Jobs in international relations?
I'm currently a first year business student at an Ivy league school. I have always been interested in politics, history, and international relations but ended up studying business and finance in particular because I thought the job opportunities were better. However, I'm not really that interested in business and I spend most of my free time reading about current affairs and history. If money was not a consideration (I get no financial aid and need to pay off student debts after graduation) I would 100% major in international relations. What are the job opportunities like for me and will I have a decent shot at replaying my student loans?
It would heavily depend on what exactly your strengths are and where your interests are.
In our firm there are several teams for government affairs, so they deal with all kinds of regulation, with lobby groups, are a lobby group themselves, then there are gov teams for international affairs. Say we'd like to make an investment in a foreign nation; there are various processes and protocols we'd go through before such a deal is approved.
It is not like there are no roles around this topic, but an analyst may not get to rotate in those areas.
What size does a PE fund have to be to start having gov. teams and so on?
Honestly, I have no clue what the minimum size is. But it may also revolve around where or what kind of investments are handled.
If the fund is domestic only and doesn't work in sensitive areas or with foreign nations, they may not have gov affairs team at all.
If you are not allergic to certain investment areas (eg defense/weapons, international infrastructure, financing of private security forces, etc), they absolutely have those teams regardless of size. I know a finance team that worked on deals in war zones and they also had a lot of finance work with governments regarding sanctions and how the money is actually transferred.
A subsidiary of our firm abroad is invested in a larger arms manufacturer.
I was the same in university (still ended up with boutique IB since I like the idea of working with startups) and a career path that came up with a good blend of international relations and economics is: political risk analyst, or country risk analyst. They're an MO role in certain BBs, but you also have them in specialized political consulting firms like Eurasia Group. It's by no means a straight-forward career path and more likely than not won't pan out, unless you interned with the UN during university and studied at the Harvard Kennedy School. All this to say, very niche.
My roommate studied economics and international relations in university and his only FT offers past graduation have been data-entry roles... Fucking rank, I'll stick with finance.
How does the pay for political risk analyst at a BB compare to investment banking? How does one recruit for it and what are the exit opportunities like?
I didn't really explore the idea that seriously so I wouldn't know. Here's a MS offer for a "country risk analyst" role - https: //g.co/kgs/bhv2My
Glassdoor displays a salary range of $43k - $130k.
Other websites to get you started:
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/careers/exploring-your-future/career-optio… (UK-focused)
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/political-risk-analyst (UK-focused)
Type in "Ohio State Glenn country risk analyst" into Google - they have a helpful PDF guide.
Macro
A macro fund, a macroeconomic sell side research job or an EM fund are roles that take into consideration both the economic and political developments.
International development is another area to look at, jobs at the IMF or World Bank.
I've had friends who did masters degrees at HKS / SIPA / Princeton / SAIS who then went into these areas.
These role aren't 100% international relations, but IR plays part of it and they are closer to what you're interested in, with a better paycheck than working at the state dept.
How would one recruit for these roles?
Another possible opportunity (if you're a US citizen) is working with the government at a higher GS level, not banking money but $100k+ still. You could look at more policy-oriented roles (would depend on your specialty, DOD would be really badass but very specialized). For more finance things, look at the International Development Finance Corporation, an agency that does lending in emerging markets. The Export-Import Bank also has an international lending team as well I think.
Of course, the thing to note is that generally this field is heavily concentrated in DC in the US vs other cities, so you'd have to be comfortable with that first.
I almost joined the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) at one point in NYC.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Office_for_Disarmament_A…
I was working on my own at the time and was at Kinkos in NYC at 2am and this lady was sitting near me and was struggling with formatting and signing documents and I helped her for two hours to electronically sign and submit UN documents in addition to some other tasks.
She said she would pay me back the favor and go out to dinner. When we went out she brought a runway model and also Malaak Shabazz came out with us for dinner (Malcolm X’s daughter). Malaak was also involved with the UN.
We all hung out a few times and went out for ice cream another day and I even had some 420 with Malaak on the roof deck of a penthouse which was super chill.
In the end, getting into the UN for me fell through, but at the time it seemed like a very noble venture and one that you could consider pursuing.
Badass. I saw an ad in the Economist a couple weeks ago about UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) and an office they were setting up, S3I (Sustainable Infrastructure Impact Investments). Seems like it's going to be based in Helsinki vs Copenhagen which apparently has a lot of UNOPS' offices. Helsinki is a little far, but could be a very interesting opportunity.
You're at an Ivy -- start your career with an MBB consultancy stint, then think about international relations career paths. It helps that an IR major is a good fit for MBB
Are there any MBB roles oriented towards IR?
No but after 2 or 3 years as a generalist you can look at different policy/ advisory roles. Also look at Mclarty Associates they are a very elite geopolitical consultancy. Also a masters or even PhD is much more useful in this space than traditional business so you should definitely consider that. Apply to the Brookings fellowship as well. Yiu can also go to law school and then focus on cross-border work/ international arbitration. But keep in mind that the tradeoff between salary and working in the policy/ IR space is somewhat inevitable except in a select few cases.
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