02 Political Strategist
What is it Like Being a Political Strategist
On this episode of the Unboxing Careers Podcast, we unbox the career of a political strategist.
Guest: Kateryna Odarchenko is a political consultant, partner of the SIC Group, member of the International Association of Political Consultants (IAPC), and president of the Political Institute for Democracy and Development.
Listen: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music
What We Discuss:
What Does a Political Strategist Do?
Career Path and Entry into the Field
Skills and Education for Political Strategists
A Typical Day in the Life of a Political Strategist
Work-Life Balance in the Field
Recommended Skills and Baseline Education
Building Practical Experience and Networking
Finding Opportunities in the Political Strategist Field
Engaging with International Communities and Organizations
The Importance of Adaptability and Seizing Opportunities
Key Political Strategist Career Takeaways:
A political strategist is responsible for organizing and managing election campaigns, as well as handling political communication for various political groups and parties.
To become a political strategist, it is recommended to have a background in political science and pursue additional education or courses in campaign management.
Practical experience, such as volunteering for advocacy campaigns or local political initiatives, is crucial for gaining skills and building a network in the field.
Adaptability is key in the fast-paced world of political campaigning, as trends and tools evolve rapidly.
Work-life balance can be challenging in the campaign season, but there are opportunities for breaks and personal development after elections.
High school students interested in political science can start by taking online courses, engaging in advocacy campaigns, and volunteering for local political offices or organizations.
Building a personal brand through writing articles or starting a blog can also help gain visibility and experience in the field.
Networking is essential in the political strategist profession, and joining professional associations and attending conferences can provide valuable connections.
Being proactive and reaching out to politicians' offices for internships or volunteer opportunities can lead to valuable experience and potential job opportunities.
Staying informed about current political issues and having a deep understanding of specific communities or demographics can be advantageous in political campaigning.
Full Interview:
Greg:
Welcome everyone to the Unboxing Careers Podcast where we shed light on what different careers are really like so that you can choose a career you'll really love. Today we are unboxing a career that is on everyone's mind, political strategist. I know, stick with me.
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All right, I'd like to welcome to the show Kateryna Odarchenko, political strategist and partner at the Political Consulting and Strategic Communication Firm SIC Group. Kateryna, welcome to the Unboxing Careers podcast. Thank you for being here.
Kateryna:
Greg, thank you for having me. Yeah, it's a great project and thank you for doing that.
Greg:
Thank you. I hope it sticks. I hope it takes off here. So, all right, so Kateryna, let's start with this. Let's tell the audience, what does a political strategist and political consultant do? What do you actually do?
Kateryna:
Yeah, very inspiring.
Of course, sitting in restaurants with clients and thinking about the global future, as all people imagine. Basically, political strategists, it's mostly people with education in political science. After that, usually people take a course or postgraduate education in campaign management. For example, George Washington University provides that courses.
Generally, it's a person who helps to organize and manage election campaigns and after election campaigns to manage political communication from different political groups, political parties, political action committees, advocacy campaigns and related work. So related work can also be like dialogue with different, for example, groups.
and so on and so forth. And you can decide to work in this profession in the United States or work internationally. It's a little bit different, but generally it's very tough work, sometimes analytical work, sometimes field work, when for example you do canvassing or phone banking. So it's really very hard but very fun work.
I generally do this work internationally, but sometimes it's also sitting in the restaurant with a client and celebrating, you know, that somebody takes office, a very desirable office, for example, in the House or in the Senate.
Greg:
Very good, and do you know offhand how many campaigns you've been involved with over the years?
Kateryna:
Yeah, so I have worked nine years in this sector. So our company, I think, works for more than 500 different projects, but I was engaged in around 30 campaigns. And I worked in the United States, but I'm originally Ukrainian. So I do a lot of work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Moldova, and political communication in Brussels. So...
I also have specialization in general campaigning, but also campaigning in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where American tools are very new and general Western type of political communication really can be pretty challenging because sometimes you help clients to fight with authoritarian regimes.
or fight with injustice or to move more honest candidates to the office. So it's also inspiring you to achieve better results. Yeah, but we have a big team and some people concentrate only on United States Markets.
Greg:
Okay, it's fascinating to me. This is a world I know very little about. I like politics, but I know very little about behind the scenes stuff, and I'd probably avoid that for a particular reason. As you mentioned, studying political science, we'll get into college here in a second, but was that your career path to get into this field, or did you find a different avenue into the field?
