I teach a graduate level class at Boston University on Political Risk. Throughout the semester, I am often asked about job prospects in the industry. This year, however, there were many more worried queries from my students.
The current recession is going to hit new graduates hard, regardless of their field of study. For anyone who wants to work in an industry that has traditionally provided expertise and insight to airlines, hotels, and oil companies, such as Political Risk, I expect that it will be especially problematic.
There is no way to immediately create the necessary number of new jobs for all of these graduates in Political Risk, but hopefully some of the points I enumerate below can help them increase their chances of landing one of the few available opportunities that do still exist.
1. Political risk is more than political risk
I started my career at Oxford Analytica, one of the few “pure” political risk firms. They, along with the Eurasia Group, Stratfor, and others, focus almost exclusively on political risk writ large. They are the first firms people often look to when seeking jobs in political risk. However, they are far from the only places people should explore.
The practice of political risk - analyzing and forecasting the present and future political and business environment - happens in many organizations, even if not their sole mission and focus. All Fortune 500 companies, most governmental departments, and many financial institutions have positions and employees dedicated to covering politics. They may be called “cybersecurity strategists”, “macro analysts”, or “policy planners”, but they are, effectively, in political risk roles.
My advice to newly minted graduates in the field is to try and identify any job posting whose description involves the same responsibilities that a political risk analyst would assume and apply there. Alternatively, pinpoint a company, firm or institution that you imagine is potentially subject to political risk, look for the executive or manager who would understand that risk, and find out if that team (if one exists) has any openings for someone with exactly the necessary educational and/or experiential qualifications to fill that need.
2. Hard skills help you stand out
My (admittedly anecdotal) experience is that most people in political risk come from a myopic political science, history, or international affairs background. Most analysts can give you a detailed explanation of the factors that led to the end of the Cold War. Far fewer can run a linear regression.
Since qualitative analysis is the basis of political risk, a facility with it may provide a needed advantage that a potential employer may value.
For example, if I were a prospective employer and two applicants had identical resumes, except that one also knew how to perform data science in Python, that skill would be the distinctive and decisive edge.
I might not have an immediate need for coding, but should anticipate that the next project might indeed require it. If there were a chance to expand the total skill set and expertise of what my firm has to offer, or to do a task in-house rather than contract it out, it would be a bonus that employee provides. The same logic applies to any talent or proficiency that might be beneficial: graphic design, language skills, econometric modeling, etc.
Take the time to develop competence in a field or discipline that will set you apart from the typical applicant and then stress that dexterity in your cover letter and interviews, whether in-person or online.
3. Business is often overlooked
Looking back on my own career, my biggest regret is that I did not spend more time early on learning the front and back-end business aspects of the profession.
The natural progression of any analyst is towards more and more client-facing work. This is especially true if you move into a consulting role as business development will be a large part of your job.
Unfortunately, most masters and doctoral programs in political science do not concentrate on this area and so knowledge about the various intricacies of “the business side” may be rudimentary.
For myself, I set up my own company completely confident in my ability to deliver political risk training workshops, but with far less of an idea about how to structure an email to anyone who could buy those workshops.
Do I start with “Hope this finds you well?” Does that sound too stilted? Does stilted sound more professional? Has it been too soon since the last email? What is inbound marketing? Is it better to do that or paid ads on Google?
This is the constant refrain of anyone I know who has started their own business. The core product - what they sell - is usually the easy part. It’s everything else, from choosing the right font for the logo to creating a sales funnel, that has to be learned in real-time. Any pre-existing business acumen is only an advantage.
4. Content < Structure
Upon completion of my Ph.D., the only advice I received before applying to risk firms was to read The Economist every week. That is necessary to be an analyst, but not sufficient.
The amount of knowledge that an analyst needs is immense. You can’t draw parallels between China’s rise today and Imperial Germany in the 1870s unless you know in depth about both.
Someone who is hired as a Sub-Saharan African analyst may have an erudite background from working in that region of the world but have to immediately learn enough about 48 other countries’ politics and economies so that people will pay for your thoughts and insights.
Nonetheless, this is a straightforward task. Eventually, a competent analyst will learn about all the names and places they need to know.
Much harder is learning how to structure that knowledge. Why was the Ebola outbreak able to be contained but allowed COVID-19 to become a global pandemic? How do you know if a law will pass or fail in Parliament? When is a risk of war something that merits a report to clients?
Learning how to turn knowledge into insight is the core challenge of an analyst (and is, incidentally, the core part of my training courses). Reading up about political forecasting, cognitive biases, and other analytical techniques is a great way to prepare for this.
5. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be
This may be a tangential, if not odd, point to include in a post on how to get a job, but you should also consider whether you even want it.
Political risk is a foreign concept to many students. They tell me that they are interested in a job in political risk because it seems cool, even if they don’t know exactly what the job entails.
The core aspect of political risk is advising decision-makers on what might happen in the world.
This could be a memo to your boss at a big multi-national corporation, or a report to a client, or a talk at a conference.
The best part of the job is that it’s constantly intellectually stimulating. Every day the world changes a little and you have to keep up with it. There’s always something else to read, consider, and debate.
But it can also be restrictive.
Maybe you want to be the decision-maker yourself. Even if the day-to-day is more boring, you would rather be in the client’s position with money on the line than just writing a report.
Maybe you want more immediate impact on the world. Political campaigns are brutally repetitive jobs (knocking on doors for 12 hours a day with the same 30-second script is not fun) but when your candidate wins you know that your efforts mattered and you were part of something bigger.
Or maybe you like the job of an analyst, but you really only care about climate change, or migration, or human rights. Then there is little sense taking a political risk job that will only partially touch on those things.
I’ve certainly enjoyed my time in political risk, and it’s allowed me to do some fascinating work. But it’s also a job, like any other job, with its own pros and cons.
I’ve gone outside of it (like teaching at BU and advising on political campaigns) to make up for what it is missing, but maybe that’s not sufficient for you.
This is not to dissuade anyone from taking a job in political risk, but it’s important to know what a job in this industry can and cannot offer.
Good luck to everyone looking for work in these tough times. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to chris@twolanterns.co.
If I can help point you in the right direction, I’m happy to do so.
About Two Lanterns
Two Lanterns Advisory is a political risk consultancy based in Boston, Massachusetts. For information on training courses in political risk, hiring a consultant, or commissioning reports, check us out at http://www.twolanterns.co.