2021 Congressional Innovation Scholars Program Selections Process

This year, we received 277 applications for our 2021 Congressional Innovation Scholars Program. As we begin our review process, we want to share some information about next steps. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all interviews will be conducted over video.

Below, you will find a repost of last year’s Fellowship process with a few small tweaks that we made this year for the Scholars Program.

We do our best to live our values as an organization, and primary among those are transparency and inclusion. Accordingly, we want to provide a window into the stages of our fellowship selections process for the 2021 application cycle.  

TechCongress works to create pathways into Congress for people that may not ordinarily have a direct route in. For the Congressional Innovation Scholarship, we try to do everything we can to ensure we have an equitable selection process based on the latest research. We screen to make sure no one was left out due to coming from non-traditional backgrounds. We are always examining our processes for places we can do better and collecting feedback so we can continue to learn. 

Our process begins very deliberately with anonymous applications. We request people remove their names from their resumes and other materials to prevent ourselves and our selections board from having entry points for unconscious bias to seep in. In fact, if applicants do not follow this step, it results in a slightly lowered resume score. 

The overall selections criteria includes: potential for placement in Congressional offices; professional achievements and technical ability; commitment to building a diverse and cross-sector technology policy ecosystem; potential for future growth and career advancement; interpersonal, communication, and “tech-translation” skills; individual plans for incorporating the fellowship experience into specific career goals; and likelihood to stay in Congress after the fellowship ends.

The first round of selections is a review of the hundreds of applications received. Members of the TechCongress team, in addition to some outside reviewers on occasion, review all of the applicants, rating each short essay and resume individually and scoring the overall application as a whole. 

The applicants that have demonstrated strong potential on the criteria above advance to our second round, a review by different members of the TechCongress team. The team-- which also reviews applications anonymously-- scores each application and provides a rank-order of the top applicants. The TechCongress team reviews these rankings to make sure we have a group advancing to the next stage that is broadly representative. 

Our third round of selections is a round of video interviews, for which 35-40 applicants typically advance. The process is de-anonymized so that we can make contact with applicants to arrange interviews. We have a team of TechCongress staff and advisors interview these candidates. We ask a standardized set of questions in a 20-minute interview to assess the same core criteria listed above. Based on these interviews, we then narrow the field to 15-20 candidates whom we invite to a second interview.

Second interviews last 45-55 minutes, and we ask the same series of questions to everyone. Interviewers are not allowed to discuss applicants until after they have submitted anonymous ratings of the interviews to prevent interviewers from biasing each other. It sometimes happens that clarifications from prior interviews are needed, and so there can be a small round of shorter follow-up interviews. (As we noted above, for 2021 selections all interviews will be conducted via video.)

At this point finalists are selected by the TechCongress team to build a robust cohort of Fellows. Finalists are notified that their references will be checked, and references are checked. It is typically an 8-10 week process from the time applications close until offers are made. Once an offer is made, we ask candidates to respond with a decision within a few days. We try to give scholars at least 6-10 weeks to prepare to begin the program in early June.