at Williams College
This page offers information on how to find employment involving economic and/or public policy research. There are many other types of jobs for which the study of economics provides good preparation; for advice on how to find those other kinds of jobs, please see Williams’ Office of Career Counseling.
One option for summers is to work as a research assistant for a Williams economics professor. Click here for further information on that.
Many economic and policy research organizations offer summer internships and post-graduation research assistant jobs. These employers typically look for students with good academic records and evidence of economic research skills. Strong academic backgrounds in economics, statistics, and econometrics are often viewed as particulalry useful qualifications. Some experience with computer programming can also be quite helpful. Appropriately, finding these kinds of jobs requires you to do a bit of research, and this web site can help you get started on that. These kinds of places typically post job opening and internship announcements on their web sites and begin accepting applications some time around January, and they often respond and/or conduct interviews during late winter or early spring.
Economic and policy research organizations come in many varieties, differing in terms of political orientation and in the kinds of things they do. For example, some places are more academic in orientation, engaging in impartial research on questions where they do not necessarily already know the answers. Other organizations are more oriented towards “advocacy” — they tend to assume they already know the answers, and spend most of their efforts constructing arguments for their side of the debate. Still other places are somewhere in between. You can learn more about what particular policy research organizations do by checking out their web sites, and also perusing some third-party web sites that provide directories and summary information about these various institutions. Links to some of these directories, as well as links to numerous examples of major economic and policy research institutions that hire interns and/or research assistants, are included below:
University of Michigan directory of public policy research organizations (“think tanks”)
Examples of policy research institutions that frequently hire research assistants or interns
In some cases, summer internships are unpaid. In these cases, the college offers a limited amount of funding, on a competitive basis. The Kershaw Internship program in particular often funds internships related to economics and public policy. See the Williams Office of Career Counseling web page on Williams Alumni Sponsored Internships for more information on how to apply for these.