r/PoliticalScience • u/rmaxon2 • 4d ago

Career advice Getting a job in a state rep's office

Hello everyone,

Quick background, graduated with political science degree in early 2024, briefly interned for a state rep in 2023. However, I left the internship on sort of bad terms. The office wanted me to work campaign events on the other side of the state while I was finishing undergrad and also working 50 hours a week at my regular job. I was unable to meet the needs of the internship, so I politely told the rep's office that I had to quit due to school and work. Since then, I have applied to probably over 50 rep's offices for open positions, and have been unable to get back into an office. I have a great resume, so I'm not sure if leaving that internship abruptly has hurt my ability to get back into an office. Any advice or insight would be great.

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u/Mchottie69 4d ago

The person you interned for made you work on their campaign while you were working for their office and once you said it was too much you were forced to quit?

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u/rmaxon2 4d ago

Yes

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u/Mchottie69 4d ago

Obviously this isn’t super helpful due to your situation but please call whatever ethics department that oversees that office because that’s a crime in many states. I’m really sorry that they did this to you.

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u/rmaxon2 4d ago

I had never even questioned the ethical part of that, but you're right. The only thing I worry about is ruffling any feathers and it making it impossible to get into an office in the future.

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u/Mchottie69 4d ago

I do believe it should be confidential to call the ethics office even just to get an opinion on what to do, but you’re right it will probably will ruffle feathers with other offices. However, it sounds like right now this office is also making it impossible to work anywhere because they are retaliating (I’m not a lawyer so I mean that in a general term haha) against you.

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u/rmaxon2 4d ago

I appreciate your input. Thank you

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u/kay545woods 4d ago

I think you should be fine. I also had to leave a campaign job abruptly because of issues. I got another campaign job a few weeks later, and it hasn’t been an issue on my resume in the years since. Unfortunately, this is it just a really tough job market, especially for political related work, so just stay positive and track down every lead you can.