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Finding Your Next Role

Finding Jobs

Well before you start applying for jobs, you should start regularly perusing jobs boards and joining email lists that’ll forward you relevant opportunities. This’ll do a few things for you:

It’ll give you a sense of what kind of jobs are out there and what qualifications they are looking for (for instance, if you want to work in progressive data, and you see that most job posts require you to know SQL, you should learn SQL!).

Most, but not all, job descriptions include salary ranges, so it’ll give you a sense of what kind of pay to expect and negotiate for.

It’ll give you a broad overview of the organizations working in this space. There’ll definitely be a bunch you haven’t heard of. If one seems cool, do some LinkedIn stalking and reach out to a relevant staffer for an informational interview.

If you’re getting a dozen emails a day with job postings, it’ll give you a bit of a kick in the pants to write cover letters, update your resume, and actually apply.

Finally, and most importantly, you might find a great job!

There isn’t one perfect database of all progressive jobs, but if you join the lists that are relevant to you, you should find a decent amount.

Some of these will require you to check them manually, but others (especially Jobs that are Left) will send out a bunch of emails a day. If you find this overwhelming,

you can create a filter in Gmail⁠

to send everything from those groups to a special folder.

Here are your options beyond our jobs channel. You should join all of the ones that make sense for you:

⁠

Arena Careers⁠

. It’s like LinkedIn for politics. You have to make an account, but the process isn’t too hard. There are always a few solid postings here, and the jobs that wind up here tend to be high-quality.

⁠

Social Enterprise Google Group⁠

. This group focuses on jobs related to social enterprise and social innovation so you’ll find anything from non-profit roles to corporate impact roles.

⁠

YNPN National Jobs List⁠

. YNPN Job List is for sharing nonprofit or social sector jobs, internship or volunteer opportunities across the country.

⁠

Campaignsick JobServe⁠

. A wonderful google group started and managed by Nancy Leeds. A great place to go for campaign and political consulting jobs (freelance and with firms). When you request to join, you should add a short note saying you heard of it through Progressive Pipeline (she’ll approve you faster if you include a note).

⁠

Daybook.com⁠

. This website focuses on political, policy, and non-profit jobs. You’ll often find government roles posted here that are not posted other places.

⁠

Union Jobs Clearinghouse⁠

. If you want to work for a union, this should be the first place you go. They usually have dozens of openings up in organized labor across the country.

⁠

Jobs that are Left⁠

is the biggest, best resource for jobs in progressive politics. You can click the link to join the Google Group and adjust notifications accordingly. Probably a dozen jobs are posted here a day, and they all include salary ranges.

⁠

Progressive Exchange⁠

is solid, too. They recently revamped the website and it looks great! It’s a mix of everything, so not all of the postings will be job-related, but I have seen a number of opportunities on here that don’t make it to bigger boards.

⁠

Black Beltway⁠

. For folks who identify as Black. Similar structure to Jobs that are Left.

⁠

Conexiones⁠

. For folks who identify as Latinx. Similar structure to Jobs that are Left.

⁠

Matt Lockshin's Job Board⁠

A great, free, constantly updated Google Doc with job opportunities. Check this often.

⁠

Re:Power Jobs⁠

. Very similar to Jobs that are Left, and pretty active. Also a Google Group / email list.

Data Ladies Alliance. For women and non-binary folks interested in progressive data. An amazing resource: has tons of job and training opportunities. Reach out if you are interested and I will put you in touch with someone who can nominate you to join.

⁠

Idealist⁠

. For social good jobs and internships. They charge organizations a small fee to post, so not everyone will throw stuff on here. Always worth a look.

⁠

Progressive Data Jobs⁠

. If you want a job in progressive data, tech, or analytics, they pretty much all wind up here. Check this frequently if that’s your calling. Super clean website, easy to use.

⁠

Higher Ground Labs⁠

. HGL is an incubator for for-profit companies that provide tech infrastructure for progressive groups. They have a jobs page for all of their portfolio companies. Most (but not all) of these jobs require some technical background.

⁠

Emily’s List Job Bank⁠

. Join this! Not restricted to women. They help amazing progressive pro-choice women get elected and staff up their campaigns.

These are some of the most active groups, but if you want to expand your search

check this out!⁠

⁠

Unfortunately, a lot of progressive orgs don’t post their jobs anywhere besides their websites. This is really annoying, and creates a lot of work on your end. Your best bet here is to keep a very simple Google Sheet where you paste the URL of the jobs page of any orgs that you come across that seem cool, and to check each page every couple weeks for roles that could be aligned with your background and experiences. It’s kind of a pain, but is the most reliable way of finding great roles.

Applying

The first thing to remember when applying is that your success rate does not matter, and it will be low. Most jobs do not require an extensive application, and, considering the amount of time you will spend at work over the coming years, it’s worth casting your net far and wide. Out of respect for the organizations’ time, you shouldn’t apply for jobs you absolutely wouldn’t want to take, but there’s no cost to submitting a bunch of applications. It’s much better to apply to fifty jobs and get one incredible offer than it is to apply to ten and get two mediocre offers.

You are going to run into an enormous amount of dumb shit: because hiring is generally not a priority for most organizations, the process is inevitably going to be really frustrating. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things to prepare for:

Employers will leave jobs posts open long after they’ve filled the position. This isn’t malicious, it’s just lazy.

Employers will ghost you after an interview. Again, this is rude and bad, but it probably will happen.

Employers will take weeks––or even months––to make an offer. Sometimes they do this because they’re really busy or disorganized, but generally it has to do with something beyond the hiring manager’s control that they’re not always at liberty to share. Staff budgets are usually dictated by an executive director, campaign manager, or other relatively high-ranking person who isn’t directly interviewing you, and, because they’re dependent on contributions from private donors, they’re constantly shifting. Waiting is super, super frustrating, but generally not indicative of your strength as a candidate.

Again, these are all bad! If you are hiring someone, you should not do this. But you should also ready yourself for this to happen so that you don’t become discouraged when it inevitably does. You can not stop employers from being dumb, but you can reduce the power that this stuff has over you by applying for as many jobs as humanely possible.

Qualifications are (usually) a wish list, not absolute requirements. Most of the time, organizations are willing to be flexible as long as you demonstrate passion and an ability to learn. Use common sense here: if they’re looking for someone with 15 years of organizing experience to manage 150 field staffers, you are probably not a fit. If the role requires you to know Python, SQL, and Ruby on Rails, and you can barely log into the VAN, it’s not worth your time to apply. But if they’re looking for two cycles of organizing experience and you only have one, or they need you to be able to use a piece of software that seems relatively learnable, you are probably still qualified. And, if you’re not, you won’t regret applying anyway. If they do hire you, they are certain that you will be able to get up to speed, even if you don’t meet every qualification on the list. They had lots of other qualified applicants, and they certainly won’t pick you unless they’re certain you can do the job.

If a job application requires you to fill out questions on a web form, write your responses in a Google or Word document and then copy and paste them into the form. This is important for two reasons:

Most of these forms won’t autosave your responses, so if your computer crashes, you accidentally close the tab, or you just want to take a day or two to think through your answers, you won’t lose your work.

Most employers aren’t that creative. If you’re applying to a lot of jobs (and you should be applying to a lot of jobs!), there’s no need to write a new answer each time. You’ll save a lot of time by having a bank of answers you can draw from and edit.

Finding Jobs

Applying

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