OPT Economist Jobs
Economist roles qualify for OPT work authorization when the position requires a bachelor's degree or higher in economics or a closely related field. Most federal agencies, research institutions, and consulting firms that hire economists have established sponsorship pathways, making this one of the stronger fields for F-1 students extending into STEM OPT.
Find OPT Economist JobsOverview
Showing 5 of 21+ Economist jobs
See all Economist Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Economist roles.
Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
Equity Methods seeks a results-focused, growth-oriented professional to support and drive client engagements serving the chief human resources officers and compensation executives at Fortune 500 companies and beyond. Our HR advisory practice offers you the ability to apply core economics and quantitative science principles in a rigorous yet applied capacity. Our work directly impacts the C-suite at client firms on topics in workforce analytics such as pay equity, talent mobility analytics, workforce planning, and incentive design.
You will lead complex client engagements and be responsible for delivering high-impact solutions that leverage your background in economics, in addition to supervising associates on the team. This custom pathway into a senior consulting role is designed for graduate degree holders (Masters or PhD) in Economics, Finance, Accounting, Statistics, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, or other applied quantitative sciences. The role will blend data analysis and modeling, statistics, consulting, and AI to help clients optimize their workforce. This client-facing role will lead engagements and collaborate with the team to build predictive models, drive pay equity studies, and perform other talent analytics. The skills needed for this role include:
- Fluent in classical and applied econometrics
- Ability to build repeatable, well-documented models that comply with industry-accepted frameworks and regulatory standards, as applicable
- Ability to visualize complex technical results clearly for non-technical audiences
- Ability to translate analysis results into plain-English for actionable insights and recommendations for HR and C-suite stakeholders
- Interest in contributing to thought leadership that advance EM’s services
If you enjoy problem-solving, are interested in a client-facing applied role, and enjoy geeking out with technical models, then we would like to meet you and discuss this exciting role.
THE ROLE IN A NUTSHELL
- Prior professional services experience is not required, and neither is compensation or workforce analytics experience. Although every day will be different, Economists in this role will:
- Complete initial training in compensation and workforce analytics projects, ranging from broad-based compensation issues to incentive design to statistical pay equity analysis.
- Lead projects and deliver guidance on statistical matters in pay equity, talent mobility, workforce planning, and other workforce analytics-related projects for clients across industries and company sizes.
- Contribute to compensation strategy projects, in which we are engaged by public and private companies to recommend new incentive programs that support critical business objectives.
- Capture recommendations and analytics for external and internal audiences in superbly structured and clear PowerPoint presentations and Excel worksheets.
- Perform research using clients’ 10-K and proxy statements to form viewpoints on market compensation practices, including pay levels, incentive structures, corporate governance, disclosure, and equity dilution.
- Analyze broad-based compensation benchmarking survey data to recommend employee pay levels in light of industry and peer practices.
- Monitor and interpret the regulatory landscape for pay equity and workforce analytics (e.g., EUPTD, OFCCP, EEOC, state and international pay transparency requirements) to keep methodologies current and defensible.
The Economist role is not expected to be a back-office technical role. Whereas candidates with prior work experience in professional services can segue quickly into formal client management roles, we expect all candidates to learn the ropes of managing consulting projects and transition formally into this segment of our career progression framework.
OUR CULTURE AND METHOD OF DOING BUSINESS
We are:
- Zealous about exceptional client service and delighting every client, large or small.
- Agile and execution-focused. We are people of action. We don’t have managers who just sit back and talk.
- Growth-oriented. We both welcome new clients into the fold and support professional development in our outstanding colleagues.
- Plain-English. Our clients expect us to translate our analytical work into actionable results for non-technical teams. Our work product is clear, straightforward, and actionable.
- Feedback-heavy and mentoring-rich. We’re not a competitive, eat-what-you-kill culture, and our consultants achieve professional growth via hands-on client experience and feedback from leaders.
- All about impact. Our professionals love the opportunity to make an impact on clients, each other, and the long-run trajectory of the business.
- Not a 9-to-5 job. Because all the above items just take time, even for very smart and efficient people.
ABOUT THE HR ADVISORY PRACTICE
The HR Advisory (HRA) practice within Equity Methods excels in providing analytical rigor and superior client service. Our goal of client delight means we are always looking for new ways to improve our current service offerings. This ranges from analyzing problems in new ways to using visualization and plain-English, user-friendly deliverables. Attention to detail, knack for polish, and receptiveness to feedback are a few traits that help HRA consultants succeed.
