Are you desperate for work?

1 August 2006, 1517 EDT

Last week, my email inbox received a post from a listserv with this subject line: “Opportunity: Social Sciences/ Iraq.” I don’t know that the list is confidential, but I suppose one has to be a member of a particular scholarly organization to receive postings. In any event, I don’t have to violate list norms because another blogger already posted the entire ad.

Read it here.

Actually, Lincoln Group has the jobs linked on its own website.

The openings are for “STRATEGIC CONSULTANTS” and this is the first line:

“Lincoln Group has an opening for a number of strategic consultants to support Coalition efforts in Iraq.”

As the LA Times (and other media outlets) noted (via Billmon) back in November and December 2005, Lincoln Group has apparently been a key Pentagon contractor in Iraq paying local papers to publish stories written by “American troops.”

Are these jobs in the field of payola-for-hire?

You decide:

* Advertising, Marketing, and/or Public Relations. This assignment would include the provision of advice on the development and execution of strategic communications, public outreach and awareness campaigns and the measurement of the effectiveness thereof.

* Information Operations and Psychological Warfare/Strategic Communication. This assignment would include the provision of advice on all aspects of the planning, execution and evaluation of information operations in Iraq and elsewhere.

Compensation: “$150-$180k (commensurate with experience).”

If you have a master’s degree, some marketable skills, a willingness to live on a military base in Iraq, and the ability to gain at least Secret (ideally Top Secret) clearance, this could be a career move for you.

I’m not forwarding the post to any of my recent grads.

This is for cynical critique only.

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