America's Future Foundation

There is a common notion—reinforced through years of procrastination—that writing is the last step. The idea is that you should think, plan, research, gather data, mull it over, and then finally write. This is backward.

As Deirdre McCloskey once put it, “The real problem is the premise that you can split content from style.” The fact of the matter is that for most people, the very act of writing helps shape their thoughts. This is because there is a mysterious connection between our brains and our hands. As we type—or better yet, handwrite — our brains are activated.

You may have noticed when you were in school that if you read over a proof or a rearrangement of an equation in a math textbook, you retained some of the information. But if you took the time to actually write out the equation on your own, something miraculous happened: You comprehended and remembered the lesson much more easily. The same is true of writing. As McCloskey put it, “You do not learn the details of an argument until writing it in detail, an d in writing the details you uncover the flaws in the fundamentals.”

So don’t plan and think and ponder. Write.

And write early. Don’t wait until the last minute. Start building an outline as early as possible. This will help you understand where you need to do more work, gather more data, or rethink your premise. As James Buchanan used to tell his graduate students, the key to successful writing is to “apply ass to chair.” You can take breaks every so often (within reason). Try going for a walk or getting a cup of coffee.

Psychologists have found that the brain actually works much better when people subconsciously process a question for some time (Smith). But return to the chair and write. As you do this more often, I promise that it will become less painful.

References

Deirdre McCloskey, Economical Writing (Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press, 2000).

Stephen Smith, “Getting Into and Out of Mental Ruts: A Theory of Fixation, Incubation, and Insight,” in R.J. Sternberg and J.E. Davidson, eds, The Nature of Insight (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002).

Matt Mitchell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. This post is an excerpt from the IHS “Creating Your Path to a Policy Career” guide.

On The Market is a dating column, taking questions from readers and providing dating advice from the lessons of economics. Send your questions or ideas to On the Market Dating on Twitter @_OnTheMarket_

My graduate macroeconomics textbook told me the following:

“Although Economists use models to address all these issues, no single model can answer all questions. Just as carpenters use different tools for different tasks, economists use different models to explain different economic phenomena. Students of macroeconomics, therefore, must keep in mind that there is no single ‘correct’ model that is useful for all purposes. Instead, there are many models, each of which is useful for shedding light on a different facet of the economy. The field of macroeconomics is like a Swiss army knife – a set of complementary but distinct tools that can be applied in many different circumstances.”

Dating Lesson

The perfect dating model doesn’t exist, (despite the fact that Heidi Klum is apparently single).

While there absolutely are wrong dating strategies, there is no such thing as the perfect dating strategy.

This blog will never tell you that anything is guaranteed to work, because economists never talk in certainties! Dating, just like economics, depends on the decisions of unique individuals. The decisions can never be predicted with 100% accuracy, because people will always insist on doing what they want to do despite the fact that it flies in the face of our models. The only thing that can be predicted with certainty is that the results can never be predicted with certainty.

Therefore, don’t be beholden to a single dating strategy. Nothing will work in every situation, with every person, all the time. Never. Ever.

If what you are doing isn’t working, do something different! That may mean putting the word out to your friends that you would be open to being set up on a blind date. It may mean being more intentional about going to social events. It may mean [gasp] online dating.

Or you may have other ideas of your own to try. The point is that you are going to have to employ different dating models. And that should not scare you.

You should have a Swiss army knife of strategies – a set of complementary but distinct tools that can be applied in many different circumstances.

Originally posted on Jacqueline Otto’s blog.

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Jacqueline Otto is a commentator and writer. Her work has been published in Fox News, Investor’s Business Daily, The Daily Caller, Townhall, The Austin-American Statesman, and the American Spectator. She is regular columnist for the American Enterprise Institute’s Project on Values and Capitalism and America’s Future Foundation’s Free the Future blog. She is also a new media consultant working with the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics. Jacqueline is on Twitter at@jacque_otto.

