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Making it in DC and Beyond

Washington DC, July 14, 2015


Moderator: Negar Razavi: social anthropologist, PS21 global fellow
Ali Wyne: member of the adjunct faculty, RAND Corporation
Kathryn Floyd: visiting lecturer, Department of government, College of William &
Mary
Darya Pilram: field anthropologist/social scientist with US Military. Current lecturer
at University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies, Fort Leavenworth
Sarah Arkin: senior policy adviser to Congresswoman Debbie Wasseman Schultz

Negar Razavi: No one will judge you but we are being live streamed right now, so
if there are any juicy bits, you can see it again, you can watch it on YouTube. We're
also going with the hash tag FPinDC if you want to follow the conversation. I want
to make this rather informal because I think this is a really right topic and I think I
would want to hear more from you guys and I think the speakers really want to hear
your questions as well. We have four people who have made it in various ways at
home and they're probably not that much older than you guys so they can give you
up-to-date information and are not talking about four decades ago on how to make
it in Washington, this is very recent information.
So just very briefly I am going to tell you their name their titles and then we're
going to jump into Q&A. So right to my left is Sarah Arkin, senior policy adviser to
Congresswoman Debbie Wasseman Schultz where she works on foreign policy,
health policy, etc. Now we have Ali who is an adjunct faculty at RAND and soon to
be graduate student at Harvard, congratulations. Then we have Kay who is a
dissertation PhD student in strategic studies and is currently a lecturer at William
and Mary. Her dissertation focuses on youth violence and homegrown terrorism in
the US. Then I have Darya Pilram who is a field social scientist teaching applied
critical thinking and red teaming(?), which I have no idea what that means so youre

going to have to explain it, at University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at
Fort Leavenworth and she's here in DC teaching a class at the Pentagon as well.
So I want to start with Kay because I get a lot of questions from young people about
going to PhD programs. I think when you immediately graduate from undergrad
there's a scary feeling of not being within an academic environment and a lot of
people panic and say, Should I immediately be going into graduate school, and
sometimes people getting a Masters say, Do I need to be going getting a PhD and
so we have somebody who has pursued that path who is also the other things,
including consulting and some policy work. Can you tell us why he chose to get a
PhD in and what youre hoping to do with it?
Kay Floyd: Well, the choice to get a PhD and have this somewhat asymmetrical
career trajectory is a lesson of being haphazard at best. I did go fairly straight away
to my master's degree and then I went to work for the International Institute for
Strategic Studies for a number of years doing a mix between research and strategic
communications on some of the international conferences and it was through one of
those really big conferences that I got to know a lot of reputable scholars in the
terrorism radicalization communities and they were familiar with both my academic
work and my general interest and we just got to know each other in a networking
type capacity. I was at the Asia security summit in 2008 where someone that I very
much respected in the field sat down and asked me, Have you ever thought about
getting a PhD? and I said no, and probably did some awkward giggle thing because
Im deeply honest with you when it comes to my personal stories. So I went back to
think about it, sat down, and decide, you know what, I;m going to go for it; Im
going to take this challenge that is ahead of me. I sat down and applied. Its a very
international, hybrid program that's run through Rajaratnam School of International
Studies so it's phenomenal in the sense that they bring in Professor Bruce Hoffman
from Georgetown University to teach about terrorism and bring in the leading
experts on maritime security from King's College London. Its that model if you
want an international education, let's bring in all those people rather than see whos
around or who can we find to recruit? I suppose one of the most honest answers to
your question about why I initially, and Im going to say initially, chose to pursue a
PhD is they offered me a full ride and said that you get live in Paris but it afforded
me the opportunity to stay very involved in my studies and academic interests and
it opened the door. To teaching at a top university like the College of William and
Mary, which really wasn't part of the plan 21 or 22. I did not fancy myself to be an
academic but its been phenomenal because I can keep a hand in consulting,
because public education doesnt pay that well, and continue with my research
interests and try to figure out what is going to happen

Razavi: Great, well Im going to switch to Ali now. You're heading into graduate
training at this point but youve done policy research at a number of different
institutions and think tanks and now with Iran, so what skills did you need and what
skills did you develop in the course of working at these various organizations?
Ali Wyne: I think one is the ability to synthesize information quickly and I think I
learned this particular skill because I spent two and a half, three years, at the
Development Center for International Affairs?? You could call it a think tank, I guess,
but its a research hub at the Kennedy School and as part time job when I came in, I
came with certain topics that I knew about such as China-US relations in particular
but a big art of the job was becoming an expert, so to speak, that I had no prior
knowledge and so a very typical assignment would be, and I imagine we all had this
experience in different capacities, but the assignment was you get a phone call
from the boss that goes Ali, I need you to put together a memo in light of todays
deal, a timeline on nuclear diplomacy with Iran, what are the pitfalls, what are the
major achievements.
So you have to get up to speed very quickly and so I think the ability to synthesize
information very quickly and also the ability, when youre approaching new terrain,
where do you get started or how do you get started? What I try to do if I am
approaching a topic, particularly on a crunch time, first, what are the basic facts and
go to Wikipedia. I know it has a bad rap, but going to Wikipedia just for the basic
facts and going to other think tank institutes that have primers on topics Im not
aware of and they give you the basic facts. Step two is who are the authoritative
voices on this topic and looking at what they have to say? Three, building off of
that, what is the state of the debate on the topic and I think that one you get your
basic facts, look at the authoritative voices are you looking to the state of debate is
then at least it gets you to the point where you can have an intelligent
conversation. It doesnt make you an expert but it would allow you to at least
respond to what my boss was saying. I think the ability to synthesize information
can make you an expert, so-to-speak, quickly.
a and experts as even an issue quickly
I think it's very important to be able to look at the whole spectrum of arguments in
an issue. Sometimes you can take that to the extreme such that when someone
asks what your own opinion is, and your instinct is to say, Well, there are ten
different sides to this issue and Im not really sure which one is really my own
preference. I think it is important now, particularly in DC where debates are so
much more polarized and ideological and a lot of people say my argument is right
and its self-evidently correct and theres no other way about it. I think the ability, if
you want to engage in a healthy and constructive policy debate, to be able to