Kateryna:
Generally, my father was one of the first pro -European politicians in Ukraine. Because Ukraine was in the Soviet Union, as you remember, mostly people were communists. But some people decided that we will move the country from a pro-Russian political way to pro-European political way. And my father was in the Ukrainian parliament three times.
Also, he was governor and that's why generally I choose this profession because, you know, my father was very inspiring about this work and from maybe the same age as our audience, I was engaged to canvassing, pond banking, so, you know, the most firstly lower like part of campaigns and then moving forward and forward. For example, working with Prime Minister Timoshenko.
She was the same popular as Zelensky. And then of course we moved to more international work with like American partners here in Washington, DC. So that's why for me, it's like a family business. But I know a lot of people who change their profession to go to campaign management work.
Greg:
Yeah.
Kateryna:
But it's less strategy because strategy, you know, needs more knowledge and also theoretical base. It's more work in the field. So when you work in an organization like an office or do HR, you can come to this profession from another sector, but better to start all this path from high school, I guess, to, you know, be involved.
to some volunteering maybe, to some advocacy campaigns, maybe to some school activities and leadership. It will be very helpful if you really have a passion for that.
Greg:
Very good. No, I love the advice and I love the insights there. So I know this answer is going to, the answer to the question I'm gonna ask you is going to vary based on what aspect you're working on, what your seniority level is. Let's kind of take the canvassing part out of it.
Actually, maybe not because that's where most people will probably get started if they're going into it. But walk us through either yours or someone on your team, like what their typical day-to-day looks like. I know you mentioned a little bit before like hey sometimes we're going out celebrating wins, we're having lunch, sometimes there's a lot of analytical stuff.
What does that look like and maybe for your more entry-level people when they get into the field, what does the typical day-to day look like?
Kateryna:
It's very different because of the election, so now it's like a campaign year, right? So for entry level campaign year, young professionals can come and their basic work will be engagement of people who can do canvassing, pond banking. And then they take it like a message box.
So usually it's messages which was tested on the highest level. If you're interested, I can explain more deeply where these messages are created. But after that, mostly if you just came to this profession, you take this message box and you must believe in this message box. So here in Washington, D .C. and in Maryland, it's mostly...
You know, democratic choice. And after receiving these messages, you start to educate other people who will work in the field. And you also start to plan general work. So for example, work hours for different teams, and then you work generally with these teams in the field. So you come to some, for example, you start from one to three Main Street until till one two three 2nd street, and you also have some KPIs. So after every day you analyze results, maybe you change the structure of the team, people always change, so you need to involve more and more volunteers, so people who work for the campaign full -time. So generally, usually you start from organizing work. If you really, for example, are a student now, right?
If you came already with education, you usually go to something like digital campaigning. And it's also an understandable issue. So you have messages and you can create some creative posts, right? And a very good idea to start involving in this campaign. Also this is understandable for your group.
So here, it's very popular to work with minority groups. So for example, I'm Jewish, for example, right? So I understand some Jewish traditions and if you go to Jewish Orthodox place to speak with people on Saturday, it's not a very good idea, right? Or if you, no, because Jewish people not work.
on Saturday and they don't discuss political issues on Saturday. Or for example, you're Ethiopian and in Maryland, big Ethiopian community. And as I know, Ethiopian people have, they go to church on Sunday. So sometimes on Sunday, if you go to their houses, these houses will be empty, right? So it's very good if you understand the specific way to work firstly with your...
This community whom you know and who you trust and with whom you have the same cultural map. So, and the same in social media. If you go to, for example, campaigning for somebody who wants to be elected to the school board, right? Or you support some person for city council. It's...
It's a little better because generally these campaigns don't have a big budget and I'm also in Ukraine and Georgia, starting with working with people from local councils in the capitals. So it's people who need professionally educated people to organize campaigns, but it's still not, you know, like the federal level where you need to present your cases directly, right?
So if you're good at design and even if you know something like Canva, I don't know, application is good, you can go and try to work as a content manager. And if you have education in communications, you can even work on press releases and after your contractor will, you know, work on distribution, these press releases.
Because it needs an additional budget and additional tools and you must understand all this media map, know how to push your pitches and so on and so forth. But on entry level, you can write these press releases and now you can also use IE tools. So it's really easy to come. And after that, like the main campaign manager, generally see what person has talent and passion for that.
And other people, sometimes people came and said, I want to work like two hours a day because I'm retired and I like people. So I want to do phone banking for two hours a day. It's also a very useful person in your election campaign and in your work, but this person maybe haven't so much passion and can't work in...central office or work with this congressman in the future.
Greg:
That was very good. I love the details, the insight, and the practical tips. So perfect answers, more than I was expecting. So, I talk less, which is perfect. So thank you for that.
