how competitive are congressional internships

My first Congressional internship was after my freshman year in high school, and if I wasn’t the youngest intern on the Hill at that time (13), I had to have been pretty damned close. The other two interns in my office were both in college, and I ran into a smattering of high school seniors here and there. My next Hill internship wasn’t until the summer after my sophomore year in college.

Leading up to those internships, I’d been very active in politics and civic participation. I stayed aware of current political issues and enthusiastically injected myself into debates with adults, I volunteered for political campaigns when possible, I was active in extracurricular organizations with a political bend (eg, Young Republicans (yes, frequent readers, I grew up Republican), Model UN, student government, etc.), made politics my college degree and so on.

But here’s the kicker: Those activities almost certainly weren’t enough to have landed an internship on their own.

I was offered my first position because the Committee’s staff director was my next-door neighbor and suggested that I could be doing more with my summers than mowing lawns for $10 a yard.

My next internship came, again, because I had a personal relationship with the staff director, but he hadn’t been able to bring me on board the previous summer because he’d already booked interns by the time I’d approached him.

I grew up in the Washington, DC, area, and so had the benefit of being able to work connections. Getting a position on Capitol Hill is, sadly, very much a game of, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Even though Congressional offices openly advertise for internships, they’re likely to heavily weight a prospective intern’s connections (ie, “references”) in evaluating their application – and nothing stops an office from just bringing on whoever the hell they want because they know them (or, more likely, their “referee”).

Now, having said that, certainly, offices looking for interns want to bring staff on board who are going to be enthusiastic about being there. My engagement in politics certainly helped me float onto my hiring staff directors’ radars in the first place. Otherwise, I could very well have just been the neighbor’s kid who mowed the lawn, or the one-of-thousands of college kids throwing out tethers for a high-profile internship.

But the reason why enthusiasm matters aren’t because of the political nature of the work, but because the work positively sucks hairy balls, and if you aren’t going to be grateful for the opportunity to suck away on Capitol Hill because of its high profile nature, there are plenty of people knocking on the door who will.

…It occurs to me that probably wasn’t the best choice of phrasing in responding to a question from a high school student, but I write for a general audience, so fuck it. Balls!

Hill internships are not anywhere near as glamorous as so many prospective interns think they will be.

Don’t expect to be paid. If you even get a few-hundred dollar stipend, congratulations, your Member of Congress is ridiculously generous.

You’re probably going to spend your days answering the phone or forwarding e-mails. You’ll do the coffee runs. You might get to go to meetings, but you’ll be expected to quietly sit off to the side and take notes. If you do a good enough job of those things, maybe the staff will trust you by the end of the summer to do some proofreading, but that’s about as hands-on to the work as you’re likely to get.

I mean, hell, with the Capitol Visitors Center up and running, lots of offices don’t even let their interns do guided tours of the Capitol Building anymore!

…Which is probably for the best, actually, because holy shit some of the crap I heard interns say on tours… Yikes.

By and large, you will be doing all of the work that the office’s Staff Assistant – basically the paid intern and likely your “manager” – doesn’t want to do, because they’re trying to learn/do the work of a Legislative Assistant – the entry-level “sexy” Hill position – who’s trying to do the work of their Legislative Director, who’s trying to finish a Master’s Degree to get the hell off the Hill because, holy shit, an LD’s salary just barely pays the bills in D.C.

Basically, a trained monkey “has what it takes” to do the day-to-day work of a Hill intern, but so does any half-decent office automation software.

Part of the issue here isn’t that (all) Congressional offices willingly treat their interns like dirt, but because as a summer intern, you’re really just not going to be there long enough for the overworked, underpaid staff to invest a whole lot of time training you up to do their jobs. If they’re good people, they’ll bring you along to watch over their shoulders, but that’s about as good as it’s going to get for you before you have to go back to school.

The reason why I want to be candid about this isn’t to just shit on interns and internships, but to give you a reality check on what it is you want to be doing versus what you will be doing.

