<p>It has been a tough few years for graduates. I'm curious to hear from the IR grads. How tough is it out there? I'm confident that sharing your results would be of great help to those in the years behind you....</p>
<p>I finished a month ago and am yet to find employment. I’ve been sending out applications since last June/July, mostly in government. I know many others couldn’t find employment prior to graduation, but some did. Also, kind of hard to generalize for the whole field as we all have different skillsets (i.e. my focus was in security so I’m pretty much stuck with government at the entry-level point, but those with more economics background could work in the private sector and I know next to nothing about the market for NGOs). I’m not one to recommend against pursuing an IR degree, but the one recommendation I’d make is to really weigh your options financially. I know people in this field often have this “it’s not all about the money” mindset, but having to pay off the name brand (which, who knows how good that is) for an extra 10 years than if you went with a cheaper option really starts to hit home when you’re done with school.</p>
<p>Flyers,</p>
<p>Where did you study, if you don’t mind me asking? Are your classmates having trouble finding employment as well?</p>
<p>I’m graduating in May and I’ve been working full-time since last August (I got the job through an internship I did at the same place, a cool NGO in DC). As for the majority of my classmates, I think the layout looks something like this - those who started pursuing internship and career opportunities early on (first-second semester) are all lined up with jobs. Those who didn’t are still looking. There are, of course, exceptions, and it sometimes comes down to blind luck. Keep in mind that MA programs offer a lot of “fun” things (study abroad, etc), but those things come with opportunity costs.</p>
<p>I went to Denver. I couldn’t tell you how many students had employment lined up on the whole, but it certainly didn’t seem to constitute the majority (but I certainly knew of people who did). Like I said though, I can only speak for my personal situation as our different programs led to different fields.</p>
<p>And kigali makes a great point. Internships that allow you to make connections are a relative goldmine these days.</p>
<p>Any type of internship is a goldmine. Are you trying to find work in Denver or in other places as well?</p>
<p>I’ve actually relocated “home” to Florida for the time being, but looking everywhere. And willing to take just about anything besides being a janitor for now.</p>
<p>And just one comment about internships from personal experience. I interned at State last year (which is considered pretty competitive to get into), but in all reality it doesn’t yield much in connections as most of their positions are filled either by Foreign Service Officers or people who came in through the Presidential Management Fellowship program. So I’m actually thinking that interning at some random think tank no one’s ever heard of couldn’t really do you any worse, and if anything will give you a lot more exposure with different people from different organizations.</p>
<p>Hiring in the State Department is pretty incestuous and hiring for the federal government in general is a three ring circus so I’m not surprised you’ve had some issues with that.</p>
<p>Truer words have not been spoken re: the three-ring circus procedure. I’ve been following my friends’ application processes and I’m amazed by the general ridiculousness of it all. </p>
<p>My best advice for current interns is as follows: do backflips. Introduce new ideas. Make friends with the staff, seek out those who may be looking for assistants in the near future, keep your finger on the pulse of the organization - listen (but don’t eavesdrop!) to what the staff are talking about, figure out what makes them tick, where the organization is headed, what kinds of connections they have. Use all of that to chart your course. If you know a staff member is about to take another job, casually approach that staff member’s supervisor and ask if they’ll need any help. At a minimum you’ll make a good impression, at a maximum you’ll get a job. Neither is a bad thing :)</p>
<p>So, it seems you are all saying that internships are extremely important. (But nothing is a guarantee) Did your university have a well developed career center or networks to specifically help the IR grads?</p>
<p>Flyers29: I am sorry that you have not found a job yet. Intelligence Securities and a State Department Internship sounds impressive. How much do you feel that the school’s name or location assists in future job employment?</p>
<p>Seekingknowledge - mine does (SIS), but I’ve never used it because I lucked out. I did, however, seek the advice and mentorship of a professor I knew had worked with the organization I was interested in, and he was an amazing source of support for my original internship application. </p>
<p>The thing about career centers is that they won’t actually get you a job, but they’ll (provided they’re good at what they do) give you advice, support and the tools you’ll need to get an interview. Once you’re at that stage, it’s all up to you, of course. It is kind of surprising to hear people say, “well, the career center didn’t do anything for me…”, because the career center isn’t supposed to do anything FOR you. You do the actual <em>doing</em>, the career center’s there to answer questions and guide you in the right direction.</p>
<p>P.S. In regards to the location issue, I think the biggest “pro” for any school in DC (or NYC, for that matter) is that should an opportunity arise out of the blue, as it did for me, you’re automatically “at the right place at the right time”. I started interning in the spring of my first year and continued through the summer, and had I been attending school elsewhere, I wouldn’t have had the option of pouncing on the opportunity to take a job that’d opened up at this organization in mid-summer because I would’ve still had to move back to school (and jobs don’t wait around for you, as a general rule).</p>
<p>seekingknowledge: I personally don’t think name really means that much. I kind of knew that going in (I did have an interview where they had many prospective candidates come interview on the same day, and you had a spectrum of people ranging from the top schools to Directional State University) but took the risk anyway. I think I saw it from a “not necessary, but sufficient” perspective in terms of gaining employment. I also haven’t been too impressed with my school’s career center…while kigali’s right in that it’s ultimately up to you to get where you want to be, I found it a bit strange that they put more energy into helping students find internships than jobs that might be a bit harder to find.</p>
<p>Flyers - if that’s the case regarding the internship/job search assistance situation, that’s really unfortunate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of a specific internship search event at SIS, the focus has really been on jobs (through career fairs, individual counseling, alumni panels, networking events & so forth).</p>
<p>Well let me clarify one thing–they do have these two “career connections” trips you can go on during the year (one to DC, one to NYC/Boston). Of course, that costs money and as I didn’t go on them I can’t comment to how worth it they may be. They also have a site you can login to where they list jobs (some of which I’ve come across through my own searching). Nonetheless, I still found the services for job-seekers to be pretty lacking, especially as I think the bells and whistles are a big part of the reason we pay the big bucks to go to these schools.</p>