Looking to hire?

Recruit outstanding talent

Contact us to discuss your recruitment strategy with the Ford School's employer relations team. 

The Ford School’s graduate and undergraduate career services teams provide dedicated service to our students. They know the expertise and interests of Ford School students and work with employers to develop targeted recruitment strategies to most effectively reach the strongest pool of applicants. Our teams work with employers to:

• Post job or internship openings through FordCareers by emailing [email protected]. Or register as a FordCareers employer.
• Highlight unique job opportunities at your organization, and attract outstanding talent with the Ford School's MPP and BA resume collections. 
• Attract students through information sessions on-campus in Weill Hall or virtually (all info sessions and interviews will be done virtually in Fall 2020).
• Schedule on-campus or virtual interviews.
• Host a graduate student consulting project to help solve your organization's public policy challenges through the Strategic Public Policy Consulting course. Past clients have also used the SPPC course as a means of identifying potential new talent for their organizations.
• Engage with our student organizations.
• We're here to be your connection to the Ford School, don't hesitate to reach out to us to discuss how we can collaborate.  
• Post job or internship openings through FordCareers by emailing [email protected]. Or register as a FordCareers employer.

Diverse leaders of tomorrow. Find them here.

Students who choose the Ford School are diverse and gifted, active and engaged, and creative and passionate.  Our programs prepare students to think analytically across disciplines, to communicate clearly and effectively, to lead, and to work collaboratively to solve tough problems.  The Ford School curriculum emphasizes an applied approach to policy education so that our students have hands-on, practical experience, and understand real-world challenges. They go on to lead in organizations across a variety of sectors on a multitude of public policy issues, including health care cost containment, education reform, energy planning, national security, poverty alleviation, urban revitalization, and more.

MPP student demographics (2021-22)

MPA student demographics (2021)

Master's students: With a degree from one of the nation's top professional schools of public policy, our graduates bring to organizations a toolkit of research, analytic, and communication skills—and an understanding of the political process and environment in which decisions are made within the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Our students acquire a strong grounding in quantitative skills through courses in statistics, microeconomics I and II, and applied econometrics. And they focus on the application of these skills to real-world public policy challenges through a required 10-week internship, an intensive policy simulation, and an Applied Policy Seminar, now called Strategic Public Policy Consulting, in which students complete a consulting project with a real world client under the guidance of a faculty mentor. Graduate students go on to work for federal, state, and local government agencies, non-profit organizations, consulting, the private sector, and international organizations.  See our graduate job statistics here.

Undergraduates: The Ford School bachelor’s degree programs are competitive, interdisciplinary, and attract the University of Michigan's brightest and most passionate students interested in local, national, and global policy challenges. Undergraduate students acquire the general and technical skills to carefully and critically analyze policy challenges through a number of different lenses. Employers recognize the versatility of the training that our undergraduate students obtain, and so the list of careers is far-reaching, and includes positions such as budget or policy analyst for state, local, or federal government; legislative aide; policy analyst for non-profit organizations; elected official; journalist; public affairs officer; to name just a few. In addition, many of our graduates go on to work for Teach for America, AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, and still others decide to pursue graduate or professional school.

PhD students: Our goal is for joint PhD students to bring the most rigorous tools of social science (sociology, economics, or political science) to bear on fundamental public policy questions. Students receive a thorough grounding in the theory and methods of policy and their selected discipline. They develop sophisticated analytical skills and are actively engaged in research and interdisciplinary policy analysis. Recent doctoral graduates have taken prestigious academic positions at Brown University, Cornell University, Duke University, Harvard University, Penn State University, Princeton University, and more. Other recent graduates have accepted research positions with the World Bank, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, the U.S. State Department, Rand, Mathematica, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Gates Foundation, and McKinsey & Company. See the full list of our PhD graduates' positions here.

Internship Requirements

GCS employer relations manager Casey Sullens breaks down the requirements for the MPP student internship experience, from criteria the internship itself has to meet to the work the student must accomplish.

Additional University of Michigan resources

The University of Michigan has more than 20 career offices that work with employers to address their specialized recruiting needs. Hire Blue features tools to connect employers with the appropriate career offices. Many job fairs are offered through U-M’s central Career Center.

The Business Engagement Center helps businesses identify key resources and facilitates university/industry partnerships in research, student recruiting, technology licensing, continuing education and more.