Public Interest

How Do You Get A Public Interest Job?

The smallest thing could be the most important when it comes to securing a public interest job.

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How do you get a public interest job?

I’ve received a few emails that raise this question, generally within the context of the emailers’ particular circumstances. I’m not sure how much these circumstances actually matter — whatever the details, the emailers all seem to have qualifications that should eventually get them hired. So I’m going to tackle the question more broadly, offering what thoughts I can muster about finding a public-interest job based on my own experiences.

Let’s start with an obvious point: in order to get a public interest job, you need to develop a relevant skill set. Maybe less obvious is that in most public interest work, an important part of the skill set you’ll need to demonstrate is a familiarity with the legal and policy issues most germane to the type of organization you’re targeting. So let’s say your law school internship or post-graduation full-time experience is in civil legal services, but you eventually want to work on broader-impact civil liberties issues. You’ll need to build yourself a track record showing that interest: figure out ways you can reflect your aspirational work in your current work (in our civil-liberties hypothetical, maybe try to take a termination-of-parental-rights case up on appeal), put in some volunteer time with a local nonprofit that needs legal assistance (many ACLU affiliates have plenty for volunteer counsel to do), or maybe even write and publish a law review article. I did all these to make the transition to my current field, and they all helped.

When it comes to skill sets, also bear in mind that in a typical public interest job (outside civil legal services, that is) you might very well find yourself taking a deposition on Monday, drafting a statute on Tuesday, writing an op-ed on Wednesday, testifying as a legislative lobbyist on Thursday, and heading to court to argue a motion on Friday. So in preparing to land the job you want, you should never be shy about undertaking some new and unfamiliar form of advocacy if the opportunity presents itself — eventually you may well be doing it all.

Developing the necessary skill set only gets you so far, though. You’ll also need to sell that skill set to get the job. And résumés, cover letters, and interviews aren’t really the best media or fora for that kind of sales pitch — it can be tough or even impossible to squeeze all your careful experience-building and career-planning into a suitably brief cover letter, a cohesive resume, and a formal interview.

Given all that, here’s what I think is the most important thing for you to do: talk to people.

Canvas the field that interests you, identify interesting people who work in that field (and, ideally, have some hiring responsibility), and reach out to them. Not every connection will result in a job. But there’s a decent chance at least one will.

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Coming out of a term position, I submitted 40 applications for posted positions in target markets around the country. These were positions at organizations I admired and whose published qualifications I met. The applications did result in some interviews, but no job offers.

What did work, eventually? Coffee with a law school classmate.

That’s not to say that job applications are useless by any means. One place I’d applied told me they’d just hired someone else to fill the open spot — I was too late. But the hiring attorney was happy to meet for coffee simply to discuss her organization and the state of the field. The next time a position opened she asked me to meet up to discuss it and encouraged me to apply. The result was my current job, which I love.

So meeting for coffee can be a great way not only to learn about organizations or fields you might be interested in, but also to talk about your own experience and skills in a casual, conversational, and relaxed way. It’s tough for me to get much narrower than that. I’d love to tackle specific queries — say, environmental law opportunities in Madison, Wisconsin — in this column. But frankly it makes much more sense for you to reach out to someone at Midwest Environmental Advocates and, perhaps, someone at the University of Wisconsin Law School, explain your situation, make a coffee date, and meet up. Out of town? Visit anyway. After all, you do want to live there, don’t you? Or you could always attend a conference. (If you’re still a student, there may even be a conference, like this one at NYU, that’s designed to set you up with a job!)

Connect with the people you hope will be your future colleagues, learn the lay of the land from people who really know it, sell yourself a bit, and in the end you’ll stand a much better chance of being hired the next time a spot opens up.

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