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When I started on the campaign trail, I was lucky enough to go through the Campaign Management Institute, where I became focused on grassroots political campaigns and met mentors through college programs and internships. Meeting folks who had made careers out of political campaigns, advocacy and public affairs, encouraged me to go on the road, pursue a career in politics and find a political campaign job and become a campaign staffer.

Whether you're running for city council or congress, hiring a skilled political campaign manager is an essential part of your electoral success. From brainstorming campaign strategies and managing budgets to prepping a candidate for public appearances, the political campaign manager is the backbone of every campaign.

If you’re looking for your next career move that makes a difference, check out nonprofit job boards to find openings in the areas you’re interested in. Below, we compiled a list of boards that will help you find the right fit. Check out our larger list of job boards, jobs banks, and search firms here.

Political campaign jobs can be elusive to find. As someone who has gone through the daunting task of political job hunting not too long ago, I know how tough it can be to land a political campaign job—especially your first. With so many newly minted undergraduate, graduate, and even law school grads hunting for jobs in the same market, it can sometimes be an overwhelming and discouraging undertaking.

When I started on the campaign trail, I was lucky enough to go through the Campaign Management Institute, where I became focused on political campaigns and encountered great mentors like Peter Fenn, Richard Smolka, Bill Sweeney and Peter Lindstrom through college programs and internships. Meeting folks who had made careers out of politics encouraged me to set aside my mom’s vision of me becoming  a professional chef and instead, pursue a career in politics and find a political campaign job.

If political job hunting at any stage in life is a daunting process, searching for your first ever political job as a young person can be soul-crushing. While you may not be able to avoid all the headaches and meltdowns that accompany your transition into the Real World, these tips for your first political job hunt will at least help you breathe more easily (and maybe even sleep at night) as you navigate.

Here at TCW, we are fortunate enough to work with some really fantastic folks across the country. From campaign managers to photographers to data people and more, we partner with other supporting players to help our clients win. At the end of the cycle, and during an odd year, we often get asked by some of these folks for help in a DC-based political job search. Here are a few tips I often give people who are looking to land a political job in our nation’s capital:

With platforms like Squarespace and WordPress, it’s become pretty easy for campaigns to set up their own political campaign websites. That being said, now that the average joe can build a website without a backend developer, it’s now harder for a website to be seen via organic search. Simply put, there’s a lot of crap out there that your site is competing with.

Independent expenditure campaigns play a unique and vital role in many elections. They can support candidate campaigns by filling the gaps that they may have in their strategies, resources, or messages. These independent campaigns can use digital advertising to target different audiences, convey different messages, and use different tactics than candidate campaigns. This can help the candidate campaigns reach, persuade, and mobilize more voters.

If job hunting at any stage in life is a daunting process, searching for your first ever political job as a young person can be soul-crushing. While you may not be able to avoid all the headaches and meltdowns that accompany your transition into the Real World, these tips for your first political job hunt will at least help you breathe more easily (and maybe even sleep at night) as you navigate.

To build an effective political campaign strategy, you need to understand the landscape your campaign is operating in. While talking to voters is always going to be the best way to get to know the issues that drive your community (and the larger American electorate), books are another great resource to inform your approach to politics.

We are big fans of Code for Progress. They have a great mission and hold a yearly job fair. If you are you looking to hire an app developer or data analyst, check out the Code for Progress job fair. For more information about Code for Progress visit them here. If Code For Progress is not a fit for you but you are looking to work on a campaign, you can check out lots of great programs here.

Career coach Emily Lamia has been helping people grow and develop in their careers for over a decade. She has supported countless people to network more effectively, interview more confidently, and think more strategically about how to get where they want to go.

A political internship is something revered by many college students, but finding the right one, and then being selected for it, can seem like a daunting challenge. Still, the benefits of working to further the causes you are passionate about and learning the ins and outs of the political world make the pursuit of a political internship worthwhile! Here are three dos and three don’ts for landing an internship in politics.