I have been accepted to the mid-career pipeline at the IMF, which means I can now apply to internal positions that are not available on the external website.
There is some variety in the available positions, broadly divided into sectoral versus regional departments. Both of these two major groups are pretty varied themselves. Sectoral includes departments such as fiscal, finance, SPR etc. The regional departments cover all the different world regions, of course.
Since most IMF employees retire as Senior Economists, I was wondering whether people familiar with IMF career development may be able to share some advice on what makes for a good career at the Fund with some more growth, relatively? (Please don't say I should have applied to the EP, I was just a few months over, and could not apply to that one).
In other words, what's a strategic way of applying and planning for a career there if we want to aim higher than Senior Economist in the longer term? For instance, I have heard that SPR is a very powerful department, but is getting some desk in experience at some point very important? Also, is SPR terrible for work-life balance? Should you always prioritize applying to countries where there is a program? What happens if you stay too long in research - will you be siloed into non-program work forever? Etc. Etc. Any thoughts are helpful!