TL;DR
Working in digital is less like being Ava from Abbott Elementary and more like being a gardener. With the right tending, your platforms will grow.
The skills that matter most aren’t the ones you learned in class, but you can learn them now.
NDTC’s Digital Strategy Month trainings are your shortcut to breaking into digital (for free).
Hi y’all, it’s Kelly S. (NDTC’s Content Creation and Production Manager) coming out from behind the Substack orange curtain today! We’re in the middle of Digital Strategy Month at NDTC, and with a slew of new college grads sending out their resumes en masse, I wanted to talk to you directly today.
When I graduated from the University of Maryland with an English degree and no intentions of becoming a teacher, I had some serious work to do to find a job. I applied to 63 jobs that summer (three a day, every day) and tracked them all on Google Sheets. I wrote and rewrote cover letters. I hit the “easy apply” LinkedIn button an ungodly amount of times. And I got an offer: Digital Associate with the DSCC, the committee that works to get Democrats elected in the Senate.
I had one interview for the job where I expressed excitement to write emails for their fundraising list (trying to put that English degree to work) and was gently told, “Well, this job doesn’t do a ton of writing.” …crickets. So, what does it do then?
A month later, I was figuring out how to code HTML and segment audiences, not realizing that the industry I fell into was one of the most strategically important corners of political work.
What does “digital” actually mean?
Most people think working in digital = professional tweeting. Here’s what else it can mean (and more often does):
Executing social media strategy across platforms
Coding and segmenting emails and texts
Tracking analytics and A/B test results
Designing graphics and sourcing photographs
Producing video content
Managing paid digital advertising
Building and maintaining websites
And, of course, writing. Fundraising messages. Substacks. Website blogs. Recruitment emails. Surveys. Social media content. Event descriptions. Video scripts. Press pitches. Press releases.
Digital is all about having good foundational communications + technical know-how of the platforms these communications live on and how best to leverage them.
And the legs of its impact are long. One good email can outraise a small fundraising event. Yes, even those spammy ones you never signed up for are helping to save our democracy. Good website content can land you on the first page of Google search results instead of the eleventh. (“I’ve never scrolled to page eleven before.” Exactly!) Behind this are tried and tested digital strategies.
Lots of folks outside digital assume being good at it means having a natural inclination for writing or a certain savvy, curative eye for social media. But it’s less like being Ava from Abbott Elementary and more like being a gardener. Your digital channels are seeds to tend, and if you know how much light and water to give them, they’ll grow!
That’s actually what makes digital work so much better than people expect. Viral moments are rare, and lucky strikes with online audiences are random. But these are learnable skills.
Where to actually learn it
I built most of my skillset on the job, through Googling and YouTube videos, and a couple of formal, expensive courses. But lucky you, you don’t have to do it that way. NDTC is running Digital Strategy Month this May, with courses you can take at your own pace year-round — all free, and there are still plenty of opportunities left to get that free training on your digital skills. Here are just a few of them:
Digital Organizing: How to Engage and Activate Your Audience — The niche political skill that every entry-level campaign staffer or hopeful should start with. This training gets into how to build an engaged audience with intention.
Raising Money Online — The training I needed most when I started. Digital fundraising has its own logic: the ask, the timing, the copy, the architecture of a campaign. This training breaks the strategy down into pieces you can wrap your head around.
Planning Your Approach to Digital Strategy — The big-picture one. Individual tactics only get you so far. This is about building a coherent strategy underneath everything so you’re not just reacting, you’re actually planning.
I really recommend starting with one of these entry points to fight off any overwhelm. But if you’re really hungry for more, you can explore the gamut of digital skills with our Digital Staff Prep learning plan, or any of the individual courses within it.
To all new grads
If you’re staring down a spreadsheet of job applications right now, I see you. I was you. And if a digital role lands in front of you, even if it’s not what you pictured, even if the interview includes a gentle “this isn’t really a writing job,” take it seriously.
Digital political work is one of the most versatile, high-impact skillsets you can build in this industry, and the best part is that none of it is out of reach. You just need to be willing to walk through the doors that open, and learn on the job. That’s exactly what NDTC is here for. The job market is tough, and we’re providing these resources for free to put qualifying and competing for these roles closer to your reach. Take advantage of them. Check out what’s on our Digital Strategy Month calendar, sign up below.
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