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Adri posted:Good luck to me and you! And me! I'm hoping the 10,000 was the initial number of applications and not after its been cut down. Kase Im Licht fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jul 25, 2010 |
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Jul 25, 2010 16:31
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How do they check up on your answers to the questions they ask? Will they look at your resume and see if they could possibly be true? Ask in the interview? What about questions without objective answers? "Your coworkers would rate your math skills as: Superior, good, okay, bad." Is there any reason not to put the best answer every time for these?
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Aug 3, 2010 13:29
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Haha, jesus: Minimum 101? How do you get over 100? Be a vet? If so, why aren't those marked vets only? This poo poo is depressing.
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Sep 24, 2010 12:02
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Guys who got the DSS BEX call, or thought you got the call, mind saying what location you would be interviewing in? I've heard they go location by location in scheduling. Trying to figure out if I should spend the day staring at my phone waiting for it to ring.
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Oct 20, 2010 14:25
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Alright, I guess I will spend the rest of the day (week?) staring at my phone and waiting for that call.
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Oct 20, 2010 21:03
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Woooo, got my very first email from a standard USAJOBS application saying my application is being forwarded to a real person. Being an expert at everything is apparently effective.
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Nov 24, 2010 02:58
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Oh I'm not under any delusions that this step means its going any farther. I'm just excited to have made it somewhere new. Other than apps where they're looking for very basic qualifications and then sending you on to some sort of test, I've never got a positive response back.
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Nov 26, 2010 15:39
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FBI has one of the strictest drug policies. Any law enforcement agency is going to have a pretty strict policy though. "Its legal at the state level" doesn't strike me as a great excuse when applying to a federal agency when federal law still says its illegal. PR, what are you doing to prep for the BEX?
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Jan 4, 2011 05:21
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Skandiaavity posted:What Zoo said, & be careful whose advice you trust if you browse forums. The CIA has a clandestine wing (NCS), of course. Your problem there is that it is not talked about (at all). You will have to ask them (H.R.) directly about the day-to-day since I believe even talking about the job (stating that you work for them), even to family members, is grounds for termination. You may be in luck, though, since they're looking for Collectors: https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/clandestine/core-collector.html A friend of mine was briefly going through the process but ended up deciding it wasn't for her, so she can talk about some of it. I remember her saying she told her parents and maybe siblings.
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Jan 18, 2011 00:45
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Sorry, running on low sleep lately: it was Criminal Investigator (Special Agent). It's a GS7/9 position, it looks like if you meet the minimum qualifications they'll schedule you for the TEA in May.
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Feb 3, 2011 00:46
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grover posted:Listen very carefully when they ask questions, and answer that specific question, don't volunteer extra. They ask you if you've ever downloaded poo poo from government computers. It doesn't matter if you're webmaster for pirate bay, if you haven't downloaded from government computers, say "no". Wasn't for an actual clearance, but I had a law enforcement agency ask me as part of their own preliminary background check before hiring decisions were made if I ever downloaded anything. They specifically asked about MP3s and wanted to know how many. But I just said it was a long time ago, was only about a couple hundred, and it did not appear to cause any issues. If it was recent though, or if I was a webmaster for pirate bay, I think it would have been trouble. Law enforcement agencies are alot stricter about this kind of stuff than intel positions.
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Feb 26, 2011 19:10
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Can someone explain the rule of three to me? Specifically, how does it work when you've got a list of say 40-50 people and they're going to hire about half of that.
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Apr 17, 2011 15:49
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Its points, mostly out of 100, though veterans points can push you over 100. There are jobs where the minimum score to get referred is over 100. Many are very high 90s.
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Oct 20, 2011 01:48
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FlyWhiteBoy posted:I've recently been hired by a contractor for some government work but haven't started yet. Is there a way to know what clearance type I will be receiving based on the forms I have filled out? How the hell do I pick a health care plan? Too many damned choices. Thoughts on the high deductible plans? My worry with those is getting some sort of moderate injury (I play a ton of sports so really the joint/broken bone injuries are my biggest worry) before I've contributed much to my HSA. But once I've built that up it seems like a pretty good deal.