Are you nervous for an upcoming interview? Maybe you are graduating from college this month and starting to get calls from the places you applied to work. Maybe you are looking for your second or third job and lining up interviews. Don’t be nervous – just keep in mind these simple tips.

1. Early is On Time. Make sure you allow for enough time in your schedule to show up early for your interview. You should arrive at least 10 minutes early as evidence that you are organized and respectful of the interviewer’s time. If you arrive on time, that should be considered late in your mind. Use this principle for all meetings, not just interviews.

2. Do Background Research. Ask the organization who will be interviewing you and do research about that person. Most groups in the liberty movement list biographies of their employees on their website. Search for blogs or articles the person has written, and be sure to google their name. If there are several people interviewing you, be sure to research them too because you probably don’t know who the key decision-maker will be. Also be prepared to discuss the organization intelligently and offer specific suggestions for improvement.

3. Remain Poised Throughout. Make a concerted effort to listen carefully to the interviewer, especially in the last few minutes. Don’t get antsy, slouch in the chair, look at your watch, or start checking your phone. Take notes when the interviewer makes important points – which will help you follow up in subsequent interviews.

4. Have Questions Prepared. Be sure to have at bring 5 well-researched, well-thought out questions that relate to the position for which you are applying. You will probably get answers to several of the questions during the course of the interview, so don’t ask about something you already discussed (unless it is an intelligent follow-up). Some examples might be: how would you describe the office culture, what do you most enjoy about working here, what is the organization’s long term vision, and something related to the specific position to which you applied. When candidates can’t come up with a good question during the interview, it shows the person didn’t do much homework.

5. Write a Thank You Note. The best way to follow up after the interview is to promptly send a thank you note. Email is sufficient, but a handwritten note really distinguishes yourself in a pool of similarly qualified candidates. Be sure to re-emphasize how much you want to work there and why you are the right fit (using humility, of course). If more than one person interviewed you, send something to each person individually and be very careful if you are cutting and pasting the same text to multiple people!

If you do those five things well, you will have a better chance of getting the job. There are many other factors in hiring decisions, but don’t be that person who was late, unprepared, underwhelming on knowledge of the organization, bored in the interview, or silent after it took place. Distinguish yourself by doing the basics well.

Roger Custer is Executive Director of America’s Future Foundation

On April 25th, the Atlanta chapter of America’s Future Foundation (AFF) received a very warm welcome from a gathering of over twenty local young professionals interested in building community around the ideas of free markets and individual liberty.

The Atlanta chapter’s kickoff event “What is Liberty?” was held at Fado Irish Pub in Buckhead and featured three excellent guest panelists. Dr. Andrew Cohen, Director of the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgia State University, provided an engaging account of both positive and negative liberty and challenges philosophers offer to each. Chuck Donovan, airline pilot of 33 years and former US Senatorial candidate, shared his own story of discovering the philosophy of liberty and explained why it is important to analyze policy against a consistent standard of liberty. Finally, the group was treated to a thought provoking answer from radio talk show host, Monica Perez, when asked “What would a free society look like?” Monica’s response, reminiscent of Leonard Reed’s classic essay “I Don’t Know”, reminded the group that our biggest challenge is not necessarily to explain exactly how a free society will be ordered, but rather to explain that the uncertainty of an unplanned economy is not something that should be feared.

The Atlanta chapter kickoff was a great success. AFF is excited to be a part of the liberty community in Atlanta and we look forward to building on this momentum in the coming months.

If you have any questions, please contact AFF-Atlanta chairman Jason Riddle: jason@americasfuture.org

And please take a moment to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Everyone writes. Most of us do it poorly. Lamentable though it may be, the fact is, writing is not just for the blogger, the op-ed author, and the novelist. It is also the absolutely indispensable tool of the fundraiser, the recruiter, and the manager.

No doubt you have written something in the last few days. Maybe it was a Facebook post. Maybe it was a thank-you note. Maybe it was a prequel to Atlas Shrugged (in which case, it may have taken you a few decades).