Kateryna:
I can talk less, sorry, it's also in our profession, minus that we talk a lot because we always miss people, so we try to talk a lot. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg:
My goal is to talk as little as possible. That's perfect. How about work -life balance in your field? What does work -life balance look like?
Kateryna:
It's no work and life balance when it's generally a campaign period. So now it's very hard. So from the middle of June, that will be July and closer to the election, you work all the time. And when you're not working, you also take part in conferences and so on and so forth.
And usually if you represent like… a company, LLC or international company, other parts of our office, create a new political force in Bulgaria or consult new social movements of people who want to create a new political force in Kazakhstan. So that's why generally...
You may be not engaged fully in the branding process or to like the strategy process or you don't read all focus groups. Focus groups it's no type of research which very often we use in campaign management. But you always must use your practice experience to do this team work more effectively.
And for example, I never work in Africa, but I'm sure that some of my skills maybe work with low income families and low income voters in Georgia can be useful for working in Ghana, for example. I assume I never worked in Ghana, right?
But my experience of working with low -income voters on issues of medical reform in Ukraine can be not so useful here in Maryland, right? So that's why generally it's work when you want to be fully at this job and fully in this work. And when you have an election campaign, usually you take like one month off to, you know,
for reading, for some education, because it's also very dynamic. So tools which were pretty, you know, pretty unique in 2012, 2014, when I worked with Yulia Tymoshenko, she was a very popular Ukrainian, like political prisoner and then politician, and one of the first like female leaders in Eastern Europe. It was...
huge progress to use digital, like viral video volunteers in Facebook and so on and so forth. And now it's just understandable even for a person who is now in high school. So that's why you always must educate yourself to use the most practical tools and on United States markets you also have like 10,000 competitors. So you must move very, very quickly and you must use the most powerful tools and usually they are also expensive. So you must understand what your firm needs to pay for to provide some services for clients. But sometimes you can take one month off and usually it's after the election campaign.
And if you're not on a high level of management, you usually are not involved in, you know, like appointments to offices, some like negotiations, and so on and so forth. Usually you can just take a break. So it's a plus of this profession, but minus that you must be fully involved, you communicate with thousands of people. It can be exhausting sometimes, you must, so you must usually be extra-varied for field work and for organizing. But plus it's really good income and you can take more days off when we do not have so many projects. Usually it's after elections. So it's pros and cons from my point of view.
Greg:
That's a great answer. It's a great insight. So you mentioned the kind of adaptability that people need, especially when you give the example of the latest trends, social media tools, right? These things change pretty quickly nowadays. So adaptability is definitely there.
If we're speaking to someone specifically in high school today who definitely knows they want to go into political science or maybe flirting with it. Not really sure.
Not a ton of high schools offer deep political science. They usually have an intro to government, something like that. What skills would you maybe recommend that they start learning now? You mentioned Canva before, digital design skills, but maybe something they could do in class. So it could be a class that you wouldn't think would be helpful, but maybe would be good to get a baseline. That could be accounting or, you know, financial stuff or any sort of specific skills they could work on perfecting or baselining in their high school. What would you recommend those things to be?
Kateryna:
First of all, I'm originally from a poor country. So Ukraine is still a country where general income, some people have $200 a month. People with higher education have an income of $1,000 a month. So I have a little more opportunities because before...
Like a political career, my father was in business. But I also understand how hard it is to get an education when you, you know, are not a resident of 16th Street in Washington DC or Chelsea, New York, right? And you just haven't access to insiders and to this community of people who… It's a pretty closed club. So, and technically if you want to get more clients, you must be in closed clubs, you know, because you can meet them anywhere, right? So my advice, first of all, it's go to Coursera and there you can find Harvard Kennedy School courses on public administrations.
You can find a lot of courses about democracy. So I don't remember direct universities who work now on political management, but you obviously can find their courses on communications from top universities in the United States.
And for other people, it will be like $60 ,000. And for you, it can be for free. And it's very, very useful content. Secondly, you must practice. So take some issue which is important for you and start like advocacy campaign. So maybe you have some bullying from somebody, I don't know, in school, right?
or you feel that you're from a minority group and you need more rights at your school. We aren't here... So I live in Maryland, in Washington DC's area, like 30 minutes from the White House. So here it's not so much these problems, but I know that it depends. And you can try the same tools on this campaign. You can collect signatures. You can do some creative digital ads. You can create social media groups. You can write releases. You can do podcasts. You can gather maybe some meetings and you can gather at conferences and talk with your principal.
