Zipora Otieno MPP ’25 came to graduate school at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs with a clear career goal: After 15 years of climate change adaptation work in Africa, she wanted to expand to a new region. A few months into the program, she began applying for senior-level international positions.
“Most students usually start looking for jobs when they are a few months from graduating. That presents a lot of challenges if you’re seeking a role in international organizations,” she said, noting that she applied in October and received a job offer in February. She is now the regional climate finance adviser for the Caribbean at The Commonwealth.
Getting a head start is just one tactic alumni recommended to navigate the current moment for those pursuing a career in public policy. While Princeton SPIA graduates pursue many paths to service — including local, state, and federal government agencies, non-governmental organizations, philanthropy, international organizations, and more — the job search is taking longer than it has in past years, and a flood of applicants across all sectors is making it harder to land a position.
Still, Princeton SPIA graduates typically secure employment within six months. Among the graduate class of 2025, which was impacted by constricted hiring amid cuts in the federal government and international aid, 91 percent secured a job, fellowship, or admission to further study within nine months of earning their degree.
Nick Brown MPA ’25 accepted a role as senior economist in the climate finance unit at Uganda’s Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development in January. The position is supported by the ODI Fellowship, which places young professionals with technical expertise in roles with governments around the world. He landed the opportunity after taking on a short-term consultancy at the World Bank, an employer he had targeted when he started graduate school.
“I wanted to be working in international development, and now I help mobilize finance for climate-change adaptation and mitigation projects,” Brown said.
After the two-year fellowship, Brown said, he is considering working at a smaller institution that is more engaged in direct service. If he stays in climate finance, he may look for a role with a small impact investor, a philanthropic fund manager, or an early-stage company developing climate-adaptive solutions.
“My goals and interests are changing,” he said. “I’ve only ever worked at quite big institutions, so I want to do something that feels a bit closer to people I’m trying to serve after this.”
Brown said what ultimately helped him successfully pivot to international development was networking. Speaking with people who had done the fellowship or worked at the World Bank helped him understand what those institutions were seeking in applicants.
His advice for people in the job market now is to pace the search: “It’s very easy to get burned out, and the job market is changing rapidly.”
Some graduates are finding that fellowships are a valuable way to get their foot in the door and land a job. Alan Plotz ’25 received Princeton’s Henry Richardson Labouisse 1926 Prize upon completing his SPIA undergraduate degree and used it to fund a yearlong fellowship with the Kino Border Initiative, a migrant shelter and advocacy organization, to document how migrants are treated in detention centers and by federal immigration enforcement.
As the fellowship neared its end, he was offered and accepted a role as an advocacy coordinator. He credits the fellowship with helping him land the job.
“It felt like I had a year-long trial period for this job where they got to see every day that I was actually really good at this, and my Spanish got a lot better,” he said. “If I had just cold-applied for it, I would have been qualified for it, but I don’t think they would have considered my application seriously, especially given my experience applying for a similar position on the East Coast.”
In the Caribbean, Otieno leads climate policy and climate finance mobilization for 12 countries in a climate-disaster hotbed and feels well-positioned for her goal of becoming a global leader in climate finance.
“Before SPIA, I was responsible for East Africa only. Now I’m responsible for the entire Caribbean region,” she said. “The SPIA degree really helped me to strategically position myself for this senior role.”
She advised students to take advantage of the resources offered by campus career services and SPIA’s Graduate Career Development office. Barbara Hampton, the office’s director, wrote a letter of recommendation, helped with interview preparation, and connected her with alumni.
Otieno also said she kept an open mind about where she would land. As an international student, she said securing a job in the U.S. was highly competitive, so she cast a wide net. She recommends leveraging the MPP cohort to build connections, noting, “These are highly networked students."
Photos by Melissa Kelly and Andrea Kane.