understand why people who are looking at the same data can render very different
judgments. So why dont I just leave it at that and say those are just a few skills.
Razavi: So related to that I'm going to go next to Darya. There's a push for
quantification data nowadays. You see a lot of push in graduate school to be able to
understand big data sets and qualitative data has sort of been pushed to the side.
So I'm curious, as a qualitative researcher, how you are able to carve a space for
yourself and what is the value of doing embedded field research with the military?
Darya Pilram: Qualitative research is really is really interesting to me because its
my nexus of natural curiosity of how things work and quantitative tells you what's
going on. It can give you trends of things moving up, down, and around. Qualitative
is boots on the grounds: why is this happening? Why are the numbers going up?
Why are they going down? Where are the connections? Where can you look for
gaps in the system and opportunities throughout that system to make positive
change or effects? What can you monitor for negative effects? I absolutely love it
because its messy. You have to be comfortable with messy, chaotic data. Youre
dealing with people and people tell you all sorts of stuff. You have to be willing you
go out there and get the interviews, analyze patterns, look for patterns, and be
naturally curious about why thats happening.
Working with the military, it wasnt my natural inclination. I was a State
Department intern in college, so diplomacy and soft power were really big when I
was a senior in college. The thing about moving into the defense realm for me was
finding opportunities where you could find insights to bring to the table, data-driven,
decision-making processes. At the time when I was an intern at the State
Department, soft power was just coming into play in a big way. Im from San
Francisco but I came out here and was in the Bush administration, which in itself
was a cultural playground for me. When I went back to school, we had a diplomat in
residence, so I tried to stick to the State Department route, found out we had a local
diplomat resident, checked him out, and he was running a one credit course on
rewriting the national security strategy. I rewrote it from a soft power standpoint
and just fell in love with this opportunity to bring those types of insights into
diplomacy and the security realm
When he comes the military, the only thing I love about it that its highly
regimented and very somewhat static system depending on which parts and which
branches of the military youre working in. Why do I like that as a qualitative
researcher? Because I love navigating through those messy environments. So
when you have a static, bureaucratic organization, if you're happy the chaos,
unknowns, and pushing boundaries, then you know where the boundaries and you

know how to start navigating your way through that. The military really appreciates
having those insights and alternate perspectives which is really where I find myself
today.
Razavi: Sarah, just as a background I know Sarah pretty well. I may give some
insight, tidbits, about her but you [Sarah] lived in the Middle East and worked as a
journalist and photojournalist. You worked at state and now youre on the Hill. How
did your experiences abroad, in the field, help you in the policy world?
Sarah Arkin: So the first thing I always tell people who want to get into foreign
policy who are coming right out of undergraduate is that there is nothing that can
substitute field experience. I say this jokingly, but I dont mean studying abroad for
a semester, which I did and it was really fun. Having substantive experience abroad
is something you cannot replicate anywhere else. I think it has really informed my
ability to take all of the stuff that Ive had subsequent So right after college, I got
a fellowship and was working as a photojournalist in Israel and the West Bank. I
then came back and was doing some journalism in Southern Virginia, which also
counts as field experience in that youre on the ground, engaging with people and
not sitting in a think tank or a university. Then in 2012, I had a foreign fellowship
and I was studying Arabic in Cairo and happened to be there during a very
tumultuous and interesting time. I also was an intern at the State Department and
my experience abroad definitely helped me get that internship in the first place.
Being in the Civil Service at the State Department, you don't have the opportunity
to go abroad and get different postings like Foreign Service does. Unlike many civil
servants I had more experience abroad coming back and it was really useful really
and insightful and even now in my job where I'm not directly in the foreign policy
community in the same way, even just the two instances that I have living in the
Middle East set me apart from a lot of people who work in the space that I do. It's
really insightful and really helpful when I do engage with the policy heavy
community that really now doesn't look at me as someone very policy oriented. I
do have that experience abroad and I do come with these a little more gravitas
when Im talking about these issues. There are a lot of different ways you can do
that; starting to teach English abroad and working for something from that.
Razavi: Hopefully, when you guys are asking questions, you can get more specific
about each one of their experiences. But I wanted that to be them laying out their
experiences rather than reading off your bios. I think that was much more helpful.
So now going into my more substantive questions, and I do want to emphasize that
each of these individuals is speaking on behalf themselves as individuals and are
not representing any institutions or public officials. So I wanted to ask you guys this

