Has anyone moved from the Hill to federal agency recently? How was the process? Advice on making this transition?

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Assuming you’re joining the agency as a career employee rather than a political appointee, expect it to be less political and likely slower paced with more predictable hours. Less relationship based coalition building, more in the weeds substantive work. On the agency side you may feel more like a cog in a massive machine than someone supporting an individual member of Congress (whose offices are way smaller than most agencies). If you’re working for a member and bail to an agency, you may lose the chance to build that relationship with that member and have a powerful and/or state-connected person in your corner — think future lobbying opportunities, political appointments, listing the member as a reference on your resume, etc. Congressional employee retirement multiplier is 1.7% per year of service times high-3 salary, while FERS is only 1% (or 1.1% if you have 30 years). Hope that helps; hard to say much more without details about where you were on the Hill or to which agency you’re considering going. Good luck!

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Whether you go to a firm or a company or NGO first really depends on where you’re trying to go. If you want to be litigation counsel at SEC or IRS, you’ll need law firm lit experience in securities law or tax. If you are eyeing the more advisory / policy / regulatory counsel roles, you could go either to a firm or in-house at a regulated company, or even just get a few more years of Hill experience targeted at the subject matter area and try to move over from there. Most agencies tend to want people straight out of law school or with 5+ years of relevant experience; but set alerts on USAjobs for the roles you’re interested in and apply to any openings that seem promising. It may take a dozen or more applications before one finally hits. Keep the faith and good luck!

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