And first of all, it will be useful for your skills. Second, it will be useful for some issues which are important for you. And third, it can be useful also for you to move in with your skills, which will be really useful at college. And if you already like a student, it's much more choices.
Because from the period when you can really vote, you can go as a volunteer to some office and don't be afraid to go to big offices. Because all politicians like interns and all politicians like free work hours.
So if you're really talented and look, sometimes I see that Washington DC really works because it's a lot of interns here. So even when you go to some meetings with international people in the House or in the Senate, you see that half of the work, even analytical work, even very important work, is done by interns. So...
These young guys are really important here in Washington DC. So don't be afraid to apply not only, you know, I will do a small advocacy campaign or I will volunteer in a food bank in my neighborhood. But if you really feel that it's your field and that it's your cup of tea, go to your senator's office, to your representative and say, hey,
You will organize town hall, like meeting with voters. What is the issue? I can write an article on this issue. I can help with food order. I can do registration. I can print posters. And in several months, you also said, I do one to three. Can I get some like...1099 agreement on that. And you can be a contractor and also it's not bad additional income while you need to pay your student loan or something like that. So don't be afraid to think ambitious and my last advice is to do a blog about that. So even go to Medium and you can write but not go to chat .gpt and say, you know...
write something about Trump and Biden, so nobody is interested in that. But if you really have some thoughts, write an article about that. I, for example, for eight years do free lectures for young people and its lectures, for example, about political archetypes or about hero's journey, how we can use a Hollywood structure of, you know, great movies for political stories. And it's really like deep insights, which are useful for PR people, for marketing people, for campaign managers. And I also educate myself in some period of time when I start to use this tool in my career, but it's very, you know, unique knowledge in like unique lectures.
So from high school, you can start to write, for example, about your local campaigns, what tools it's most effective on your local campaign or five issues which are important for voters in my town, right? Or advocacy campaign, how you can join advocacy campaigns for, I don't know, something on the waterfront or how we can save totals. And you know clean ocean campaign something like that so if you you know resident of florida maybe totals it's good idea for you.
Greg:
Gosh, Kateryna, what a great answer. So many practical examples. Absolutely love it. Thank you so much for that. Let's spend a minute on those new to the workforce. So it's tough to land your first job. You know, it's hard to get experience without experience, but you've talked a little bit about how needing experience and doing that at an early age will help you. What tips might you offer to people brand new in their careers about landing that first job in your industry? And maybe that is something you look forward to resume. If you were to get 50 resumes today.
What would separate one candidate from the other? Could you share a little light onto that process and what you might be looking for?
Kateryna:
So Greg, if we...
Okay, sure. So, Greg, if we're talking about experience and about how this market works, one more time, it's a pretty close club. And it's a big difference how to work in a pretty small company. For example, our company has 14 people in the basic team. But when we work in Kazakhstan or in Ukraine, we can engage like 5 ,000 people with all field structures.
But these people do not work for us fully. And other companies like top companies in the United States, they have around 200 employees. But generally, all companies choose as employees people whom they know from some campaign experience or advocacy experience or charity experience, so from some projects. And...
First of all, if you're searching for somebody in this sector, you said to your friends, do you know somebody who's a good organizer of fund banking in Maryland? Or do you know somebody who has experience in canvassing in Montgomery County? Or you know somebody who knows digital campaigning and communities on Facebook in Howard County, Indiana?
So, generally you firstly ask your work groups and so on and so forth. Our company also is a main sponsor of the International Government Relations Forum once a year. So this year will be nine anniversary of our forum. And we also organize the International Campaign Managers Forum.
So it's useful for us because generally you engage big clients from different countries here in Washington DC. For example, they come to a prayer breakfast and then they have a meeting with you. And you do generally like signing contracts here in Washington DC. But then you need to form a big team.
With language knowledge on the ground. And this network, which is like a conference and network, you can check IGAPA .net, International Government Affairs Professional Association. So it's like a community for job professionals and campaign managers. So we also find people there and young professionals can join.
To such groups, you can also check the American Political Science Association, if you want to work on the analytical and strategy side. You can check the American Political Managers Association. You can check the International Political Managers Association. So it's plenty of them, but it's a very good platform to also be a speaker and to represent your case.