rather counter-intuitive question at an event called Making it in DC, can you tell us
an instance where you failed and what you learned from that experience. I think a
lot of times, people are daunted by these people who are super successful,
amazing, and wonderful and you think everything was easy for them, but I think it's
very helpful and honest to talk about instances where you were not successful. We
can start with Ali.
Wyne: I think it's really important question. There are so many times when I didnt
make it that I could choose from that its hard to choose. We were talking about
one earlier and I find it has some communal value so Ill share that. Its also
illustrative of the fact that, one, when you look at someones resume, there isnt a
section about your failures. You should remember when you look at peoples
resumes, when you look at their biographies, omitted from those are many detours,
many wrong turns, or many instances when things didnt go right. Also,
increasingly, peoples paths are not linear. People go from one sector to another,
they go from one profession to another. So again, there is certainly something to
recommend in having a general sense in where you want to go but you can also get
too rigid and say, I have to get this position or I have to get this internship.
Anyhow, I'll go back to attack my college days and this was when I had a sense that
I wanted to go into the think tank community and I was toying with the idea of going
into academia as well. At the time, I wasnt actually applying to think tanks, I was
applying to consulting and finance firms, not because I had any background in
consulting or financing, but because many of my friends were landing internships at
the big companiesMcKinsey, Baine, BCDand I wanted to be cool like one of my
friends. This is my senior year and I had come back from a research stint and I
recently interned at the Developer Center and I didnt actually appreciate how
important that connection and brief internship my junior year summer would be
because thats where I ended up working full-time a couple of years later.
So I came back my senior year, and you know, youre talking with people about
what you did that summer and I heard through the grapevine that an acquaintance
of mine landed a very coveted internship at DE Shaw. I still dont know exactly what
DE Shaw does, and this is part of the lesson because when you apply, you should
have a sense of what the company actually does. Its basically for people who are
extremely quantitative and very much aware of the intersection finance and
technology. So I go to the DE Shaw website and I submit my resume and much to
my surprise I get an email back saying wed like to interview you on the phone. I do
the phone interview and then I was very stunned. I got a call from the same
recruiter saying wed like for you to come up to Manhattan and interview with us
and I thought this was going way better than I would expect. In retrospect, my

suspicion for why they picked me for an interview is not because they thought I was
qualified, they were intrigued by someone who was so woefully unqualified was
applying.
I go up to Manhattan, very excited for this interviewI thought it was going to be an
interview, but it was actually eight interviewsand the first interview starts off fine,
you know, Ali, tell me about your background, what did you study in college? What
kind of activities do you do? It was going fine and at the end of the interview, the
interviewer said, We have a couple minutes left, can you tell me how many cars
there are in the world? Its one of those brain teasers. He gave a marker and a
whiteboard and told me to show him my thinking. Sometimes you just fake it until
you make it if theres utter terror in your heart but you want to show confidence and
I said Sure with a big grin on my face and I took the marker and drew a few cars
on the whiteboard. It was a disaster.
The next interviewer, we had a shorter conversation. He asked me, Ali, do you
even know what DE Shaw does? The night before I had gone to DE Shaws About
Us page and I memorized the mission statement and I just spat it out verbatim and
he said, Well, I know that, its on our About Us page. What can you explain to me
what that means? So basically, it was comically disastrous but at least for me it
had a useful lesson. Sometimes having an interview experience that bad is actually
very clarifying and I remember coming out of there thinking, You know, what am I
doing here? I dont know what the company does and Im here for the wrong
reasons. I applied to DE Shaw, not because I even know what the company does or
am genuinely invested in the work that they do, but because I thought it would be a
cool addition to my resume. It was so bad that it was actually clarifying and said to
myself that from now on, if I apply for a job or internship, you have to like what you
do. You have to be passionate about you do. There are some people who can
contrive passion for a little bit longer but Im one of these people if Im not really
engaged by what Im doing, I can maybe do it for a few days.
It was very useful to me in that from that point on, Im going to apply to think tanks,
policy type positions, things that Im genuinely interested in and Im passionate
about the work, and well see where that goes. I gave that example because the
day that interview happened, it was really demoralizing but it was very clarifying
because I actually look at that experience in retrospect that happened in 2008 and
think that it was actually very pivotal for me in terms of saying that I definitely
wont go down this route, Im going to go down this route. It was a bad experience
that day, but I think it actually instructive.

Arkin: My senior year of college, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I
decided that applying to the Masters Program was the best solution and I put all
this time, I got all these recommendations, and I went to the interview. During the
interview, she asked me a very simple question, What do you want to do and why
is this degree going to help you? I came up with something on the spot but I came
out of the interview like, I dont know! I didnt get in and it was great because it
was the same sort of thing where I shouldnt have gotten in and I didnt know what I
was going to get out of that and it made me refocus.
I have this memory in Kindergarten and tearing this childrens book author and this
is stuck with me. He brought acceptance letters of all the books he had written,
which were about five, and then he pulled out a stack of papers which were
rejection letters. That has stuck with me through adulthood, now, and I feel that the
electronic version of that is going through your Gmail and going through all your job
applications that you sent and theyre all sent from me with no responses. I think
its easy to forget how devastating that can fell when youre sending applications all
over the place and you pour in your heart and soulno one likes writing cover
letters, it is horrible! You just have to go through it. There are some people who get
their job right out of college that sets them on that path and theyre very clear
about what they want to do going forward. Ive been all over the place, and I think
just remembering how miserable those couple of months were and those few weeks
where you dont hear anything back that is important but it forces you to go forward
and think about creative ways to make money or creative ways to exercise the
things that you like to whether its writing, whether its talking, ect it forces you to be
a little bit more creative in how you pursue them.
Pilram: Its pretty similar to have youve already heard. I had a disastrous
consulting firm interview situation not at all unlike yours, halfway through I was like,
What am I doing here? and I had to draw something on the board, something to
do with cars, but it was a different firm. Same thing, it was grueling, it was like
eight different interviews and I was running out of things to say. I was asking them
questions and thats something thats very important too. You should go in,
knowing exactly what your core, key values are. I sit down every couple of years
and think about this; am I an office person? Am I field person? Am I okay with
unknowns and grueling travel schedules or do I need consistency and stability? I
dont create consistency and stability so halfway through the interview, theyre
telling me, Are you prepared to put in ten hours a day? Well feed you and we do all
these fun things, but basically youll be sitting in this beautiful office for ten plus
hours a day. I was sitting there and thought, What am I doing? I wouldnt even
want this job. Of course at the end I got the thank you so much for applying, it
wasnt a fit.