Think for a second about your last writing. When the reader finished it, did she completely understand your meaning as well as if she were inside your head? Did she get your jokes if you had any? Did she feel like she learned something new? That her time was well-spent? That you weren’t insulting her intelligence or attempting in vain to peacock-strut your own IQ?

It is either the very rare or the very cocky author who confidently answers “yes” to each of these questions. It is an odd paradox that most people don’t take writing seriously enough and that most people don’t have fun with it. These are not mutually exclusive goals, and you should aim for both.

In this four part series, I hope to give a few helpful tips for those who plan to write professionally — which is everyone in a policy career. What qualifies me to dispense such advice? I am not widely published, and I am not a professional writing coach. I do, however, write a heck of a lot—mostly emails and memos, a few letters of recommendation, occasional op-eds, and an academic piece here and there.

Like most, writing does not come naturally to me. But I work at it. And, as importantly, I enjoy it. In short, I am probably not unlike you, dear reader. And so I hope my advice is both helpful and relatable. If it isn’t, write me a note about it.

Matt Mitchell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. This post is an excerpt from the IHS “Creating Your Path to a Policy Career” guide.

Most DC young professionals are here for a few years as a temporary post between college and graduate school. Unfortunately, higher education is increasingly less valuable (because so many people consume it) and the costs continue to skyrocket (because of government loans and subsidies). It shocks me that so many people continue to choose the graduate school path without really calculating if it’s a good investment based on the time and the expense.

I’m pretty anti-higher education overall (read James Altucher for more on the topic) because it is overpriced, too time consuming, and the market value of the results tend to be paltry except for a very few industries (engineering, some healthcare fields, etc).

Before I started my business, I briefly thought of going to business school. Instead, I just started my business. For $15,000 in startup costs I created a company that was earning about $250,000 in annual revenues in the time it would have taken me to do an MBA. Not only was I not experienceless and $100,000 in debt on school costs, I had a company that was growing and – more importantly – two years of problem-solving skills and street smarts under my belt.

In my view, graduate school allows you to pay someone else a lot of money to forestall doing something instead of just doing something. Even for a trade with a reputation for high wages such as law (the most common path for DC people), the extremely high time and money costs of studying them alter your career path (forcing you into the “meat-grinder” law firm to pay down your debt), lower your quality of life (the big law firm lifestyle sucks), and hang over your finances for years. Within a few years of graduating college you haven’t even begun to recuperate the costs for your four years in an undergraduate degree.

Tucker Carlson recently told a group of young people that both college and graduate school are essentially useless for a writing career. You can definitely hone those skills on your own, pitch stories, work with writers better than yourself, and build a career by doing rather than attending classes and completing school assignments.

Building websites and doing video editing are two highly valuable skills to employers right now. Both of those things you can teach yourself on evenings and weekends, or by watching online training videos, or attending workshops. You can also apprentice yourself to someone who can do those things so you can learn by shadowing them.

Many skills that are valuable to employers like myself can be self-taught or acquired by working hard and learning from smart people around you. That’s a much better use of your time than more school.

Joanna Robinson is the Owner of Lunar Massage, a growing chain of massage studios in Washington D.C. She is a former Membership Director and now Board Member of AFF.

In our youth, we were taught to “stop, drop, and roll” for fire safety. I remember going outside and practicing in elementary school – maybe you do too. As a professional, you can use the same principle for job safety instead of fire safety. Distinguish yourself by making a habit of proofreading written communications. In other words, stop, drop and proofread each written communication!

I receive many resumes and cover letters. It becomes clear when the writer did not take time to proofread. Common errors include misspelling the recipient’s name or organization (I’ve gotten “Dear Robert” and “Dear Mr. Custard”). Even worse is when the job applicant sends the same cover letter to several potential employers and forgets to change the organization or misspells the organization. These are very simple errors that can be prevented by a few minutes of proofreading.