COMPETENCIES OF THE SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE
- Flexes and adapts to changing circumstances. We constantly face shifting priorities, challenging projects, and tight turnarounds. We try to bend to deliver to our clients during their greatest moments of need, which requires flexibility.
- Rigorous technical background. Our work is customized and rigorous, which may include the statistical modeling underpinning a pay equity project or clarity of reasoning on incentive design projects.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication. Great client work product consists of rigorous analysis and highly polished materials, and we believe you can’t have one without the other. Attention to detail, strong writing skills, and clear communication are musts.
- Thrives on feedback. Our team is focused forward on improvement and creating excellence, never backward on blame, and we seek out feedback to become better versions of ourselves.
- Thrives in an ambiguity-rich environment. As a result of pushing new boundaries, we often find ourselves outside of our individual and collective comfort zones. This spells ambiguity, the need for research, and a desire to experiment iteratively toward the right answer—which some people love and others do not.
- Works autonomously but is comfortable in groups. Much of the in-the-weeds work of our engagements requires our consultants to perform excellent analysis individually before sharing, testing, and iterating with the team. This requires doing great work with little to no oversight as well as comfort considering, discussing, and implementing others’ viewpoints.
- Excels at data analysis and visualization. Many engagements involve some sort of modeling and analysis. We are known for drawing rich insights from data and communicating it in a plain-English, visualization-heavy way to our clients.
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS
- PhD or Masters in Statistics, Economics, Finance, Accounting, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, or another quantitative social science related field.
- Prior experience in compensation, pay equity, or workforce analytics is not required.
- Prior work experience in consulting or professional services role is not required, but having this background is a plus.
- Strong Excel skills and the ability to design robust, insight-rich models.
- Coding experience in SAS, Python, R, or STATA.
- Strong detail- and accuracy-orientation. Successful candidate must demonstrate attention to detail with regard to internal and external communication, creating and reviewing deliverables, and performing modeling analyses.
- Ability and willingness to think critically and solve “out-of-the-box” problems independently.
- Background check required.
MORE ABOUT EQUITY METHODS
Equity Methods serves a diverse clientele from dozens of Fortune 500 firms to early-stage pre-IPO firms. We have served 51 Fortune 100 firms all the way to early-stage venture-backed organizations. Our clients span the entire United States, in addition to some in Canada, South America, and Europe. We offer a diverse array of services that solve mission-critical priorities within corporate accounting and human resources functions.
At our size of 180+ professionals and countless brand-name clients, we combine the best of a large professional services firm with the best of an entrepreneurial growth venture. The culture fosters excellence in client service, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement. We have a bias toward promoting from within and we celebrate the diverse strengths of our colleagues. We have consistently been rated a Top Company to Work for in Arizona.
INTRODUCTION
Equity Methods seeks a results-focused, growth-oriented professional to support and drive client engagements serving the chief human resources officers and compensation executives at Fortune 500 companies and beyond. Our HR advisory practice offers you the ability to apply core economics and quantitative science principles in a rigorous yet applied capacity. Our work directly impacts the C-suite at client firms on topics in workforce analytics such as pay equity, talent mobility analytics, workforce planning, and incentive design.
You will lead complex client engagements and be responsible for delivering high-impact solutions that leverage your background in economics, in addition to supervising associates on the team. This custom pathway into a senior consulting role is designed for graduate degree holders (Masters or PhD) in Economics, Finance, Accounting, Statistics, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, or other applied quantitative sciences. The role will blend data analysis and modeling, statistics, consulting, and AI to help clients optimize their workforce. This client-facing role will lead engagements and collaborate with the team to build predictive models, drive pay equity studies, and perform other talent analytics. The skills needed for this role include:
- Fluent in classical and applied econometrics
- Ability to build repeatable, well-documented models that comply with industry-accepted frameworks and regulatory standards, as applicable
- Ability to visualize complex technical results clearly for non-technical audiences
- Ability to translate analysis results into plain-English for actionable insights and recommendations for HR and C-suite stakeholders
- Interest in contributing to thought leadership that advance EM’s services
If you enjoy problem-solving, are interested in a client-facing applied role, and enjoy geeking out with technical models, then we would like to meet you and discuss this exciting role.
