Career transition options for a CIA GS15 Analyst/Manager with PhD...

[Anonymous]

Hi gang -

What the title says...looking for ideas I perhaps have not considered...I hold a PhD in quant social science, 15+ years as a CIA quant analyst and manager, and now curious about other options. One key point/admission: I am fully bought into the private sector scary/work too much/not stable and I still highly value the work life balance and stability of my federal gig. But I am open to good suggestions, smart risks. Appreciate any suggestions from smart folks or those who have made the transition. Open to making potential connections/leads here, as well. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

what was your PhD in?

[Anonymous]

Quantitative Political Science...I forgot to mention that while I'm certainly a capable modeler, my comparative advantage now is most definitely my ability to lead folks, build and develop teams, and setting the conditions for people to shine. My technical skills have been surpassed by the quantum leap in training of the generation (or two) below me, rightfully so. Although my creativity for developing unique questions to answer is still top tier.

[Anonymous]

Did you already take the out? If you didn’t, don’t. The job market is bad out there. Look for something else internal and try that. Many many people shift careers internally and get new skills. There’s a ton of interesting things to do.

[Anonymous]

Have not left, no. I’m purely in the exploratory stage of asking what if/what could be. Like I said, the work life balance and prospect of early retirement options in a few years are strong anchors.

What about other federal agencies that might not be intel related but would value my IC experience/credentials?

[Anonymous]

Few outside the IC value IC experience. It would be a negative at some places -- State really wants its own Foreign Service folks to be outside the IC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Few outside the IC value IC experience. It would be a negative at some places -- State really wants its own Foreign Service folks to be outside the IC.

This is spot on. You’d have very little value in the private sector, except for maybe a few body shops in the beltway specializing in very niche fields. Ever think of opening a bar somewhere?

[Anonymous]

Look at government contractors like RAND, Westat, Mathematica, Urban Institute, etc.

[Anonymous]

There’s an endless thread about FFRDCs that seems like it could be relevant for you (though I don’t personally know that area).

Do you have a specific region or topic you have expertise on? Quantitative political science is tough because, as you say, you are probably surpassed on the quant side by younger people. And the political science side is quite generic. For example, Treasury could have some stuff for you if you have the econ background (it could have been learned, doesn’t have to be in your degree itself) but without that it wouldn’t happen.

[Anonymous]

Data Scientist/Business Analyst at any company.
The jobs exist everywhere but it's hard to find the right match for your precise skill level and compensation target.

[Anonymous]

Good replies. I do have Econ experience from CIA, 5 years worth of working the global Econ team.

What about my management experience/team building? I do see places like Amazon have quant teams that need managing, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Data Scientist/Business Analyst at any company.
The jobs exist everywhere but it's hard to find the right match for your precise skill level and compensation target.

I agree with this. I'm at an F500. We have an economist team, a lot of data scientists (multiple teams), international market forecasters, cybersecurity, business continuity/risk experts, etc. Also moving quickly towards all things AI.

Big corporations can go through layoff rounds. But many of them are fairly stable. At my company, data science has gone through layoffs but that's because it's a newer function that probably got too large in proportion to the value it was creating. I haven't seen layoffs in the economist or sales forecasting teams in 25 years.

OP, you can perhaps use LinkedIn to look at different people's career paths and also investigate the National Association of Business Economists re: the economist pathways. Think about the types of industries that would be interested in your skill set. Probably highly multinational, with high technological theft risk, expensive products, etc.

https://www.nabe.com/

[Anonymous]

PP. It's my perspective that people management might be less valued in corporate economics/sales forecasting because you are not trying to grow people to move up the corporate hierarchy. These are small shops and a lot of people arrive with the academic training to do the work.

Data science is/was different because of being a new field where it was difficult and expensive to find and retain new staff. For a while it was like AI is now, a lot of new people getting insane money, poaching, etc.

Sp my suggestion is also to look into where managerial skills are really more emphasized. Maybe when a company is adding a new department for the first time.

You may find at some places that you are paid more to be an individual contributor vs. govt. manager. Sometimes there's little logic to this.

It's always struck me as odd that I make more money as an independent contributor at a corporation than the principal of my kids' elementary school. She manages a staff of about 30 people, is responsible for the development of about 400 kids per year, and has a dollar budget for managing the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good replies. I do have Econ experience from CIA, 5 years worth of working the global Econ team.

What about my management experience/team building? I do see places like Amazon have quant teams that need managing, for example.

It's possible I guess. But Amazon can hire easily from the private sector for that - candidates with proven private sector track records tied to revenue.

You are valuable to private industry for your clearance and to some extent your subject matter expertise. So places like FFRDCs or think tanks could be a transition.

If you still have time in the building I'd look at a last tour that puts you in a position that you know exists in industry - like a PM type job for one of the contractors that provides personnel to the Agency, or in a program that is looking at merging tech and internal workflows. You don't have to be a SME to do that, especially at the managerial level. You just have to have the personality to understand the end goal and know who to talk to in order for that to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have not left, no. I’m purely in the exploratory stage of asking what if/what could be. Like I said, the work life balance and prospect of early retirement options in a few years are strong anchors.

What about other federal agencies that might not be intel related but would value my IC experience/credentials?

If you have only been inside, you do not understand how traumatized the rest of the government agencies are right now. You may not like it, but for the next two years or so, you are in the best place you can possibly be. Contractors in the area aren’t hiring much either and what’s out there is competing with all of the other folks DOGEd or DRPd or VERA’d. Get some external hobbies.