That, along with the government system, applying for jobs is absolutely grueling.
Theres a science to it and if youre not a preselected, shoe-in candidate, then
youre going to work hours and days of work to get things to fit in perfectly for the
job description. I know well probably talk about this later, but networking and other
ways to use your time to build your credibility and figure out what it is really that
you want to do instead of waiting for someone to reject you. Be proactive and
figure out what you want and be the one that fits that.
Floyd: I have two, one thats very brief. You all might be experiencing a lot of
academic success if youre still in undergrad or graduate school and you often get
research assistants with professors, and then theres going to be that time when
you really go out on a limb, and you have that crisis of confidence. And Ill share my
experience of that with you. When I was 20 I went over and worked for the Thai
judiciary in the north of Bangkok. And my logic at the time, and Ill be very honest
with you, was Ive lived in London, thisll be easy they speak some English! and I
did, to my credit, ask before I got on the plane, do I need to know how to speak
Thai? and the answer was not, and that was just a lie. So I ended up living in the
suburbs of Bangkok working for some decently impressive people, where thankfully
they did mainly need my English language skills. But I was so overwhelmed and I
had my first true professional crisis of confidence, can I do this? Am I going to make
it? that I ended up sitting outside of Aunty Annes getting my lemonade and my
pretzel and bawling my eyes out in downtown Bangkok. I had a real moment of
revisiting. And that taught me to really evaluate anxiety and fear and say is this
something that Im legitimately interested in thats worth it, or should I go home?
And I did decide to stick it out, but that was the real painful lesson, I lost my
confidence, how do I pick myself and move forward. And the lesson if you can do
that and move forward. But on a professional level, where Ill talk about failure a
little later on, I ran the press corps for a strategic communications group and ran a
number of international conferences, this particular story comes from one that was
in Bahrain. When you organize a big conference and youre part of a team, you want
the newspaper articles to say your name, its kind of a big thing. And my boss, who I
respected enormously, came marching in to the conference room at about 7am into
the press room where Im there writing press releases and liaising with journalists,
and throws down the New York Times and shows me an article where they had
written a very long article on the conference and not mentioned our name. and part
of my job is to do strategic communications and PR and to try and get our name in
the paper. So I went to the journalist who was one of the 370 or so in attendance
and just said can you correct the online version? Can you use our name? Thatd be
really great, we spent a lot of time and money to bring everyone together, we are
the conveners, this conference wouldnt happen without us. And the journalist, and
he has every right to do so, said that it wouldnt fit, theyd have to take out editorial
content and they needed to focus on the substantial issues. And that taught me a
number of really important lessons in failure. One is youre not going to get
everything you ask for and you need to respect journalistic integrity, and they were
very polite, but sometimes the answer is going to be no. It taught me the

importance of cultivating real relationships with people so that I can walk up and
ask for a favour, and its not because Im schmoozing or Im calling in things where I
dont have the credibility to do so and it also taught me, again in the kind of fear
column of going to the boss and saying so, Im not going to be able to do this and
the ability to manage up as well as down and to not get fired for something because
you can turn to relationships that one had built. At the exact same conference I was
able to walk up to the gentleman from the BBC and say please put our name back in
and because I had a real relationship with that individual, in 30 seconds he had it
corrected. This is something that kind of came out of the hierarchy. So, quality
relationships with people you actually care about, that youre not going to waste
their time and being able to tell the boss no sometimes and respecting that you are
not going to get your way.

Razavi: This is a perfect sideway to what I was going to next ask. Yes, exactly. What
type of food to eat when you have failure? No, but one of the things I teach young
people at the university and I interact with a lot of their fears and one of their
concerns is, there are just so many qualified people. There are so many people. I
have heard this a thousand times. There are so many people - who look exactly like
me. Right. They studied Arabic, they did a semester abroad at AUC, they did an
internship in Washington one summer, right. How am I going to get a full time job?
How do I set myself apart? So Im going to throw this out there. How do you really
make a name for yourself in this extremely competitive environment where theres
a lot of amazing, talented people? And how do you network in a way that doesnt
make you an ass whole? How do you network effectively? So, anyone can jump at
that.

Floyd: Actually some of my students are in the room, so I can give a little bit of
feedback on that front. One of my big pieces of advice in terms of how to set
yourself apart from the 300 plus resumes that some fairly junior person has to go
through in one night and then hand to their boss. This might seem incredibly
simplistic but a mere coma out of place when you have that overworked, really tired
person who isnt getting any extra money is looking for any reason whatsoever,
even if its a real job and not an internship, to put you in the no pile. Any reason, so
you must be perfect. And Im also willing to offer resume samples, and cover
samples after this, if anyone wants to see, thats fine. The second thing that I find
sets people apart on their applications is to have something really kind of unique
and quirky that is genuine. So I enrolled in Thai classes after learning I needed to
speak it. And I got a lot of call backs in the immediate years after graduation
because that was something weird and different, but legitimate. Not I did it quite
because I thought I needed to take it. I have a lot of students coming to me and
saying, Im going to learn Mandarin to help me get a job. And I say to them, Are
you interested in taking that?, because otherwise its really not going to
materialise, in my opinion, the way that you think it will. And when it comes to
networking, especially because theres a reception or ten every single night in DC,
and if you are in the job hunt and youre beginning to be panicked, youre probably

