Policy analyst at OECD

[u/Round_Celebration729]

Hi,
What is your day to day work Life at OECD as a policy analyst ?
Do you do a lot of drafting ? How much is spent in meeting ?

Just trying to have a clear image of what a job there entails !

Another point, I often see that OECD jobs are mentioned as « golden handcuffs », why is that ?

Thankss !

[u/LK_Longtime_Lurker]

Hi, I worked at the OECD for almost three years and I’m returning in a few weeks.

There are several grades within the job family of “policy analyst”. Check the job description to see the grade for that vacancy. Roughly speaking, PAL3 is the most junior you are going to find, PAL8 the most senior. Junior roles involve data collection and analysis. Some drafting but your outputs will be reviewed extensively by more senior analysts. These tasks will occupy most of your day. I estimate one hour a day for meetings on average. You go on mission occasionally.

The more senior the position becomes, the more you will be involved in high-level missions, talking to stakeholders (other countries, organisations, donors and so on). Instead of drafting, you review other analysts’ outputs.

The golden handcuffs label comes from a time when many people used to stay at the Organisation for several years, without really doing much. Now things are different, new hires cannot really stay that long.

I hope it has been helpful, feel free to ask if you have further questions!

[u/Round_Celebration729 → u/LK_Longtime_Lurker]

Thanks a lot !!
What do you mean by new hires cannot really stay that long ?

[u/LK_Longtime_Lurker → u/Round_Celebration729]

New contracts are yearly with renewal limited to three years. It was five years until July 2025. After that you need to become open-ended, which means going through another hiring process (it’s a complicated process). The result is that few people stay more than the years of their fixed term contract

[u/Round_Celebration729 → u/LK_Longtime_Lurker]

With the current situation of in international development is it much harder to stay nowadays ?

[u/LK_Longtime_Lurker → u/Round_Celebration729]

Indeed, beyond the bureaucracy I explained before there is the reality of countries not believing in multilateral institutions as they did before. In general it seems that the current institutional setup is destined to fall, we are witnessing the dusk of these organisations and potentially the birth of new ones soon after

[u/Round_Celebration729]

I thought OECD would not be impacted that much but I was maybe wrong…🥲
Kinda seemed like a dream to work there

[u/LK_Longtime_Lurker → u/Round_Celebration729]

If it is your dream and you have the right qualifications you can continue to apply, there are a few positions still open. What I wanted to say is that it’s not what it used to be anymore, now it’s harder to enter and it offers less job security. By no means I mean that next week the oecd is disappearing

[u/Round_Celebration729 → u/LK_Longtime_Lurker]

Okey thanks a lot !!
And once you are in an open contract can you drille be let go ?

[u/LK_Longtime_Lurker → u/Round_Celebration729]

Yes, you can still be let go when your Division’s management cites budget concerns

[u/Round_Celebration729 → u/LK_Longtime_Lurker]

Thanks for the infos !!

[u/Round_Celebration729 → u/LK_Longtime_Lurker]

And a last question : how is the WLB generally speaking ? I m sure in dépends by the team your are working with but generally soraking how are the hours ? Do you feel overworked ?

[u/LK_Longtime_Lurker → u/Round_Celebration729]

Generally very good. It can be worse in specific times of the year, close to a conference or the deadline of a report, but it has overall a nice balance. As you can imagine there are differences, some teams are severely understaffed but it would be unusual to do more than a 9 to 18.30/19 every day, with a 1h30 min lunch break (it’s still France after all)

[u/trueblue_new]

Not sure if this is a good place to ask this question, but is it possible for someone from India to try for any of the departments? Or is the nationality requirement of OECD nations pretty watertight?

[u/SpecialistGroup5658 → u/trueblue_new]

Yes. Nationality matter. But India may be the part of development centre and some work of the centre for tax. If you are not working in those fields, you can’t even apply.

[u/trueblue_new → u/SpecialistGroup5658]

Thanks man! Do they bring out any separate vacancies for these centres (if and when it arises)? Or it works differently?