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Nov 3, 2011 03:42
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Okay, anyone have any experience with getting promotions faster than an agency generally gives them out? I started at a GS-7, because due to budget issues my agency was only hiring at 7 this year. In the past, some could start at 9, especially if you had a graduate degree. We generally go up a grade every year, at least until 12, but that's a little slow for me. I at least got them to step me out to a 7-10 so my income isn't totally lovely, but being a GS-7 with a law degree is a little ridiculous and someone in my class told me they'd heard of people going for promotions 6 months in if they were qualified for them. However he was very short on details and didn't fill me with much confidence that he knew what he was talking about. Any idea if this is actually possible or how to go about doing it? I could ask my supervisor but I'm guessing she probably won't want to be bothered with this crap, since I just got there and she doesn't really know me at all yet. HR is drat retarded, and frankly I don't trust them, and I'd rather not deal with them until I have some idea what I'm talking about.
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Jan 5, 2012 00:15
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Konquest posted:Do you work for the patent office?
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Jan 15, 2012 18:44
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Do you mean Border Patrol or Customs & Border Protection?
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Mar 21, 2012 01:02
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Drewski posted:After more than 150 applications to various organizations in 5 states, I was very pleasantly surprised to find an interview request in my inbox this morning. I'm scheduled to interview for a GS11/12-0301 Analyst position with US Citizenship & Immigration Services. Anyone have experience working for them? A good friends works for CIS. She is happy there. She's been there for a few years too, and I think so have a lot of her coworkers, so at least in her office, turnover doesn't seem like an issue.
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Jul 19, 2012 01:04
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Can someone explain how a grade increase works when I'm at a step 10? My understanding is you go up 2 steps in your current grade, then find the lowest step in the new grade that would have you at or above that rate. Correct? So if I can't go two steps higher, do I just add 2x the amount of the differences in steps at my grade? That makes the most sense to me, but I'm worried there's something stupid where I'm going to get screwed and get like $400 extra after my promotion in October.
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Aug 21, 2012 00:49
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Necronomiconomist posted:Nope, just got the application packet in the mail, step 6. USAJobs conveniently lists the locale-adjusted range for each position, so it's easy to eyeball the step. Have you already accepted? Because you should absolutely negotiate. Whatever the top salary listed on the job announcement is what they're capable of giving you. When I got my job they offered step 1, I told them over the phone that was totally unacceptable and they said something about maybe being able to give me a step or two and asked what I wanted. I said I needed step 10, but was very interested in the job, so they should make me their best offer and I would run the numbers and see if it would work. I also gave them a current pay stub showing I currently made over step 10 money and let them know of various qualifications that deserved extra money. A week letter I got my official offer letter giving me step 10. Other people who negotiated got a step or two, a girl with very similar qualifications didn't negotiate and has been furious about the extra $12,000 per year I get for doing the same job. As soon as she heard about my step 10 she harassed HR up and down for about a month trying to get it put in after the fact, but they acted liked they'd never even heard of someone being hired above step 1. Also, if anyone is really desperate for a federal job, or just really wants to look at dicks all day (or for the ladies, vaginas!), we're hiring drug testing clerks! https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/340894300 The one really crazy thing about this job, is that I'm pretty sure it gets law enforcement retirement, which could be a big plus for anyone trying to get into federal law enforcement and worried about getting too old to apply. Job is in DC, closes Friday.
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Apr 3, 2013 04:46
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Currently six. We've been told it might go to 7. Some people have furlough days in the middle of the week. I don't get that. If you're going to furlough me, you're furloughing me on a Friday or Monday. Glad my boss isn't into being a dick for no reason.
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Apr 18, 2013 06:15
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Feed Me A Cat posted:Man, I applied for that same listing and it seems like a JD was considered insufficient. What Assuming you're talking about the Special Agent position with USSS: I have twice applied for it, and both times been given the no thanks email without even being allowed to take the test. I've applied to a number of federal law enforcement positions and always been able to at least take their test, and twice have been very close to getting hired by agencies that I'm pretty sure are more selective than USSS. And yet, they do not even want to offer me a chance. I have a JD and at the time, several years work experience.
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Jul 9, 2013 23:48
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Ignoranceisbliss88 posted:I've been researching 1811 jobs for quite some time and talked to a number of recruiters/agents on and off the record. From what I've gathered, these positions are extremely competitive. A JD isn't an entrance ticket, or even much of a boost. Agencies have an idea of what they want an agent to be and look at the person and a person's life as a whole. I've heard of countless 30+ year old current Police detectives, former military, with a JD types who get passed over in favor of a 22-25 year old with little or no experience who fit the mold. In doing all this research a common denominator is an outraged graduate degree toting civilian with a feeling of entitlement. I'm not saying that this is you, but that the process is very different from the civilian sector. I'd also venture to say that 1811 positions are more competitive than the vast majority of civilian sector jobs. Not many professions offer you amazing career stability, 100k+ a year (GS-13) with great benefits and retirement, and a chance to do some pretty exciting/interesting/abnormal/difference making work. I'm probably more familiar with 1811 hiring than the vast majority of applicants. My problem isn't so much with not getting hired (though I certainly do have a problem with it), but not even being allowed to start the process is dumb, and it's hard to see how I'm not at least a good enough candidate for that. The opacity of the process makes it even worse, since you get no feedback on why exactly they felt you weren't even worth looking at.
