Young Americans are even more turned off from politics this year than in the past. While that’s understandable in many ways, they are shutting the door on the most transformative and inspiring professional experience any young person can find.

My career started in political campaigns, from local elections with embarrassingly low voter awareness to a winning presidential campaign. Campaigns allowed me to directly advocate for issues I care about, build relationships and coalitions with individuals I would have otherwise never encountered, and find meaningful ways to help people.

These lessons also unexpectedly prepared me for a successful career across industries, spanning the White House, the C-suite of one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies, BlackRock, and adjunct teaching at two Ivy League universities.

Inspiring campaigns

Here are the ways how campaigns can similarly inspire and prepare today’s graduates for a fulfilling adult life.

First, you learn how to engage with people who are nothing like you every day. As commentators often say, “politics is a game of addition.” To win, campaigns reach out to as broad a group as possible before focusing on “their” supporters. That’s why we see Donald Trump focused on Black urban voters and Kamala Harris targeting Florida.

For me as a young organizer, this meant not only working alongside unhoused residents in Chicago, but also seeing names like Michael Jordan and billionaire (now Illinois Governor) J.B. Pritkzer on my suburban door-knocking lists.

And regardless of talking to a celebrity, someone sleeping on the streets, or a person with a loaded gun or a cocktail sloshing out of its glass, you have to be polite and inquisitive — or risk losing your dignity and job. You will find that you likely have more in common with the person on the other side of the doorway than you could have imagined.

Have dreams of traveling the world or just learning how to introduce yourself at a networking event? Start by meeting strangers on blocks you’ve never visited at home. That’s particularly important in our social media-driven world where we are more likely to just interact with those like us and shrinking our personal and professional worlds.

Talking campaigns

Second, you speak directly about the topic everyone tells us to avoid — politics. You can’t dance around or ignore it. How do you do that? You find out what truly matters to the person you are engaging with and connect that to your campaign’s priorities.

While I’ve been yelled at because of who I was working for, I’ve also been invited by people who don’t agree with my chosen candidate into their homes in rural Iowa, Center City Philadelphia, and suburban Rhode Island to have mind-opening conversations. I’ve had the privilege of helping register people to vote, introducing families to critical support services, and developing new policy proposals based on the challenges people have raised.

So not only do you learn sales — arguably the most valuable skill in any career — you also learn about people, their motivations, and how to authentically help. My campaign experience prepared me to later successfully persuade employers to create new training opportunities for underserved youth, raise money for nonprofits and companies, and be a credible job applicant in new industries without checking any of the employer’s desired boxes.

Third, under the ticking time clock of an Election Day with a binary win-lose outcome that you are invested in, there isn’t enough time to leave challenging yourself for another day. Not good at keeping track of details? Or complex project management?

You just … do it.

You may find yourself thriving at the most unexpected of tasks a young staffer gets thrown at the last minute, such as creating buzz-worthy social media campaigns, managing volunteers, or public speaking. What better way to learn what really wakes you up instead of what makes you hit snooze (again and again)?

Compromising campaigns

Finally, campaigns are the ultimate exercise in compromising, which might be the biggest challenge of transitioning into adulthood. As an adult, things are not always going to go your way. You may have to choose from bad to least bad choices, from where to live, what job to take, or how much you see your family.

These choices extend to being a citizen. Is a secure border more important than abortion rights? Is Gaza the world’s most pressing issue? Or climate change or economic growth?

Campaigns uniquely push individuals to define their personal greater good when they select their candidates.

And while figuring out who you are and building up your skills, you will affect your community through your advocacy and might even get the opportunity to change the world. What more could you ask for?

Madhuri Kommareddi is a startup executive and alumna of multiple political campaigns, including the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign. She is working on a novel about campaign staffers.

First Published: August 17, 2024, 9:30 a.m.