First of all I want to echo Denise and Louis—great work on putting in so many applications, that must have been really tough!
I think unfortunately there’s no clear rule of thumb for when to let go of your plan A, it depends a lot on your individual situation. For example people are very different in how unhappy the process of applying makes them, and also in how big a difference they feel there is between their plan A and their plan B. It does sound like you have quite a bit of evidence that it’s going to be really hard to get to work for an MP in the near term, and also that the process of trying is taking its toll on you, which makes me think it could be worth starting to think a bit more about your other options and whether there are any of those you feel good enough about to start applying to.
I think you needn’t think about working on your plan B as necessarily precluding your plan A. You could, for example, take a pause on applying for jobs with MPS jobs and focus on getting a different role that you’d be happy doing long term, with the plan of once you’re settled in that doing some more skill building and doing another round of applying to work with MPs. Or you might apply for just a couple of the politics roles you think you’re most likely to get, and alongside that apply to other types of roles.
You haven’t said anything about other options you’re considering. I wonder if there are other career paths that actually might be pretty appealing to you? For example if you were working in the civil service you’d still be an important part of the political process.
If you haven’t yet, you might consider asking some of the people who turned you down for feedback on why you didn’t get further in the process. It’s not always easy for people to provide, but it seems like it would be really useful for you to know if you should actually take the lack of offers as evidence that it isn’t as good a match for your skills as you thought, or if there’s simply one particular area you need to work on, or just that you were unlucky.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Michelle! I find your framing of the process of applying taking its toll on me particularly useful.
You haven’t said anything about other options you’re considering. I wonder if there are other career paths that actually might be pretty appealing to you? For example if you were working in the civil service you’d still be an important part of the political process.
Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m well-suited to the hierarchical, rigid culture of government. My parents and several of my close friends agree, and I was a bit underwhelmed when I spent a day shadowing a civil servant working in policy. Government is obviously a huge organisation, though. So I’m careful not to tar all policy roles in the civil service with the same brush.
Ultimately I care about working through political barriers to achieve policy change. MPs believe that they are not constrained by quality evidence in support of or in opposition to a policy. Rather, the bottlenecks (p.11) are that they lack the time to sift through the evidence, or the evidence contradicts the party line or their own ideology. Dislodging these bottlenecks could unlock so much value, and this problem seems to be a good fit for my strengths, if not my temperament.
Until now, I’ve been excelling in a marketing role in the private sector. So I need to consider whether I should push again on the civil service, or more unconventional roles that a) could make progress on the above or other means of improving government, b) make use of my professional experience, and c) are more suited to me (‘do-er’ personality, strong communication skills, do well in flat hierarchies and with uncertain projects). For several years now, I’ve also had a strong interest in starting a business, but (to me at least) this seems small fry compared to achieving policy change, improving how policy is made, or improving how government budgets are spent, as 80k has previously argued.
...it would be really useful for you to know if you should actually take the lack of offers as evidence that it isn’t as good a match for your skills as you thought, or if there’s simply one particular area you need to work on, or just that you were unlucky.
Thank you for the suggestion—I will definitely push for this more.
First of all I want to echo Denise and Louis—great work on putting in so many applications, that must have been really tough!
I think unfortunately there’s no clear rule of thumb for when to let go of your plan A, it depends a lot on your individual situation. For example people are very different in how unhappy the process of applying makes them, and also in how big a difference they feel there is between their plan A and their plan B. It does sound like you have quite a bit of evidence that it’s going to be really hard to get to work for an MP in the near term, and also that the process of trying is taking its toll on you, which makes me think it could be worth starting to think a bit more about your other options and whether there are any of those you feel good enough about to start applying to.
I think you needn’t think about working on your plan B as necessarily precluding your plan A. You could, for example, take a pause on applying for jobs with MPS jobs and focus on getting a different role that you’d be happy doing long term, with the plan of once you’re settled in that doing some more skill building and doing another round of applying to work with MPs. Or you might apply for just a couple of the politics roles you think you’re most likely to get, and alongside that apply to other types of roles.
You haven’t said anything about other options you’re considering. I wonder if there are other career paths that actually might be pretty appealing to you? For example if you were working in the civil service you’d still be an important part of the political process.
If you haven’t yet, you might consider asking some of the people who turned you down for feedback on why you didn’t get further in the process. It’s not always easy for people to provide, but it seems like it would be really useful for you to know if you should actually take the lack of offers as evidence that it isn’t as good a match for your skills as you thought, or if there’s simply one particular area you need to work on, or just that you were unlucky.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Michelle! I find your framing of the process of applying taking its toll on me particularly useful.
Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m well-suited to the hierarchical, rigid culture of government. My parents and several of my close friends agree, and I was a bit underwhelmed when I spent a day shadowing a civil servant working in policy. Government is obviously a huge organisation, though. So I’m careful not to tar all policy roles in the civil service with the same brush.
Ultimately I care about working through political barriers to achieve policy change. MPs believe that they are not constrained by quality evidence in support of or in opposition to a policy. Rather, the bottlenecks (p.11) are that they lack the time to sift through the evidence, or the evidence contradicts the party line or their own ideology. Dislodging these bottlenecks could unlock so much value, and this problem seems to be a good fit for my strengths, if not my temperament.
Until now, I’ve been excelling in a marketing role in the private sector. So I need to consider whether I should push again on the civil service, or more unconventional roles that a) could make progress on the above or other means of improving government, b) make use of my professional experience, and c) are more suited to me (‘do-er’ personality, strong communication skills, do well in flat hierarchies and with uncertain projects). For several years now, I’ve also had a strong interest in starting a business, but (to me at least) this seems small fry compared to achieving policy change, improving how policy is made, or improving how government budgets are spent, as 80k has previously argued.
Thank you for the suggestion—I will definitely push for this more.