The allure of an internship on the Hill shouldn’t be the idea that you’ll be doing important work (Ha!), but that you’ll have your toe in an open door to maybe do important work later in your political career should you choose to follow it. Where I saw so many interns fail was that they got absorbed in the tedious, soul-crushing, balls-sucking day-to-day crap that they never got out to take advantage of all the other stuff that goes on around Capitol Hill.

That or they had really shitty offices that only let them do the grunt work, but, you know, welcome to the working world.

As an intern on the Hill, you will be afforded the chance to attend some pretty cool events and really expand your knowledge of the inner workings of Congress. The Congressional Research Service has tons of resources for interns and staffers, you can totally put your hand up to go to receptions where staff has been invited (free food and drinks, although you’ll have missed Taco Bell Day), and most importantly, you can start to expand your network of contacts to help you score better jobs down the track if so inclined.

An internship, properly exploited, can absolutely be the starting point of a great career in government. I absolutely value my Hill internships and what I learned from them, and they absolutely affirmed for me that I wanted to stay engaged in politics and government, but there’s a lot of hindsight in saying that. The day-to-day work often sucked.

So if you can string together a complete sentence, know the difference between the three branches of government, and can be excited about being in an environment where you’re almost invisible to the other people who’re busy doing the work of government, you “have what it takes” to be an intern on Capitol Hill.

What you have to do is take the next step and figure out how to take advantage of the non-internship-related opportunities that may come your way in order to translate your internship into something more than a one-off, pretty-cool summer gig.

The problem for most eager applicants is getting noticed in the first place. Most offices I’m familiar with will receive a couple of hundred applications for internship positions when they’re announced, and they’re pretty brutal about sorting through the volume.

Volunteering on House and Senate campaigns is a great way to start and make some contacts, but keep in mind that every other year, Representatives aren’t going to be actively campaigning (they’ll just be fundraising), and you’ll also have gaps for when your Senators are active. That’s going to limit your exposure to the people who can network with the people who’re going to make the ultimate decision on who gets an internship.

I think an under-appreciated, possible route to getting an internship on Capitol Hill – and, by the way, don’t limit yourself to applying for one Chamber over the other – is, as Alec Rogers suggested, is to see if there’s the chance of interning at one of your Representative’s/Senators’ District/State offices. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a caseworker say that they couldn’t use help in the office.

Admittedly, though, it’s not often that I’ve heard of District/State offices bringing on interns, and the work you’d be doing would be even more rote than in the DC office; but if you score the work, then, technically, you’ll be on the team, which would be a huge head start in making a future application to work in DC.

Because this path is pretty rare, you’ll probably have to make direct inquiries to Congressional offices about whether this opportunity would even exist – and be prepared to be shuffled into the default internship application process – but the value in making direct inquiries would be to have a chance to talk directly with staff about internship opportunities, what’s expected, etc., and get your name floating around.

I would also make sure you’re signed up to your Representatives’ mailing lists – official and campaign and your neighboring Districts, if practicable – and keep your eye out for any upcoming meet-and-greet events, then go out of your way to attend them. You probably won’t get a better chance to pitch your interest in an internship than being able to shake your prospective Boss’ hand and say, “I’d really love to be an intern! What’s required, and who on your staff can I talk to some more?”

But even if you take these steps, given the fact that you are still in high school, be prepared to get knocked back. Again, most high school-aged interns tend to be juniors (who’re totally going to hype the internship up on their college applications) or seniors (who’re totally going to argue that they shouldn’t have to take Political Science 101 next year, even though it’s a core curriculum requirement because they were Hill interns, which will amuse their professors). After that, the bulk of them is college students who just simply have better-padded resumes and some extra contacts to put forward.

It’s nothing personal, that’s just the way of the world.

The best thing you can do if/when you’re bounced back is to call the office, thank them for considering your application, ask if there’s anything you can do to be better prepared for the next time you apply, and then apply again next year.

Basically, if you really want a Hill internship, just being politically knowledgeable and engaged isn’t going to cut it. It’s an incredibly competitive position, and demonstrating some initiative and drive is what’s going to help you stand out. You’re going to have to put in some legwork to demonstrate your enthusiasm for the role and get to know the people who’re going to help you make that happen.

If you can demonstrate that drive, then you’ll definitely have what it takes to make the most out of a summer internship.