you have to spend several years resume-building before painstakingly convincing people you’re worth hiring for paid work
For government roles, I think “years of experience” is definitely an important factor. But I don’t think you need to have been specializing for government roles specifically.
Especially for AI policy, there are several programs that are basically like “hey, if you have AI expertise but no background in policy, we want your help.” To be clear, these are often still fairly competitive, but I think it’s much more about being generally capable/competent and less about having optimized your resume for policy roles.
For government roles, I think “years of experience” is definitely an important factor. But I don’t think you need to have been specializing for government roles specifically.
Especially for AI policy, there are several programs that are basically like “hey, if you have AI expertise but no background in policy, we want your help.” To be clear, these are often still fairly competitive, but I think it’s much more about being generally capable/competent and less about having optimized your resume for policy roles.