Finance Guy Interested in Switching to Public Policy

[Publicpolicyhopeful]

Hi,

I am a recent graduate who has been working in corporate finance and I am quickly realizing that this is NOT the career path I want to follow. I've learned through my research, talking to people, etc. that a lot of the "glamorous" strategy/deal-making work isn't all it's cracked up to be and I want to be doing something that I'm truly passionate about.

While shirking at work, I started to read more about politics and other things outside of finance/business that interested me. What I found out is that I'd really love eventually work either in a position that will allow me to identify social problems, brain storm ways to fix them using stats/research, and then create a plan that I can present to the people in power to fix it. For example, I'm VERY passionate about fixing education, so doing something that would allow me to identify what's wrong, think of ways to fix it, and then lobby to whoever to implement it would be incredibly rewarding. I also have an interest in environmental issues, energy/infrastructure, and general issues regarding wealth distribution and economic development.

My problem is that I have no idea what positions entail this and how to go about getting htere, particularly from a finance background? I'd be willing to take a few extra classes in math in order to become well-versed in stats (since finance isn't that quantitative in my school), but what should I be doing in terms of applying for masters, what work experience I should be looking for, etc. in order to reach a position such as the one I described above?

Thanks and I can provide more details if I'm being too vague!

[Imhotep]

I think a lot of people make the transition you are thinking about, and I'm willing to bet that your work experience is fine. Perhaps you could get an internship at a think tank or public policy organization to start? Or you could just start doing social outreach volunteer work in your spare time? I'm sure there are lots of non-profits who would love to have someone versed in finance help out with their own financing.

I would recommend looking at MPP and MPA programs. The MPP at HKS is a good place to start looking.

[Publicpolicyhopeful]

I think a lot of people make the transition you are thinking about, and I'm willing to bet that your work experience is fine. Perhaps you could get an internship at a think tank or public policy organization to start? Or you could just start doing social outreach volunteer work in your spare time? I'm sure there are lots of non-profits who would love to have someone versed in finance help out with their own financing.

I would recommend looking at MPP and MPA programs. The MPP at HKS is a good place to start looking.

Thank you for the response. I have a few followup questions.

The first is how useful are MPA/MPPs for the type of position I'm looking at? Wouldn't someone with a masters in economics from an ivy be better off than someone with a finance background that is mostly qualitative, or can MPAs/MPPs be fairly quantitative as well? I am competent at math, particularly stats, but I didn't take some of the more advanced math classes that I'd need for a masters in econ, but can an MPA/MPP from a great school still do well vs an econ masters/PHD? Furthermore, what kind of jobs would I want to search for because I have no idea what the position would be called that would allow me to do what I described above.

The other is that I don't have great work experience. I went to a no-name state school and so getting a job at a good company has been tough. I just graduated, so I'm looking to lateral to a better place asap, but I'm wondering if there is stuff I can apply for more directly related to public policy versus just doing corporate finance. I know for MBAs, prestigious UG/work experience is super important (moreso than GPA, GMAT, etc.) is the same true for top MPPs or can someone from a non-blue chip background make it into places like Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Berkeley, etc. (I'm assuming Harvard and Princeton will be super challenging) with good grades/test scores?

Finally, I hate asking all this in one thread, I also looked into working for the World Bank, IMF, or working for a foreign government in an emerging market like India, Brazil, China or even in markets like London/Singapore that are already developed. Can an MPP/MPA lead to opportunities like these as well and how competitive are positions like this?

Thanks for the help!

[Imhotep]

I think your best bet is to identify firms that do the kind of work you would like to eventually do and look at their team rosters. This will tell you who has which degree. The next step would be emailing to ask for informational interviews. Most won't respond, but some will. Talking directly to schools is a good idea, too, but my sense is that you should narrow your focus before talking to schools.

In terms of what is quantitative and what is not -- each school is different. You'd have to look at their programs individually.

I don't think going to a "no-name" school is a deal-breaker. As long as you have good recs and a compelling statement of purpose.

When I graduated I was a bit lost myself -- or at least I had many divergent interests -- and my solution was to go abroad. I've spent several years in the developing world gradually narrowing my focus. If you can stomach the idea of waiting a year or two before grad school I would recommend just trying to find an interesting, off-the-beaten path country and find any job you can there. You'll learn a new language and a new culture and most likely, simply by virtue of being a foreigner in a place without many foreigners, you'll have the opportunity to do higher level work.

I can recommend a job for you if you send me a private message.