going to walk up to anyone and start talking to them. Well, if you are interested in
what they have to say or just interested in having a human connection, thats
alright, but it is so transparent, so awkward if youre just there to get their business
card. And some people, I dont do this but some people do, pretend not to have one.
Ah, I dont have one, but Ill take yours and Ill definitely send you an email or call
you. Sometimes theyre not lying to you but a lot of the times they are. To be
genuinely interested in the person, and if the conversation isnt working out, its fine
to make a polite exit and just say, you know it was so nice to talk with you. Im
going to go grab a drink. Theyre going to appreciate you not wasting their time. If
there is a dream job or internship you have, I find there are two ways you can really
put in the legwork. One is to start reaching out to that organisation or someone in
particular that you admire. Maybe even a full year ahead of time. Set those cards
up. Now this has to be a dream. I would never turn this down if I were offered it. And
I have a young man right now who is interning over at the National Defence
University and he came to me and said a full year before it was due, I want to do
this. How do we do this? And we figure out a good kind of mentor or someone that
he could super transparently just say I love what you do and I would just like to
know who you are so that when his application was in many months later the
gentleman knew who he was. He was already on top of the pile and that person
reading all those applications knows if I offer it to him, hes taking it. Hes going to
work his ass off for me and really just kind of set it apart. And dont be afraid to put
in a whole lot of effort, genuine effort. The first dream internship I ever landed, and
it was in college, over winter break, I made 60 different applications and lined them
all up and Mum got to veto countries that I wasnt supposed to go to and sent them
off and kind of just followed them up one by one. Now that is overkill and Ive
alluded to how detail oriented I am now, but if youre going to put in the leg work
and youre going to do the follow up, its going to be hard work. And out of those 60
I sent off, three called me, one offered me the internship. That is luck, not skill, but I
got my number one choice, right, now we can all do math. Thats luck, but that has
set the career trajectory for probably the next eight years. That was a bit long
winded, I apologise, but I do teach this to my students.

Arkin: I would just say another thing. Im sure youre all really smart and know a lot
of things about things, but a lot of times, and its really frustrating to have a
conversation about unpaid internships. No task is too small and do it with a smile.
Its no fun to make the coffees and to go run the errands, but if you need to make
yourself valuable, and a lot of times the staff that youre working for and with are
overburdened and they have a lot going on and you being there helping with the
tasks with a smile and doing it graciously means so much because it really shows.
And most of the time, and if youre working for someone whos respectful and
understands what the value you bring is, they know and theyll acknowledge that
what youre doing is way above your non-pay grade and even so, no task is too
small, and you never know how thats going to play out in a longer term. Its just so
important to do every task graciously. And just dont be an asshole. You are in
competition, to a certain extent, with everyone youre around with, but dont be a
jerk because that person who youre sitting next to for your internship today, could

get a job at a place that you want to work tomorrow. And that person could be your
next ticket. That person could introduce you to someone else who might hire you for
another job. So be respectfully competitive, but acknowledge that you do have to
be competitive but you dont want to do it in a way thats going to paint you in a
bad light in the future.

Razavi: Do you guys want to add anything?

Pilram: Yeah. I made a list of my top ideas. First of all, Im not lazy, Im efficient.
There is now way that I would have ever done 60 applications. I picked the ones I
really, absolutely couldnt live without. And Im not detail oriented, so if my twin
sister is, so if shes watching, she is. Shes a film producer, Im not, so I have to be
really careful, and I rely really heavily on personal relationships, because thats
where my passion is. I love people. I love figuring out what makes people tick,
where the systems are
Alright, heres my list. First of all, having a genuine curiosity for how things work
and building relationships with people based on your passion. So I was a surfer, and
then a sailor, so joining a yacht club. Out here in DC I was in the surf rider
foundation and I volunteered on the weekends and met really cool people. So Ive
always met people outside of the cocktail parties because I was doing stuff I love
doing. And everyone has hobbies, everyone on the Hills got a hobby doing
something, probably sailing. So if those are things you like to do, youll meet people.
Youll meet people at the gym, youll meet people through your spin class, youll
meet people at yoga, youll meet people surfing. So Im always doing the things I
love doing and come to find out theres really interesting people doing it too.
Another one. I dont go to happy hours unless Ive already identified people that I
want to meet up with. So the people I want to meet up with, and Im looking for
them while Im there, so Im never standing there by myself or cold call introducing
myself to people whose cards I want. Im there because Ive already emailed or
linked in with people and said, Hey, this event looks interesting. Do you want to
meet there? And then theyll probably introduce you to other people that they
know. So I tend not to fly into a happy hour without knowing at least a couple of
people in friendly fire that Im going to aim for. Find your tribe, so kind of like that
passion. This is the anthropologist in me speaking out. I know the people I like
spending my time with and the types of people. Theres all different types. So who
are the people that actually you really want to have a conversation with, not just
schmooze with. What are you interested in? Who do you want to talk to? Help
people through networking. Most of my networking is finding connections for other
people. So theyre not even for me. Ill be listening, and again Im a systems thinker,
Ill hear someone say something about anything. Oh, I want to get into xy or z and
Ill think of four or five people in my brain rolodex that are doing that who I can say,
hey so and so copied in the cc line, we met at this place, and theyre interested in
that. And that persons like thanks. And you become known as someone who can
connect people. And being a connector is just as important as being connected.