THE ROLE IN A NUTSHELL
- Prior professional services experience is not required, and neither is compensation or workforce analytics experience. Although every day will be different, Economists in this role will:
- Complete initial training in compensation and workforce analytics projects, ranging from broad-based compensation issues to incentive design to statistical pay equity analysis.
- Lead projects and deliver guidance on statistical matters in pay equity, talent mobility, workforce planning, and other workforce analytics-related projects for clients across industries and company sizes.
- Contribute to compensation strategy projects, in which we are engaged by public and private companies to recommend new incentive programs that support critical business objectives.
- Capture recommendations and analytics for external and internal audiences in superbly structured and clear PowerPoint presentations and Excel worksheets.
- Perform research using clients’ 10-K and proxy statements to form viewpoints on market compensation practices, including pay levels, incentive structures, corporate governance, disclosure, and equity dilution.
- Analyze broad-based compensation benchmarking survey data to recommend employee pay levels in light of industry and peer practices.
- Monitor and interpret the regulatory landscape for pay equity and workforce analytics (e.g., EUPTD, OFCCP, EEOC, state and international pay transparency requirements) to keep methodologies current and defensible.
The Economist role is not expected to be a back-office technical role. Whereas candidates with prior work experience in professional services can segue quickly into formal client management roles, we expect all candidates to learn the ropes of managing consulting projects and transition formally into this segment of our career progression framework.
OUR CULTURE AND METHOD OF DOING BUSINESS
We are:
- Zealous about exceptional client service and delighting every client, large or small.
- Agile and execution-focused. We are people of action. We don’t have managers who just sit back and talk.
- Growth-oriented. We both welcome new clients into the fold and support professional development in our outstanding colleagues.
- Plain-English. Our clients expect us to translate our analytical work into actionable results for non-technical teams. Our work product is clear, straightforward, and actionable.
- Feedback-heavy and mentoring-rich. We’re not a competitive, eat-what-you-kill culture, and our consultants achieve professional growth via hands-on client experience and feedback from leaders.
- All about impact. Our professionals love the opportunity to make an impact on clients, each other, and the long-run trajectory of the business.
- Not a 9-to-5 job. Because all the above items just take time, even for very smart and efficient people.
ABOUT THE HR ADVISORY PRACTICE
The HR Advisory (HRA) practice within Equity Methods excels in providing analytical rigor and superior client service. Our goal of client delight means we are always looking for new ways to improve our current service offerings. This ranges from analyzing problems in new ways to using visualization and plain-English, user-friendly deliverables. Attention to detail, knack for polish, and receptiveness to feedback are a few traits that help HRA consultants succeed.
COMPETENCIES OF THE SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE
- Flexes and adapts to changing circumstances. We constantly face shifting priorities, challenging projects, and tight turnarounds. We try to bend to deliver to our clients during their greatest moments of need, which requires flexibility.
- Rigorous technical background. Our work is customized and rigorous, which may include the statistical modeling underpinning a pay equity project or clarity of reasoning on incentive design projects.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication. Great client work product consists of rigorous analysis and highly polished materials, and we believe you can’t have one without the other. Attention to detail, strong writing skills, and clear communication are musts.
- Thrives on feedback. Our team is focused forward on improvement and creating excellence, never backward on blame, and we seek out feedback to become better versions of ourselves.
- Thrives in an ambiguity-rich environment. As a result of pushing new boundaries, we often find ourselves outside of our individual and collective comfort zones. This spells ambiguity, the need for research, and a desire to experiment iteratively toward the right answer—which some people love and others do not.
- Works autonomously but is comfortable in groups. Much of the in-the-weeds work of our engagements requires our consultants to perform excellent analysis individually before sharing, testing, and iterating with the team. This requires doing great work with little to no oversight as well as comfort considering, discussing, and implementing others’ viewpoints.
- Excels at data analysis and visualization. Many engagements involve some sort of modeling and analysis. We are known for drawing rich insights from data and communicating it in a plain-English, visualization-heavy way to our clients.
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS
- PhD or Masters in Statistics, Economics, Finance, Accounting, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, or another quantitative social science related field.
- Prior experience in compensation, pay equity, or workforce analytics is not required.
- Prior work experience in consulting or professional services role is not required, but having this background is a plus.
- Strong Excel skills and the ability to design robust, insight-rich models.