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Jul 10, 2013 03:13
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So we'll get paid through the 30th for sure? I'm just looking at a half paycheck this weekend, not an entirely missing one? Any firm news on when the shutdown would have to end to process paychecks on time? I think my assistant has to submit the electronic timesheet by Tuesday, no idea what happens after that. In my head I sort of have Tuesday as the deadline to get paid correctly.
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Oct 7, 2013 05:25
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pizzlemank posted:Just out of grad school and got an 1 year term offer at GS-11. However, I was a 13 equivalent in an unrelated field prior to grad school, and gotten some contracting offers that pay much higher. Is the GS salary negotiable in anyway? If anyone has any tips or success story please do share What does the job announcement say? Look under the salary range, you can negotiate within that.
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Oct 18, 2013 03:26
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So today is one year since my last promotion, and since I'm in a career ladder position and am good at my job I kind of expected to get my next bump up. Hasn't happened. I also have not been given a reason. My supervisor first claimed he didn't know my date was today when I asked him if the paperwork had been processed. A few days later I asked if he'd figured it out and started on it and all he would say "it's not automatic." Hasn't sat me down and told me I'm not getting it and what I need to do to get it, just isn't responding in any helpful way. Not getting a promotion would be unusual here. I talked with another supervisor who said she only ever delayed one due to disciplinary issues. On a side note, it's really great that I can get other supervisors to have a conversation with me about important things but the guy who I report to can't spare more than a vague sentence in response to a serious issue. I should get a step increase automatically though, right?
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Oct 24, 2013 05:52
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This is a really terrible time to be looking. We're like 10% short staffed and management has no plans to hire a new class unless we get a real budget. I came in two years ago when they hired a class of 30 people. We've had at least that many quit/retire since then and are just making do. There's a lot of support positions we need to hire as well. We probably could hire 50 people if we got the budget again and we're a pretty small agency.
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Nov 10, 2013 01:35
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So, anyone know anything about getting money out of your agency when they're not reimbursing you for a work trip? I don't mean not doing it timely, but entirely refusing to pay me back for the airline tickets? I'm guessing I'll have to sue to get it back? Basically they're saying I booked the tickets incorrectly. At first the finance woman said it would just take an extra authorization, but 3 months later they've done nothing. First they took forever getting me my travel card, so I was booking three days before my conference began. When I finally got it they only said "book with XYZ travel agency." So I went to xyz.net, where they had a flight search thing on the front page. I found a flight and booked it. The confirmation came back from abc.com, but I just figured they were using someone else for the backend or it was an associated company. Of course, when I turn in my voucher they say "that's not from xyz travel agency." I replied that I did book it through the website, and that some google searching shows up a relationship of some sort between abc and xyz. Then they say I was supposed to call to book the tickets. Since it was 2013 and I have never in my entire life booked a flight over the phone, even when that was still a thing, someone saying book with a certain company does not mean, to me, to book with them over the phone. This was the point at which she said she would try and get authorization from someone higher up. Well no payment so far. And what do you know, I went and found the old materials from the travel training and what do you think I found right on one of the PowerPoint printouts? "Book your flights with xyz, either over the phone or at xyz.net"
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Jan 25, 2014 19:51
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Anyone want to be a probation officer in DC? How about a social worker? Probably closer to the second than the first. We're hiring a new class of 20. Application closes 6/10/2014. I would say it's not that competitive, but they're hiring at GL-9 this year instead of 7 so it might be a little tougher than in years past. Still, I think anytime an agency is hiring a bunch of people you have way better odds than if they're just hiring one or two. Most people last time around just had 4 year degrees but there were a good amount of graduate degrees too. A few people got hired right out of college with no experience, but again, that was when they were hiring at GL-7. https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/370850200 https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/370956400 (bilingual announcement - Spanish) Job: You're essentially a probation/parole officer, but about 80% of your job will feel closer to social work. If you look at the job announcement, it kind of looks like they're trying to push that to 90%. Not a bad job. Help people who need help, punish people who need punishment. No weapons, you don't make arrests. You will end up in the projects by yourself, so make sure you're comfortable with that. You should be good at communicating and getting people to like you, have patience, be a good writer (there are plenty of terrible writers, but please don't add to this issue). It's not a bad place to work, but keep in mind this is a highly dysfunctional agency and you will get weekly reminders of that. Your supervisor kind of makes the job. With a good one it can be fun, with a bad one...gently caress. Your office will either be in downtown DC or in a field office in the hood. Upside of the hood is there's usually free parking, but you might not be able to metro. Law enforcement pay/retirement. Cannot be older than 37 years old. Going by the last announcement, expect the timeline to be something like this: Written test late June/early July, interview July/August, acceptance letter August/September, start in late October.