Offer something they need. Alright, so this is the last one Ill share. Again, systems
thinking, be something different than they already have. Look for something they
might need. If its a quantitative place, where could you offer qualitative expertise
or assistance? Or attempt a different perspective than what they already have. And
be in a different place. You know, I did my rotation through DC and thought that I
wanted to do anything I could to come back to DC, but Im from California. And I got
my start in defense at the naval post graduate school completely by accident. And I
found out that by being out at MPS, anyone who wanted something of interest from
DC would go via us because they wanted to go golfing out at Pebble Beach. Right,
so I didnt need to be in DC. In fact I climbed much quicker being outside of the
bubble of DC, because I wasnt completing with anyone. I was the only one who
looked like me, who was doing what I was doing, who was gung-ho about it. So now
Im in Kansas City working at Fort Leavenworth but Im out here teaching at the
Pentagon. So Im still in without having to be here and Im enjoying being outside of
that competition for now.
Razavi: If you dont mind Ali, Im going to skip over you as the supreme leader of
the panel and open it up to questions and if you could jump in at any point and add.
Yeah, so I will open it up to questions for you guys, or if you have comments on
anything thats been said here. Otherwise I have more questions for the panel.

AUDIENCE - I have a question because I think we talked about how to make it and
how not to make it. How some people fake it and become successful in DC. How to
avoid actually making it, not faking it.

Razavi: Ali, since I skipped over you last time.

Wyne: Its difficult. And I guess it may seem like an evasive answer, but Im going
to answer your question by actually bringing in a few points from my answer to your
earlier question. I think one very important point is, and I think all of you have
alluded to this, is making your indispensable. And whether that is running errands
or doing certain tasks that you feel might be beneath you, but doing them
cheerfully, doing them well. And Ive found actually that whether Im in a current
position or whether Im looking to work for somebody, Ive noticed actually a
change in the response to my emails, depending on how I end the email. So it used
to be shortly after, both directly and then shortly after graduating college, if Id
identified somebody for whom I wanted to work I would end an email by saying, is
there was an opportunity to look for a job or an internship. And what I realised is
that busy people, who are busy, high profile people get inundated with those types
of messages saying please give me a job, please give me an internship. What I
started doing though in response to a conversation I had with someone not that
long ago, and he advised instead of saying or instead of asking directly, I would like
a job, ending it off by asking how can I contribute to your work? Its a different kind
of fit. And even if both you and the person you are emailing have a sense that this

person probably is inclining in the direction of wanting to work for me in a formal


capacity, it seems a little less opportunistic and it does actually force the person
you are contacting to say well, maybe there are ways in which this person might be
able to contribute to my research or my analysis. So one way I think, in terms of
making yourself indispensable, is asking, How can I contribute to your work? The
second, one of you made this point, which I think is so important is, making this
point about preserving all your contacts, and this is not just a matter of not burning
bridges, but this is a matter of preserving and sustaining relationships, even if you
dont think this person is going to be valuable to you, even if havent engaged with
this person in 10 years. I found again and again that connections have been
indispensable to me in helping me move from one position to the next, even when I
would never have guessed it. One example that I would give, I think I mentioned
when I was discussing my disastrous interview at AD Shaw early in my senior year.
Now the prior summer through Booker Crook actually I had an internship in the
Belfer Centre and it was a good experience but I thought essentially that was going
to be the end of it. But I said to myself, well, the person I worked for that summer,
hes a prominent individual. Hes well respected in the foreign policy and national
security community, so at a minimum I should at least stay in touch with him. And
so, every couple of months I would send him an email. Not to say please give me a
job, I didnt even know if he had any job openings, but just to say this is what Im up
to, this is what Im doing, just updates. So my first job out of college I was working
at the Carnegie endowment for international peace, which is a think tank here in DC
and as my year at Carnegie was winding down, I was applying for jobs, not having
any luck. And so I sent this supervisor of mine from the Belfer Centre, I sent him an
email, again not asking for a job, but just saying I wanted to let you know Im
winding down my time at the Carnegie, then he emailed me back and said, What
are you doing come the fall? And I said, I dont know yet, because as of now
nothing because nothing is panning out and he said, do you want to work for me full
time? And I deliberated for about 30 seconds. And YES! But it just so happened that
he had had an unexpected vacancy in his research team, and the position he had to
later advertise a position officially on the website, but basically he said between you
and me I have an unexpected opening in my research team, because youve
interned for me before, at least Im familiar with you and so we should talk about it.
Now, if I hadnt stayed in touch with him, Im not sure if he would have responded
and if he would have even presented the opportunity. I have found again and again
that connections from several years ago have proven very important. I guess the
last point I would make, and this goes back to a conversation I had with someone
recently. In terms of how to, I think going to your earlier question about how to
establish yourself under so many people who are so evidently qualified. My initial
impulse when I was graduating from college and I was thinking how should I
position myself, I wanted to be the jack of all trades. I wanted to be someone who
could be seen as a kind of subject matter expert on a whole range of topics. I
basically thought that the more topics on which I could at least feign expertise, the
more versatile Im going to be, the more useful Im going to be and that turned out
actually to be the totally wrong approach. The thing Ive heard again and again is,
when youre beginning your career, it is impossible to be an expert on 10 topics. Its
just not possible. So rather what you should do is, pick one topic, ideally something

that if youve had some field experience or some travel experience. But pick a
topic, whether its a functional topic, a country, but pick one thing and establish
your expertise on that topic and do that really persistently, whether thats through
writing blog posts, through writing articles, landing internships or jobs dealing with
that area of expertise. You have to establish your area, you have to establish your
expertise on a particular topic before people then say ok well, this person is serious,
clearly shes done the work, now what does the person have to offer on other
topics. So I would say, rather than trying to be the jack of all trades initially, pick
one topic and expand.

