What to Learn

Progressive analytics is sufficiently new that no one really knows quite what they’re doing or what they’re looking for. There’s a diversity in backgrounds as well as skillsets---both in existing employees and their standards for future employees.

Some organizations will want campaign experience, others look for outsiders. Some people will tell themselves that they’re open to people with lots of different experiences when what they optimize for a specific skill while others will actually just take risks on people and fire the ones who don’t work out. In other words, there’s a large degree of randomness, so don’t get too hung up on any one thing. In fact, the most successful organizations will have folks from a wide range of disciplines, not just people from campaigns or political science programs.

This section talks about four types of skills that you’ll need to succeed in this industry: programming, statistics, domain knowledge, and soft skills.

(If you are a PhD candidate or applying with a PhD, or if you are not sure whether you should go back to school, check out the FAQ!)