And even if you represent your case in some college, it will be great because it's a big problem to engage young people generally to vote. So in all countries where I work, it's a big challenge for young voters to make action. Sometimes they are, like Democrats, very aggressive.
engage other Democrats to vote against Trump, for example. Or when young people now came to revolution against the Russian political force in Georgia. Good example. Or a bad example, young, not so educated people who work for an alternative for Germany in Germany, which far right?
political group and now they are under investigation about extremist positions. So sometimes, you know, this experience of understanding the new generation is very useful. One more time, because people who pay for all that, they usually 70 plus. So they have no idea how to, you know, organize dialogue with.
college graduates. They assume that they know, they see focus groups, they see some message boxes, but they have no idea and then you have, hey folks, how are you? You know, like it looks a little weird sometimes. So, about your experience. Generally when you also see a resume, it's you go to like LinkedIn and you see what person wrote at LinkedIn.
At big companies, even if you apply for think tanks, work, also something connected with elections, but you want to write about that. Firstly, nobody looks at your CV, it's IE. So IE compares your CV with job description and HR. My friend, HR, explained it to me, and it's the same in the IT profession. So nobody really...
reads about you as a person. For me as Eastern European, by like, you know, I spent my childhood there, it's a little weird because we're very personal, like in our work and our team, it's really also deep human relationships because it's hard work and you can't work really effective if you don't like people with whom you work, right?
It's our logic, maybe not all companies have the same. We are contractors for some big companies, bigger than our company, and they're not interested in ideas of our designer, Malka, or in personality of our image maker, Rivka, or they just need work to be done by this deadline for this guy or this lady. So...
It's a little different logic, but first of all, you need to have experience and pro bono experience, like volunteer experience. It's great to start. And one more time, even if you have challenging times, if you have financial aid at your college or you can go to an Ivy league and you go to community college firstly, right?
It's not a problem because you can finish Coursera and add to your CV that you finished some online courses. And secondly, you can also write to start for the very top press. So for example, I started to write for Foreign Policy Rising, which is like a small journal about elections in Eastern Europe.
But now, like I give comments about elections, like the Washington Post, I wrote the Atlantic Council, Wilson Center, which is a top university and top press worldwide. So, but you must start and you must understand that maybe your first articles can be like two readers, your mom and your friends.
But after that you can test your digital skills and, you know, find your audience. But one more time, maybe not chat GPT or write me about alternatives for Germany and far right political wings. No, you must really give your ideas and it's not so many smart people, you know, in this profession. Look at the Russian opposition. Russia is a huge country, but they don't like really big opposition.
It's a huge country and any result because maybe all people who have some ideas and creativity now in the United States or in Germany. So never underestimate you and every challenge, it can be good for you. As Kennedy said, in Chinese language, every challenge and problems, it's like a problem, but also a second part of this.
Spelling is a good opportunity. And I think that university and college time is a great time to start because you don’t have kids and you can fully concentrate on this knowledge and also volunteer for a lot of projects. And I'm, as campaign manager said, that we also need volunteer work because from volunteers we choose our employees.
And be ready to share our experience to also have more people in the team and like politicians the same. Even if you go to the field office of a congressman or senator, they will be happy to meet with you, but never call them because if you call them or send email, it's like bye bye. It's no result. You must go and meet with some person like the chief of staff directly. Because otherwise, if you send your CV to companies, it usually doesn't have a good result and people are disappointed. Nowadays with this IE, we can have pros but we can cons that people don't communicate with each other so much.
Greg:
Amazing. Well, Kateryna, this was a wonderful and insightful conversation. I appreciate how open you were about providing thoughtful advice. I know our listeners will absolutely appreciate it. So thank you very much. Before we go though, I do want to remove you from the political strategy world. If you had to choose a different career, which would you choose and why?
Kateryna:
Generally, I try to be a scientist in biology. At school, I was a worldwide champion in biology. Like in Olympi8, I represent my country with a project about how to rebuild the ecosystem after big fires in Eastern Europe. So I started my science work at school.
And I even like to start education in biology in a top Ukrainian university. But after that, I see that, you know, in developed economies and developed democracies, unfortunately, you can't earn money on science, even on political science. So after I change profession, I change university. So I go to do political science like in other professions.
But anyway, science in our region was not profitable, but you can live normally. I have three kids, so you can live normally with your family for this money. And political management gives good opportunities in income issues. So that's why I think maybe like in the universe of different Katerynas.
I can also be like a professional in biology genetics, but I choose, you know, campaign management. But the last issue is that if you work on campaign management, obviously you can work at PR, sync tank work. So it's all related professions.
Greg:
Amazing, amazing. Thank you Kateryna for your time today Kateryna Otarchenko everyone Political strategist and partner at the political consulting and strategic communications firm SIC Group to find out more about her and her company Please check out the description or show notes and I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
(Interview transcription provided by Riverside.fm. May not be 100% accurate.)
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