Arkin: I actually totally disagree. May I disagree? Theres very little thats more
annoying in this space, when you see a 20 year old whos like Well, I wrote a
research paper on that. I dont know if you know, but I did an extensive research
project on this. And youre trying to standing up, and youre sitting on panels. So I
agree that that is a way to make yourself stand out, you pick a region, you learn a
language, you understand it well, you go and do it. But I think at this stage, when
youre just starting out, you should be open to a lot of opportunities and you
shouldnt write something off because youve decided that youre going to be an
expert on Thai law , and all of a sudden an opportunity comes about to work on
womens rights in Guatemala, right. You want to be open to opportunities, and you
never know which door you might open that leads you down a path you never
thought of, but might be really interesting, and might be a better fit for you, and
you might like it more. So I would caution against actually, unless youre 100% that
sure you want to work on something for the rest of your life, and that is it, I think
being open to different things is actually really important
Floyd: Can I give feedback on that? So I like what you said, if youre willing to put
several years into it maybe, really carve out that niche and establish yourself. Not a
too long time period and we all know people in DC who have successfully done that
route. Something that I find has set apart interns is exactly what you just
mentioned. But to add to that, some sort of skill set which is helpful and which
makes your boss day a little better. What I mean by that, when I see an intern
application which says oh, I do know how to write a memo or I do know how to do
a press release or a one page briefing, or Ive actually had a little bit of work and I
have a skill set in development, so I can pick up the phone and ask for money, or I
know how to liaise with people who can give you money and not have them leave
and take their chequebook with them. To say I have written a research paper that is
lackful because Im not the expert, but I can also give you this skillset to make your
life ever so slightly easier. Students can say I want to do an internship in Russian
foreign policy for the Council for Foreign Relations and all I see is that they have
communications internships and I yell at them go for that one! because once you
do a good job there the communications team will recommend you out to the
subject matter experts. And to your point, if they can hire a former intern or
someone thats taken a lower level job, that immediately sets you apart. So even to
graduating seniors Ive said to apply for unpaid internships. Not ideal, but mum and
dad know this isnt a permanent solution, but then if you do a good job youll be at

the top of the hiring list when that position comes open. Now it doesnt always work
that way if there are security clearances and the like involved, but certainly in the
think tank world.
Razavi: Any more questions?
Pilram: Have fun. This is such a great time to just go for it. I mean back to the
competition piece, when I applied for the State Department you could only pick two,
and there were a few that were paid, and I only knew which office I wanted to apply
to because someone told me. And its so important, what are you going to do? So, I
have never made coffee or pushed papers, not once, and its not because I didnt
want to, its because I hunted out the offices that seemed less sexy and turned out
to be so amazing that I would be doing stuff right alongside the presidential
appointees. But it took some research and some networking for people to say apply
to this job. Because I was in protocol and I wanted, as an anthropologist, one of the
country desks, but I went for protocol because someone told me youre going to go
to every high level everything. So, one job I had was delivering all the white House
Christmas photos of President Bush to every ambassador in Washington. Do you
know how many residencies there are in Washington? Over 200. And, so I had a
private driver and it took me like 2 weeks to do this, but it was required that I shook
hands with every ambassador to give the photo. So everybody is going to apply to
protocol now. And that job required a top secret clearance. Ive held that clearance
for over 10 years now. That job was an incredible opportunity that wasnt lost on
me. Other than delivering photos, the first thing that I did was delivering a gift to
Angela Merkel in the Oval Office. My job was to scan it and make sure it didnt have
any bombs in it, rewrap it, we had a mobile wrapping station, rewrap it impeccably
and deliver it. So you know, theres like all these hidden jobs in Washington too. And
outside of Washington that liaise with Washington. So you can get like a kick-ass job
doing really cool stuff and getting exposed to some of those things that you dont
even know exist.
Audience Question: I was wondering for a lot of the applications for internships at
the Department of State, Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, they are
all USA Jobs do you have any advice for those applications?
Pilram: So Im going through a hopeful transition back into my GS position right
now, Ive been through it multiple times. USA Jobs is a computerised process, it
goes through a system that reads resumes, so you have to have key words in there
that match, and it is a game that you have to play to make it through USA Jobs if
youre cold applying, outside of the general application. So what can you do to
better your chances? Apply where there are less people applying, the country desk
officer jobs have thousands of people apply, protocol, it had some, but people didnt
know that it existed. So having to only pick two, I picked two offices that I wasnt
sure thered be that many people applying, and then I called them, followed up with
them, badgered them.
Atkins: Yeah, and also for the USA Jobs, two things to add to that. 1) If you can, and
some people are adept at this and some people arent, so you need to figure out
whos actually responsible, its usually a deputy director, or someone with that kind

