R Street is looking for a Texas director
The R Street Institute, a free-market think tank based in Washington, is looking for a dynamic, super-smart, energetic person to serve as the director of its Texas office. Founded in 2012, R Street operates under the motto “Free markets. Real solutions.” We’ve been called “pragmatic libertarians” and accept that label. Our work covers a wide range of federal and state issues. In Texas, we’ll be focusing largely on insurance regulatory issues and, to a lesser extent, environmental and energy issues.
All candidates must have at least two years experience working in or directly with the Texas Legislature and be able to cite at least two currently sitting members of the Legislature as references. (Reference checks will not be done until very late in the process and, in some cases, can be done after an offer-in-principle is made.) The ability to write well and in a timely manner is required and a record of some kind of published work is desirable.
Your personality and work ethic are at least as important as your specific background. We’re all self-motivated, high-energy types who strive to get things done quickly without micromanagement. If you haven’t at least sometimes felt that you were more productive than almost everyone else in your workplace, you probably won’t fit in with the rest of us.
Because we work on a wide variety of issues, deep expertise in our issue set is not expected, but experience with insurance regulation, particularly the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association and homeowners’ insurance regulation, is a big plus. That said, experience in Texas’ state policy-making process overall can make up for a lack of intimate familiarity with insurance, per se.
Pay is commensurate with experience.
This is a full-time, W-2 job with health insurance fully paid by the employer and a suite of excellent benefits, including an employer-funded HRA, a 401(k), gym membership reimbursement and a very generous vacation policy.
R Street is a non-partisan organization, but is often identified with the political right. You can get an idea of what we believe by reading our web page at www.rstreet.org. That said, we have a strong pragmatic streak and have worked closely with self-described progressives and liberals in the past. We’re a lot more interested in solving problems than winning fights. Someone who is actively opposed to our work shouldn’t apply, but there is certainly no party affiliation litmus test or need to agree with every word that everyone at R Street has ever written.
Needless to say, we don’t discriminate on the basis of sex, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, taste in music or anything else that is illegal, immoral or stupid to use as a basis for hiring. We also don’t care where you went to school or what your GPA was (we actually wish that we had known this ourselves when we were looking for jobs…hardly anyone ever asks for your transcripts.)
To apply, put your cover letter into the body of an e-mail, attach a resume, and send it to [email protected]. Include the word “Texas” in the subject line. Include one writing sample if you’d like. We’ll be accepting applications until Oct. 3 and plan to do interviews in Austin on Oct. 16. The process will work like this after you apply: we’ll get back to applicants who interest us within a week or so of when they apply and interview them over the phone. If the phone interview makes things seem like a good fit, we’ll ask you to write a blog post or op-ed on a topic in the news of our choosing which you’ll have 24 hours to complete. We’ll then invite a limited number of candidates to interview in person on Oct. 16 and will strive to make a decision no later than Oct. 17. Start date will be flexible but should likely be prior to the end of November 2014. We may change these dates depending on the quality of our applicant pool and other factors.
If you’re applying after Oct. 3, we may still look at your application depending on the quality of our pool. If you think you’re very well qualified and we haven’t gotten back to you within a week of you sending in your resume, please drop us a line and we’ll be sure to take another look at your resume.