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May 27, 2014 22:32
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Thesaurus posted:Sorry to repeat myself, but is it possible to negotiate your salary any with federal jobs? I received my "informal" offer last week and was told to expect a formal offer from HR today or tomorrow. Yes, it is possible, depending on the job. I negotiated an extra $12,000 on my salary from my original offer (went from step 1 offer to step 10 offer). I'm also ridiculously overqualified for my job, so whatever. But others in my class were able to negotiate some extra steps if they had relevant experience or education. There is no harm in negotiating. They aren't going to withdraw the offer, so just do your best. If you know they're hiring at multiple GS levels or a range of steps (what was on the hiring announcement?), then definitely argue that whatever you have (experience, education, previous income, hell, talk about your student loans maybe someone will take pity on you) justifies the higher steps. Get creative. If they're not going to be transparent with the standards then just hit them with everything. I threw all of the above at them. HR person on the phone said "it doesn't sound like you can take this job." I told her I was very interested but I wasn't sure I could do it at that income, felt I deserved more, and needed her to go talk to someone and see what they could offer me. I never even got another phone call, just got an offer letter with the higher step a couple weeks later. It is possible, there's no harm in trying, go nuts. Once you're hired, it's too late. Coworker of mine was hired at step 1 because she didn't know she could negotiate. She had very very similar credentials to me (same education, very similar work history). She freaked out when she realized how much more I was making and went crazy at HR and whoever else's email she could find. Spent a month or two arguing she was entitled to a higher step. Got nothing whatsoever. Also, an MA in English seems relevant to just about anything. You won't be writing any reports or reading anything complicated? Communication skills aren't important?
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Jul 29, 2014 03:40
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Quarex posted:People think I am some sort of wizard for not writing down my passwords at work (though I only [only] have about nine different systems I use regularly enough for it to matter). Little do they know I pretty much Usual Suspects it and have my passwords functionally written down without anyone ever knowing I have a piece of paper taped to my desk right in front of my monitor with a bunch of logins and passwords on it. IT can go gently caress themselves if they give me poo poo about it. It's mostly the harder to remember ones that have weird requirements. Surprisingly, (or maybe not) the ones requiring the most complicated passwords are generally not the ones that have anything important or sensitive about them. Most of the important ones have the same password and I just rotate the ending every 3 months so it's not too hard to remember even when some of them are off-cycle relative to each other. The most complicated login I have? To put in my hours worked. I guess we're really concerned about North Korean hackers giving me some extra overtime. I think the second most difficult one is to register for training.
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Jan 23, 2015 23:29
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Evil SpongeBob posted:And that is why you always have a sf-50 & a sf-86 ready to go at all times. I've seen vacancy announcements only open for 2 days. Not the time to be hunting down stuff. I saw one job that wanted my most recent performance evaluation. Didn't have that and for some reason it's not on our eOPf. Lost out on that one and I haven't seen any other jobs ask for that in the initial application but that might be a good one to have on hand as well.
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Jan 27, 2015 16:39
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marchantia posted:Yeah, this isn't snarky, it is just good advice for you. Work for a small company if you want agility to update to new technology. The federal govt is so entrenched with other companies, departments, states, etc that updating technology is a nightmare logistically, so they just put it off until it isn't feasible to maintain the status quo, which rarely happens. My work computer uses IE 9, but locked into compatibility mode so it acts like IE 7. Sometimes when I try to do something complicated, like read an email or open a word document, my computer locks up for 1-2 minutes.
