Young Campaign Staffers Still Waiting on Obama Admin Jobs

Ian Shapria has an interesting story in today's Washington Post - Wishing and Hoping and Waiting. The piece outlines the long, drawn-out process of obtaining a job in the Obama Administration, and how many young, hopeful staffers are dealing with the length and uncertainty of the process:

They are the Obama-wannabes, many of them young and heady former campaign workers, frantically networking or waiting, just waiting, for the ultimate status symbol in their generation's caste system: a job in the Obama administration.

Flocking to the District's creative-class encampments of Mount Pleasant, the U Street corridor and Dupont and Logan circles, people in their 20s and 30s -- those, that is, with a liberal bent -- are prowling progressive Wiki pages and joining Google groups in the hunt for an Obama job. Those already employed elsewhere are secretly uploading their résumés to whitehouse.gov, while others are quitting their jobs to concentrate on the search.

Some are deft anglers: Melody Mathews, 29, a former Obama field worker-turned-Navy contractor, co-hosted a celebratory dinner recently at Old Ebbitt Grill that included top Army brass with whom she campaigned. Her hope is that they will get presidential appointments and, in turn, hire her. Others, such as Noland Chambliss, 25, a former Obama deputy field director, are in come-down mode. He applied for a position in the Energy Department but hasn't heard anything for months. So he has applied for a job at a pizza shop near his shared house off U Street NW.

"It was a pretty big drop-off, going from every moment of your day being filled with extraordinary purpose and intensity, every moment of your waking hours is bent aggressively toward this goal," Chambliss said. "And then there's a large chasm of uncertainty for you."

It's an interesting read shedding a little light on an otherwise shady process. I find that it is also reflective of what is going on in the larger political/non profit sector. Due to the economy, many organizations have a freeze on hiring, and we are still too far out from the midterms to really see a surge in campaign hiring. Depsite President Obama's call to service, it's a tough time all around for anyone looking to get involved in government or progressive politics.