Smushface

I'm interested in trying to get a job with the feds as some sort of policy analyst sometime in the future so I have a few questions about the field.

1) How did you get the job? Did you just apply through USAjobs.gov?

2) What's the skill set that they look for when hiring? Also, what degrees did you find among your peers?

3) I know you said that you were unhappy with your work there. Care to elaborate? Were you doing interesting stuff that just fell through the cracks or was it more pushing endless paperwork?

4) Anything else you care to discuss about what it's like working for the feds?

I know I narrowed down the scope of these questions quite a bit, and if you care to open them up a bit, please feel free to do so. I'm jonesing for information pretty hard because it's pretty difficult to get first-hand accounts about mid-low level policy analysts.

Thanks.

I'll be starting law school in August and I am really interested in digital rights advocacy. For those of you who are lawyers, how did you get to where you are now? I imagine the field is hard to break into, especially given this market.

I plan on trying to get into my school's tech policy clinic when I'm a 2L and applying for the Google's public policy fellowship next summer, but other than that, I'd love to hear about your experiences.