Consider asking a friend or colleague to proofread important documents, including job applications, high-priority emails, letters, or messages. A fresh set of eyes can improve your communication immensely by noticing errors you overlooked or pointing out poorly articulated ideas. For example, misplaced commas or punctuation can convey an entirely different meaning, as explained by Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Don’t trust spell check or auto correcting software on your phone. Proofreading will help you find auto-corrected errors, the most common of which include words with multiple spellings or misuse of “their,” “they’re,” and “there.” I had one cover letter that was probably auto-corrected to say “I am defiantly interested.” You can find plenty of examples of epic fail auto-corrected text messages through google!

On email, be sure to check the recipient so you don’t reply instead of forward, or reply all instead of replying to one person. Also re-read your message to make sure you don’t promise an attachment that’s not attached, or write something you will regret later.

In this competitive job market, don’t be that person who is excluded from consideration just because you forgot to stop, drop, and proofread. Distinguish yourself through clear written communications.

As the summer approaches, The Fund for American Studies is preparing for over 450 students to attend five academic internship programs in Washington, D.C.

They are looking for volunteers to serve as a mentor to one of these students. By signing up today, you will be able to help a student make the most of his or her Washington experience. TFAS will hand match you with a student based on career interests and background. TFAS is looking for mentors in all fields, but have an increased demand for journalists, attorneys and professionals in the international relations field.

HOW TO SIGN UP

To sign up, fill out the D.C. Mentor Survey. Your answers will help TFAS successfully match you with a student. The deadline to complete the survey is Friday, April 27th.

**Please note: Even if you have completed this survey before or expressed interest by email, TFAS needs you to complete it again to sign up for the Summer 2012 Mentor Program. This will ensure that they have accurate information needed to match you with a student as some questions have changed.

MENTOR PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS

Mentor volunteers should possess a strong interest in helping a college student succeed by offering career advice, information on working in Washington, and general advice on life in D.C. Mentor requirements include:

· Commitment to serve eight weeks of program (June 10 – August 4)
· Willingness to meet face-to-face with the student at least once in June and once in July
· Ability to send introductory email in early June before your student arrives and keep in touch by email throughout the program
· Must live or work in the D.C. metro area
· Must be a working professional
· Must possess two or more years of full-time work experience OR be an alumnus of a TFAS institute

ABOUT THE PROGRAM & STUDENTS

The D.C. Mentor Program is designed to help provide a well-rounded “Washington experience” for the students participating in TFAS summer programs. Students are matched with area professionals who can offer career guidance, review their resume, share insider tips and offer general advice.

Students undergo a rigorous application process before being accepted into one of our programs. They’re serious about their internships and they want to get the most out of their experience. Most are upperclassmen and have an average GPA of 3.5. Our students are diverse, hailing from small private colleges to large state universities.

Students attend one of six summer programs that combine coursework with nearly full-time internships. Program areas include:

· Political Science/Public Policy
· International Affairs
· Lobbying/Business
· Journalism and Communications
· Nonprofit Sector
· Legal

SCHEDULE

April 27 – Mentor Sign Up Deadline
May 4, 8, and 11 – Mentor Orientation Conference Calls (One required for new mentors – sign up in the online survey)
Week of May 21 – Mentor-Student Matching notifications sent by e-mail
June 10 – Students Arrive in Washington
Week of June 18 – “Meet Your Mentor” Breakfasts (Sign up will be sent at later date)
June 23 – Saturday afternoon BBQ at Georgetown (optional)
July 20 – Washington Nationals baseball game (optional)
August 3 – Graduation at Georgetown University (optional)
CONTACT

If you have questions or would like more information, please contact Lauren Goldberg at lgoldberg@tfas.org or 202-986-0384.

Don’t be afraid to ask. There is no way that one person can know all the answers, but a person can learn many answers by asking others. Distinguish yourself in the workplace by making a habit of seeking knowledge, feedback, and collaboration with others.

In 1945, Friedrich Hayek wrote his essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” He argues that knowledge is so dispersed among individuals in society that decision-making cannot be done rationally by a central authority. He writes,

“the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.”