of title whos actually running the management of the particular office. Cold call
works sometimes, and sometimes it doesnt and people get really annoyed, but you
shouldnt rule that out as an opportunity to call someone and say I see this
internship is being listed, what exactly are you looking for, what would be the key
attributes and characteristics? The other thing I wanted to add is, once youre in
your internship or first job, seek out people who you do see where you want to be in
five years, 10 years, 15 years, and ask them to get coffee with you. I had a stint in
department and after two weeks one of the women came up to me and she was like
look were going to have a talk, this is not a good place for you, I want to help you
find someplace better. And it was because in those two weeks I had smiled and
done all the things I needed to do, and it just wasnt a good fit and there wasnt a
lot of opportunity. But find those people. And it doesnt have to be, its so easy to
want to reach the top and speak to the director, find the people who are just a few
years ahead of you and then maybe 10 years and talk to them about how you can
do better, how you can support them, what are your next moves, what are they?
Pilram: Im having dinner with my mentors tomorrow, theyve been mentoring me
wince 2006, and theyre like my litmus test on everything, so thats pretty cool
Razavi: And mentors dont have to be a lot older than you, I was going to say,
never think someone is not powerful enough, because sometimes the person who is
right above you has a lot of power in that office in terms of the day to day
management. And they may be looking for their replacement later on. So do not be
mean to the person who is directly above you whenever you are doing a job.
Atkins: And also, dont be mean to secretaries, they really run offices.
Wyne: If I could just add, I think the point is, and I agree 150%. I remember,
actually in many of my jobs, but in particular when I worked at the Kennedy School
development centre, and you sort of have your formal orientation and then your
more informal orientation where you have people whove been there a while and
they sit you down for coffee or lunch, and that was what came up again and again.
Because what I found out was, who is the first person who helps you get an
appointment with the boss? Its the scheduler. And I actually found out, maybe this
is a common practice, but my boss when I was at the Center was not the first
person to read his own email, it was his assistant. And I had this happen again and
again where I would sent this assignment and I realised I had messed something up
or there were typos, so I would call up his assistant and say hey can you delete that
email, so he wouldnt even know. But theyre really important, and I think, this can
be anybody, this can be people who are your boss assistant, it can be secretaries, it
can be schedulers, it can even be people who are involved in HR in different
capacities. But word gets around about how you interact with people, particularly if
youre in a small office. If you have a pleasant personality, if you treat people with
respect, no matter who they are, word gets around. Certain opportunities will open
up to you, certain placements will open up to you, and your life will be a lot easier.
So I just 150% agree on that.
Pilram: And if you want to talk after about USA Jobs, anyone, Ive been through the
process so many times.

Razavi: Time for one more question


Audience: A two parter: The first one is, when you get that first job or job after
school, how long is too long to stay at that job, at what part do you start looking for
that next job? And I guess there are different timelines for different industries, but I
guess Im curious to hear what people have to say about when you start thinking
about that next step? Second, and this is not just for the panel, maybe anyone can
answer, but there are so many online job board listings, what are ones that are
really worth the time? Youve only got so many hours in the day to be looking, which
ones should we be looking at?
Razavi: In the interests of time Im going to get two of you to answer that question.
So what sites, where shoud we be looking?
Floyd: In my 20-somethings one of the quickest ways was I build a network of
people that then led to job openings, so thats a little roundabout answer to you. I
volunteered with a group called Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and to this day
I can pick up the phone to my friend at the White House, to my friend at the CIA, to
my friend over at Brookings, we have a mafia. Now Im aged out of the group I
think, but that gave me my 20-something network that I can go to if theres going to
be a job, and they have a job-link board. So I recommend that organisation very
highly, but I volunteered not just joined, because then you get to know everyone
and you do favours for each other.
Pilram: I can actually answer your two questions super quick. First, all the time, the
minute I get a job I start looking. Why? Because if I find the perfect job description, I
want to add those things to the job I have, or leverage what I want in it. So I never
stop looking. My poor family and friends, Im constantly looking. Resources, like you
said, join clubs and fellowships, were part of the 99 under 33, which is an award
sort of fellowship thing. Im a Truman fellow Truman National Security Project
fellow. I was an LB Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellow, so Ive got the biosecurity
stuff. Those are pre-vetted. So you go through the whole application to be a fellow
and you have like a year in the fellowship, youre also highly vetted so that if any
jobs come up, youre the first person you ask each other for, before cold job
applications. Find your tribe.
Razavi: Sarah, do you want to answer about how long you should stay at your first
job?
Atkins: Ah, until you burn out of it. I think especially in your first job, if youre not
learning, if youre not gaining knowledge, if youre not meeting new people, if
youre not building new skills, you should be looking. I personally ran into a
problem, not a problem, but jumped around a lot, and I feel like that, I dont think it
hampered me but it got to a point where I was like ok youve got to settle down for
a little bit here. But especially in DC for your first couple of jobs, one year two
years, thats fine. It used to be, maybe 15-20 years ago, you wanted to show
consistency and you wanted to show that youre committed. I think in DC people
expect you to move and people expect you to move on. But you dont want to move
for the sake of moving. Unless youre really miserable, in which case you should, but
you want to think strategically, and you dont want to get to that stage in your job

where youre unhappy. Also look inward in the organisation, see if there are other
things that you should be adding to your portfolio, see if there are other ways that
you can bolster what you are doing to thicken up your resume or to make yourself
happier every day. But also accept the fact, and this goes back to Im sure you are
all unique individual snowflakes, there are a lot of people looking for the same jobs,
so you need to be prepared to not have your dream job, in the beginning especially.
Pilram: or find them outside of DC
Floyd: One of the, I tried to keep it light at the beginning, but one of the reasons
that I did pursue the PhD program and I did make a big career shift is I realised I
was ceasing to grow vertically in my job. And it was a good company and I liked the
people, my horizontal skills, my responsibilities, even my salary was increasing, but
there was not opportunity for upward advancement, and youll run into companies
like that and when a different opportunity arises, a challenge, I like to take
challenges that come my way (sometimes for worse and then you end up crying),
you can step out of the company, and DC, and then lateral in at potentially a higher
level. And that goes to being nice to your colleagues and other people because you
might well be back there.
Razavi: So be nice to everybody, no matter how low you think they are, put
yourself out there, leave DC for a period of time, and, did I miss anything?
Atkins: No, but I was just going to say, and especially for women, the be nice,
dont get stepped on though. Stick up for yourself. It is fine to be asked to make
coffee and get copies, and you want to do everything with a smile, but you also
need to ask for more responsibilities, and you need to expect respect for what you
are doing. So be nice, but be firm.
Razavi: Great, I think thats a perfect place to stop. Thank you all for coming.

Transcript by Yaseen Lotfi, Gabrielle Redelinghuys and Claire Connellan

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