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Apr 11, 2015 19:15
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Thesaurus posted:L funds, my friend. They are target date fund that is more aggressive while your young and then scales back as you approach retirement. That said, while they did some good work fighting management on things they needed to be fought on, they also wasted a lot of time and credibility fighting minor crap they had no chance at winning. And the usual protecting crappy employees stuff. Also I got a lot of stuff about how the TPP is the worst thing ever and we needed to fight it because something something. Our jobs were literally impossible to outsource since they required physical presence in the U.S. Stop wasting my money and your time on these quixotic socialist causes and just help us deal with management. There are serious issues that are very winnable if you'd just concentrate on them rather than everything else. Frustrating. Realistically, if things hit the fan with your agency, and you hire a lawyer, if you're right and you win, your agency is going to be paying your lawyer's fees anyway. Also, I've seen too many useless employees completely avoid disciplinary action and never saw good employees get in any kind of trouble that would require a lawyer (other issues with favoritism and managers being dicks, but you're not getting a lawyer for that). I think "we'll get you a lawyer" sounds really great and gets people in, but is extremely unlikely to be useful for a good employee. Better to just be on the ball with knowing your agency's rules and knowing who is looking to stab you in the back. Also if you're young just put your TSP in something aggressive. If you're going to roll the dice, roll them when you don't have much to lose. Could pay big dividends down the road.Try to have some basic knowledge of the world economy and throw it back in something conservative if things start to go to poo poo. The S fund made something like 40% a couple years ago. Sucks if you had all your money in the G fund that year.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:50
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Goodpancakes posted:Should I be shoveling cover letters out to USAJobs applications? Citizenship itself will not be a problem but I hope you aren't voting over there, using a British passport, owning property, etc. Ex had a TS with dual citizenship and they didn't care outside of stuff like the above.
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Aug 14, 2015 04:36
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Quarex posted:Living the dream, landed a detail at a part of the Government that is probably small enough that I would be personally identifiable if I even posted what it was! Turns out the secret to getting a detail assignment is to be the only person who actually reads the monthly e-mail newslettery things your agency sends out. Anybody else getting some completely absurd new security requirements as an idiotic overreaction to the hacks? We're basically going back in time to the mid 90s because they're making email usage such a pain in the rear end I'm only going to communicate by fax. Any email containing PII going outside our department has to be encrypted. For basic emails the end user will get a link to sign up for an account and then can click to read the email. Pain in the rear end for a simple email. And I tend to not send repeated emails to one person, I'm always communicating with new people. Even better is that according to my test of it yesterday, it doesn't even work at the agency I do most of my communicating with. For attachments, it's even better. I have to send a signup form and user agreement to anyone I want to send an attachment to. They return it to me, I send it to our IT department, they create a box.com account for that person. Then I request that person be added to access my folder. Then I email them a link to the folder. The really great part is, the majority of the PII I would be sending in emails is totally disclosable information that I would immediately hand over to any chinese hacker who called me up and asked for it. I'm praying it's just our component's IT department misinterpreting some guidance from above and this will all be changed when someone realizes how pointless and disruptive this is.
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Dec 5, 2015 18:02
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Thesaurus posted:You need to work for an agency that doesn't handle info anyone would care about stealing. I don't. We have zero classified information. 95% of the information I send is actually public information. The rest is just sensitive but unclassified. They said if it's got a name, it has to be encrypted. End of story. Makes no sense. No one wants this poo poo. We've made some additional attempts to send the basic encrypted emails, none of them worked. And now IT is saying we have to do it for all emails, even inside the department.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:42
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LCL-Dead posted:Speaking of, how often does anyone here get drug tested? I was in a law enforcement-ish position for 4 years and got drug tested 4-5 times, plus the one at hiring. Asked at my new agency and doesn't sound like we get tested after the initial.
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Mar 25, 2016 17:44
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I think it took a month or so. But mine didn't just fail to transfer. Someone hosed up and when i went to put in for future leave at the new agency they said i was actually negative the amount of hours i had saved up. Don't know how quickly they transferred the wrong number...
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May 21, 2016 20:48
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So my agency gave out bonuses right before the end of the fiscal year. I did not get one because I'm a newer employee here and got my grade increase within the last 6 month (still one grade below everyone else). So people who already make a lot more than me for doing the exact same job now get even more money. Does anywhere else have a rule against bonuses for people with recent grade increases? I couldn't find evidence of a government wide rule and it seems pretty stupid in general since whether someone gets a bonus depends on something inconsequential like when their anniversary date is. It also means there is no point to working hard and keeping a performance rating higher than the employees who got bonuses so i guess my job just got a lot easier.
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Oct 11, 2016 16:34
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