In the workplace, this means that your colleagues have knowledge that will help you make better decisions. Those who have been around the organization for longer than you probably have a better idea of past activity from which they have learned valuable lessons. You won’t know about that until you ask them, and ask the right, specific questions. You can even ask people who no longer work there but have knowledge from previous time there.

When you make a mistake, don’t be afraid to ask for help to fix it. It may be embarrassing to admit your mistake, but the long-term benefit from your humble honesty, and faster repair of the problem, outweighs the temporary discomfort. You will gain respect when you form a pattern of gathering dispersed knowledge from your colleagues, and asking for help when you make mistakes.

In the case of development for nonprofits, don’t be afraid to ask for gifts. When you are passionate about your cause and asking for support, people will respond. Even a “no” should be interpreted as “not now” and you can ask for other help like friend referrals or in-kind gifts.

America’s Future Foundation is here to help you advance your career in the liberty movement, whether that means improving your speaking, writing, organizing, debating, or networking. However, we can’t help you if you don’t ask…

By Emily Miller, Director of Employment Placement Services, Leadership Institute

We’ve all had the experience of seeing an exciting job listing, and then feeling our hearts sink when we read the qualifications. “Should I apply anyway?” we ask ourselves. “I know I can do it!” Despite our faith in our own abilities, recruiters list qualifications for a reason. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when deciding whether to apply for a job.

1. Do you have any experience in that field? If your answer to this question is no, you should consider other options. I receive many emails from frustrated employers asking how to make it clearer that people without any experience in the field shouldn’t apply. If the posting specifies that you must have some level of experience in a given field, and you have none, you will not be considered unless it is an entry-level role.

2. Do you have any additional experience that could count toward the stated qualifications? Postings will specify how many years of experience in the field are required. At times, experience in other areas may count toward that requirement. For example, a recruiter may want four years of experience in political writing and editing. Perhaps you’ve only been writing in a professional setting for two years, but you’ve contributed to an online outlet for five. Or perhaps you wrote for your college paper. Those field experiences can be added to your “years of experience” count. Just make sure your resume reflects them.

3. Does the posting say “preferred” or “must”? Preferred means someone who does have the specified experience will have an advantage over someone who doesn’t, but both are welcome to apply. If the posting states that applicants must have a certain skill or experience level, heed that request. There is a reason the employer feels that attribute is necessary, and he/she won’t appreciate you ignoring it.

4. How specific are the qualifications? Vague language in postings is a common source of jobseeker frustration. And, honestly, recruiters are often at fault for many of the unqualified applicants they receive because they were not more specific in the job announcement. Pay careful attention to how the qualifications are worded. Sometimes they can encompass a wide range of possibilities: “4-6 years of project management experience.” This could mean anything from making sure a monthly newsletter went out on time to running the organization’s largest program. In that situation, tailor your resume to display how your experiences fit that requirement. But if the posting says something like “1-2 years of experience in non-linear editing systems,” you know the recruiter is looking for a very specific set of skills. You should only apply if you have those skills.

If you’ve zoned out and only take one thing away from this post, I hope it will be this: Don’t make yourself out to be something you’re not. Recruiters can spot exaggeration and experience-stretching a mile away, and nothing aggravates them more than when an applicant blatantly disregards the qualifications they’ve laid out in a posting. (Well, there may be a couple other sources of aggravation, but that’s a blog post for another time!)

The last thing you want to do is waste a recruiter’s time and make a bad impression. If another job for which you are qualified opens up at that organization, the recruiter will be skeptical about your application because you disregarded the qualifications the first time around.

If you need to build experience, consider volunteering. I know it doesn’t pay the bills and can be tough. But real-world work is invaluable, and the hours spent will be worthwhile when you can apply for that dream job and confidently say, “Yes, I do have the experience you’re looking for.”

Emily Miller is Director of Employment Placement Services at the Leadership Institute where she coordinates the networking and employment site, ConservativeJobs.com. She also assists jobseekers through resume and career consultations, job fairs, and training events. You can reach Emily at emiller@leadershipinstitute.org.