m somewhat glad you didn’t, as I think your broader question is still a good one. Best of luck with your specific situation though!