[Publicpolicyhopeful]

I think your best bet is to identify firms that do the kind of work you would like to eventually do and look at their team rosters. This will tell you who has which degree. The next step would be emailing to ask for informational interviews. Most won't respond, but some will. Talking directly to schools is a good idea, too, but my sense is that you should narrow your focus before talking to schools.

In terms of what is quantitative and what is not -- each school is different. You'd have to look at their programs individually.

I don't think going to a "no-name" school is a deal-breaker. As long as you have good recs and a compelling statement of purpose.

When I graduated I was a bit lost myself -- or at least I had many divergent interests -- and my solution was to go abroad. I've spent several years in the developing world gradually narrowing my focus. If you can stomach the idea of waiting a year or two before grad school I would recommend just trying to find an interesting, off-the-beaten path country and find any job you can there. You'll learn a new language and a new culture and most likely, simply by virtue of being a foreigner in a place without many foreigners, you'll have the opportunity to do higher level work.

I can recommend a job for you if you send me a private message.

Hi,

I will send you a PM; thanks a lot for helping. I apologize for seeming so scatterbrained but I am just so new to this area and there is so much less information regarding public sector jobs than there was for finance that I am having trouble articulating what I want. I do want to start reaching out to people, but the problem is, I have no clue what "role" I am looking for specifically and need help identifying that. Perhaps a better explanation of my motivations may shed more light on this.

So basically, the reason why I'm switching over to the public sector is greatly influenced by my internship experience abroad. Over one of the summers as an undergrad, I worked abroad in a developing country (mostly to spend time with family and also learn more through internships) and saw firsthand that things I take for granted here, like infrastructure, education, clean air/water, etc. are not readily available there. At that time, I was too obsessed with finance, but even then, it did motivate me to pursue finance within one of these areas, particularly infrastructure (which has MANY ties to finance), because I did care somewhat that not everyone has access to these bare necessities.

However, after working in a corporate finance environment, I'm starting to see that there's no way to really touch these issues as most of finance is BS (literally) and glorified paper-pushing. I thought financial modeling would be cool, but my experience with it is that it's just a bunch of guesswork and making assumptions and, in a corporate environment, is usually just manipulated in order to push peoples' agendas (i.e. i-banking models are exaggerated in order to push 2 companies to merge at the highest price to make the most out of commission, and even in corporate finance, managers exaggerate things for their own benefit...btw, I DO NOT work in i-banking and have no interest in doing so...just an fyi). Furthermore, finance just isn't an intellectually stimulating field that requires critical-thinking and problem solving. Success is mostly predicated on soft-skills and selling ideas rather than intellectual analysis and foresight. Accounting is even worse because 90% of the job is checking to make sure things balance and then going backwards to figure out why it's not if the accounts don't balance.

So while i enjoy finance from a theoretical standpoint, and I do want to be able to utilize my knowledge somehow going forward, I realized that it doesn't work the same way in the private sector. Now, I hope to instead do something that involves looking at the cost-benefit of implementing various policies/projects that the government puts forth and examining if it makes sense financially, and how it impacts various groups. For example, in my city, we used to not have to buy tickets for public transportation if we were in downtown and only people using it from the suburbs would have to pay. However, the city needed more revenue to maintain public transport and did away with free tickets downtown and require everyone to buy. Figuring out how much revenue this would generate, how much demand would fall off, etc. would be very interesting to me.

I'm not sure what specific industry/area I'd specialize in, but doing some sort of finance/economic modeling along with analysis of policy. The only other area I'm passionate about (and I mean very passionate about) is social equality/wealth distribution as well as figuring out ways to improve QOL in developing countries, so economic development makes sense. Again, I apologize for not being so clear in my first post, but if someone can direct me toward what types of roles these are (i.e. what job titles and what types of companies I'd want to contact for work like this) as well as what degrees would be useful, I'd really appreciate it. Although I want more exposure to quant techniques, I didn't take a ton of math, so applying for a masters in econ is out of the question sadly.

[Publicpolicyhopeful]

Bump!

[Publicpolicyhopeful]

ANyone?

[s33]

Publicpolicyhopeful,

If your academic record is good (GPA of around 3.4 or better) and you have a strong GRE (75th percentile or better) - and please note that these are rough guidelines and should not be viewed as cutoffs -  I cannot see anything that would prevent you from getting into a good MPP/MPA program, potentially with decent funding.  Your graduation from a less well known school is in no sense disqualifying, although it does raise the importance of the GRE in the the admissions calculus.

