American Political Science Association Reviews

Junior staff are grossly underpaid. Many (if not all) junior staff have a master's degree and have been stuck at a program assistant level for 1-3+ years, with no career progression plan, and making less than 60K a year. Across all departments, there is 0 room or pathway for progression. You will only get promoted if someone leaves/retires, so don't bother investing time here in the hopes that you might be able to get promoted. Regardless of what level you are hired at, be prepared to be overworked and undervalued (typical nonprofit structure)- unless you are hired directly to the senior executive team. HR conducts themselves inappropriately when junior employees approach them regarding conflict with senior employees. Obviously, HR is there to take the organization's side but asking your employees if it's their "first adult job" because they voice potential issues with their supervisor, is inappropriate and unacceptable by any professional standards. Lastly, there is no formal compensation review process. You have no guarantee of when you will get a performance-based promotion or raise, regardless of how hard you work. You will get an annual inflation adjustment but that's it.

- Mediocre pay for junior staff, especially for a high-cost of living area like DC. - Seemingly high turnover. Possibly due to mediocre pay, many early career folks view APSA as a stepping stone to another more lucrative career and only stay for a year or two. - Lack of established best practices. There is a lack of institutional knowledge on how programs should be run and what best practices should be for office collaboration. For example, there are no centralized procedures for how to request assistance from finance, from communications, or any other frequent office needs. - Overabundance of small initiatives. APSA is responsible for hundreds if not thousands of small programs, committees, sections, and other projects, leaving work responsibilities spread very thinly.