Posted on 05/10/2010 9:34:23 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If you've spent months trying to get a job with the federal government, things are about to get easier.
President Obama plans to instruct federal agencies to radically overhaul the process now used to hire government workers. The change is expected to cut in half the time it takes to fill vacancies and allow the government to better compete with the private sector for top talent.
It's been a long time coming. The Government Accountability Office has been calling for changes since 2001, and a host of outside voices have criticized the byzantine nature of federal hiring, with its stacks of paperwork and endless rounds of interviews that can keep an applicant hanging for months.
"You want to pull your hair out, you want to scream, you want to shout," said Stephanie Jones, 32, of Hyattsville, who lamented that she is only "killing trees" with her 75 federal job applications over the past three years.
David T. Ellwood, dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, describes it as a "19th-century hiring system" in which applications disappear into a "black hole." The process, "even at the best of times," he added, "can take nine months or a year."
Those seeking federal jobs apply through the USAjobs.gov Web site, which categorizes available positions by city and type. They must write essays, known as KSAs, that assess their knowledge, skills and abilities. Once the KSAs are submitted, a response can take months, if applicants get one at all.
Obama's plan, to be announced Tuesday morning, would cut hiring time to about 80 days from the date a vacancy is announced to the point a candidate is hired. In some agencies, it can take up to 200 days to process a hire, and 140 days is not uncommon.(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The list, ping
They are getting desperate to show progress on unemployment, even if there really isn’t any, by about Sept/October.
The best example we have that they are panicky and desperate is the Orwellian dog-n-pony show this week, CHEERINg the increase in unemployment.
They’ve been hiding the unemployment in the numbers for months now. (Snowstorm “adjustment”, anyone?), and they are running out of options.
Go to the govjobs site and see how many airport personnel they are hiring.
Thanks for the ping Jet Jaguar.
It can take up to 200 days to fill a position? Makes you kind of wonder if the position really needed to be filled.
Yep. We don't want our best and brightest out there in the private sector producing goods and services. We want them doing busy work at your local federal building.
Yes, yes, we are fixing to make the transition from useless to less than useless......mmmmmm------mmmmmm------mmmmmm.
If the government didn’t suck up ALL of our wealth and didn’t microregulate every aspect of our lives, you would have had hundreds of job offers. Sure, in the short term you need to survive and nobody wants you to starve or be homeless. But your argument taken just a little bit farther is a recipe for massive failure of the US. If we all get hopeless and turn to federal jobs as a last resort, we become another failure like every other socialist state. Then we can all go riot in the streets as they try to cut off our nonstop flow of freebies and sustenance. Is that what you want?
I have been where you are twice, so I can speak from personal experience. Have you tried retraining yourself? Going into business for yourself? That’s what I did when I got laid low in the early 90s. You can do it, too.
They may as well send them to Santa Claus. No way in hell will the Federal Government allow their hiring...
All this hiring will be strictly affirmative action reparations driven.
Power in numbers.
Why work to force people to the dark side when you can simply hire them?
These new hires will one day burn American cities if we taxpayers can’t make payroll, won’t they? (Greece)
We are being set up by communists.
Free market jobs equal gain. Government jobs equal debt.
My son has been having the same problem. He’s enrolled in on-line criminal justice degree program and has applied for the ....wait for it....lol...TSA! Oh well, it’s a stepping stone for the career he really wants, but I mention it because it seems, like the article states, after several attempts, he’s found they are now hiring more quickly than usual. It’s a lengthy process, but he has completed it all, including the physical, in about 2 months, compared to a year. So, we’ll see...just thought I’d mention it.
That's what I did when I got divorced in the 1990s after a career as a housewife and mommy: started my own business. It was terminated by 9-11 and I had to take a job. My job was in healthcare research support, and you'd think there would be some openings for that here in the Washington DC area, near the National Institutes of Health and other facilities. I did waste a good deal of time retraining myself in an area that is supposed to be in demand, but still have had no offers of interviews.
I would love to have my own business again but the layoff has really damaged my credit, so I can't borrow money. If anyone has ideas for a business I can start without money, I'd be glad to hear about it. In the meanwhile I'm just trying some little things to make a buck here and there.
I know everybody can't work for the government, but when there is nobody else hiring and my town is full of federal installations, I'm not going to tell my teenage son, "It's not good for the nation for me to apply to federal jobs so we're going to lose our home--so you're going to have to go into foster care while I go into a women's homeless shelter." Sorry, no.
Just where do they think the money is going to come from for these government jobs?
The govt has a champaign budget while we’re stuck with beer wages.
Wake Up! This is going to accelerate the debt death spiral!
All of those unemployed white males over 50 can submit a resume too!
They may as well send them to Santa Claus. No way in hell will the Federal Government allow their hiring...
All this hiring will be strictly affirmative action reparations driven.
Robert Reich (the midget, Nazi-type from Clinton Admin.)came out and implied that when the first “stimulus” $ was being distributed for highway/consruction projects. I can’t remember the details but it was on FR.
“White boys need not apply”.
Just what the taxpayers want. The feds hiring more dopes, the lazy, the lard-asses and those with gay, female and minority preferences. Heterosexual white guys can take a hike.
If your are a gay white guy you have a chance. Otherwise you will be frozen out. Don’t bother applying. The incompetents will only hire from within their ranks
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.