- Coding experience in SAS, Python, R, or STATA.
- Strong detail- and accuracy-orientation. Successful candidate must demonstrate attention to detail with regard to internal and external communication, creating and reviewing deliverables, and performing modeling analyses.
- Ability and willingness to think critically and solve “out-of-the-box” problems independently.
- Background check required.
MORE ABOUT EQUITY METHODS
Equity Methods serves a diverse clientele from dozens of Fortune 500 firms to early-stage pre-IPO firms. We have served 51 Fortune 100 firms all the way to early-stage venture-backed organizations. Our clients span the entire United States, in addition to some in Canada, South America, and Europe. We offer a diverse array of services that solve mission-critical priorities within corporate accounting and human resources functions.
At our size of 180+ professionals and countless brand-name clients, we combine the best of a large professional services firm with the best of an entrepreneurial growth venture. The culture fosters excellence in client service, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement. We have a bias toward promoting from within and we celebrate the diverse strengths of our colleagues. We have consistently been rated a Top Company to Work for in Arizona.
See all OPT Economist Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new OPT Economist Jobs.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding OPT Sponsorship as an Economist
Target employers with federal contracts
Federal contractors and agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Congressional Budget Office, and Federal Reserve actively hire economists and have established OPT and H-1B visa sponsorship processes. These employers are accustomed to the paperwork and timelines involved.
Verify your degree field qualifies for STEM OPT
Economics is on the STEM Designated Degree Program list, which means a qualifying degree can unlock a 24-month STEM OPT extension. Confirm your specific program CIP code with your DSO before applying to roles with longer hiring timelines.
Lead with quantitative skills in your resume
Employers hiring economists expect proficiency in econometric modeling, Stata, R, or Python. Foregrounding these technical skills signals that you can contribute immediately, which matters more to sponsors weighing the cost and effort of supporting your work authorization.
Apply to research-intensive organizations early
Think tanks, policy institutes, and academic research centers often recruit six to nine months before their start dates. Applying early gives you time to discuss OPT authorization requirements before offer deadlines pressure both sides.
Clarify OPT status before the final interview round
Raise your OPT status during or after a second-round interview, not at the offer stage. Frame it factually: your authorization is in place, you qualify for a 24-month STEM extension, and H-1B transition is a standard next step for this role type.
Focus on policy and consulting firms with established sponsorship records
Firms like Cornerstone Research, Analysis Group, and NERA Economic Consulting regularly sponsor economists. Targeting employers with a documented history of sponsoring international hires reduces the risk of losing an offer over authorization uncertainty.
Economist OPT: Frequently Asked Questions
Do Economist roles qualify for the 24-month STEM OPT extension?
Yes, in most cases. Economics degrees are included on the STEM Designated Degree Program list, which makes graduates eligible for the 24-month STEM OPT extension beyond the standard 12 months. You need to confirm that your specific degree program's CIP code is STEM-designated with your Designated School Official before assuming eligibility.
Which types of employers are most likely to sponsor OPT for Economist roles?
Federal agencies, central banks, economic consulting firms, and large financial institutions sponsor economists most consistently. The Federal Reserve System, World Bank, and consulting firms with litigation support practices are well-known for hiring international economists and managing work authorization transitions. You can browse verified sponsoring employers on Migrate Mate to identify which organizations are actively hiring OPT candidates right now.
Does an Economist role need to require a specific degree field to count as a qualifying OPT job?
Yes. For OPT employment to be valid, the job must be directly related to your field of study. An economics degree supports roles in economic analysis, policy research, and quantitative consulting. It may not support a general business operations role even if the employer calls it an economist position. Review the job description carefully and discuss borderline cases with your DSO before accepting.
How far in advance should I start applying for Economist roles while on OPT?
Start at least three to four months before your OPT start date for private sector roles, and six to nine months for federal or research institution roles, which have longer hiring cycles. Federal economist positions, particularly those requiring security clearances, can take several months from application to start date, which can create timing conflicts with OPT windows.
Can I work as an Economist at a nonprofit or government agency on OPT?
Yes. Nonprofits, government agencies, and international organizations all qualify as OPT employers as long as the role is related to your degree field and you are receiving compensation or academic credit. Unpaid positions require prior DSO authorization and must meet specific criteria. Federal government positions are generally paid and straightforward for OPT authorization purposes.