 

Based on what I have observed (as an MPP graduate of Chicago Harris), the range of career interests suggested by your posts can quite readily be realized through successful traversal of a good MPP/MPA program.  Actually, based on your posts, you could  easily pass for a composite of several people that I knew in the program at Chicago, and most of whom are now gainfully employed in their respective fields of interest.

 

Different schools weigh the various admissions factors differently, but I can tell you that at Chicago the numbers (GPA and GRE) are really important in both admissions and (especially) funding decisions, and work experience is typically not all that important.  More than anything, they seem to be looking for public-service oriented individuals who show intellectual promise, as potentially strong policy analysts/researchers.

 

Good luck, and feel free to PM me if you have specific questions about Chicago.

Edited December 21, 2012 by s33

[HumbleBee]

• You sound like a world bank/asian development bank/european reconstruction bank (basically any development bank) guy
• To get these sorts of jobs, you generally have to focus on a particular area. For example "social equality/wealth distribution" is too broad because as you figured this is an outcome, a function of several preceding policies/areas like education, taxation and redistribution, access to infrastructure, etc No one wants to hire a generalist in the public policy field (except maybe the consulting firms initially). Given you finance background, you may want to focus on infrastructure finance/PPPs. That's what these development banks do a lot of and consulting firms as well. 
• Finally I don't really want to burst your bubble about the public sector. "Success is mostly predicated on soft-skills and selling ideas rather than intellectual analysis and foresight" - what do you think politics is and what do you think success in the development space is predicated on? I came from a strategy consulting background and like you wanted to change to do good. I've pretty much concluded that at the end of the day, brilliant analysis counts for very little (that's why you get the analyst to do it). It's about convincing other people to your point of view at the end of the day, which may not even be the best way forward...

[Publicpolicyhopeful]

• You sound like a world bank/asian development bank/european reconstruction bank (basically any development bank) guy
• To get these sorts of jobs, you generally have to focus on a particular area. For example "social equality/wealth distribution" is too broad because as you figured this is an outcome, a function of several preceding policies/areas like education, taxation and redistribution, access to infrastructure, etc No one wants to hire a generalist in the public policy field (except maybe the consulting firms initially). Given you finance background, you may want to focus on infrastructure finance/PPPs. That's what these development banks do a lot of and consulting firms as well. 
• Finally I don't really want to burst your bubble about the public sector. "Success is mostly predicated on soft-skills and selling ideas rather than intellectual analysis and foresight" - what do you think politics is and what do you think success in the development space is predicated on? I came from a strategy consulting background and like you wanted to change to do good. I've pretty much concluded that at the end of the day, brilliant analysis counts for very little (that's why you get the analyst to do it). It's about convincing other people to your point of view at the end of the day, which may not even be the best way forward...

Hi thanks a lot for your reply. I've definitely thought more about what exactly I want and my first choice is definitely infrastructure development. That's what I'm most interested in subject-wise and it has the most ties to finance, so it makes the most sense to pursue this. I do have an interest in education and public health, but I think for now, it's best to pursue something related to infra. 

 

Also, I wanted to clarify that I DO understand the significance of soft-skills. However, my dissatisfaction with the private industry is that whatever I'm doing has very little significance in the grand scheme of things. It's mostly just processed, assembly-line-esque nonsense that solely benefits the bottom-line/shareholders and doesn't do much good for the world. The only real way to make a change within a corporation is to be in research and come up with new products, but I don't have the science background for something like that and public policy is a way for me to attempt to make changes through liberal arts/business knowledge. I didn't mean to sound as though soft-skills won't matter in the public world and I'm mostly doing it because of the end product that results. 

 

Finally, I wanted to ask what PPP stood for in your post and also if an MPP is what I would need to work in a development bank? Do they hire people who don't have PHDs and wahtnot, because based on what I read, it seemed like think tanks prefer econ PHDs, so I want to make sure that this degree I'm planning to get isn't going to be non-competitive versus other grads even if it's from a top school.

 

Thanks!

[HumbleBee]

PPP - private public partnerships as it relates to infrastructure. 

 

To work in development bank, you need to go to a school that has

 

1.) strong reputation (For example, if you wanted to work at the world bank in Jakarta, going to Harvard anecdotally puts you at the top of the CV pile) 

 

2.) alumni network in that field/organization. The front door is for suckers. All the resumes that get submitted online basically goes into a giant black hole. To work for a development bank is all about networking, perhaps even moreso than the private sector.

 

You dont necessarily need a phd, but for some strange reason, they seem to prefer one. Notwithstanding networking > phd.