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The attitude towards usajobs is the same as with any employer/service:
It's the worst site if they don't get the job!
It's the best site if they do get the job!
The attitude towards usajobs is the same as with any employer/service:
It's the worst site if they don't get the job!
It's the best site if they do get the job!
I have 5 points veteran's preference, an active secret clearance, a B.S. degree from a Tier 1 college and a few years experience in electronics, and of the 70+ positions I applied for, the furthest I ever got was an appointment for a fingerprinting session for a GS-3 mail clerk in San Francisco.
To hell with usajobs.gov. I deleted that site from my favorites years ago.
I have 5 points veteran's preference, an active secret clearance, a B.S. degree from a Tier 1 college and a few years experience in electronics, and of the 70+ positions I applied for, the furthest I ever got was an appointment for a fingerprinting session for a GS-3 mail clerk in San Francisco.
To hell with usajobs.gov. I deleted that site from my favorites years ago.
Wow, sorry about that! Jeez, I really had no chance at all.
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Getting a government job is not much different than private sector. You really need to network and get to know people. Take a temp job, apply for an internship, go to conferences, be willing to work contract at first, be willing to start at a position lower than your qualifications, etc. Thinking you're going to get a job just because you use USAJobs and applied for a position with hundreds of other people is not a reasonable expectation. USAJobs serves a purpose, but it's only a beginning and a necessary level of bureaucracy.
Also, not all agencies use USAJobs. The US Courts have direct hire authority and it's a good way to get your foot in the door to a career in civil service. They have tons of lower level clerk jobs as well as IT and managerial positions.
Also, not everyone is cut out for government service. That's a plain and simple fact. When working for a law enforcement agency, I was on an interview panel to hire an IT specialist in Detroit. It took us three rounds of hiring to get someone that actually qualified after the drug and/or background screening. If you think it's frustrating on the application side, trust me, it's frustrating on the hiring side as well.
I'm a veteran, and I can say that we do have an advantage. But it's not insurmountable. I just hired an IT specialist for our Richmond office, and he had no military background. Although, he did work for the state beforehand. Sometimes you just have to get lucky and be willing to think outside the box.
I have 5 points veteran's preference, an active secret clearance, a B.S. degree from a Tier 1 college and a few years experience in electronics, and of the 70+ positions I applied for, the furthest I ever got was an appointment for a fingerprinting session for a GS-3 mail clerk in San Francisco.
To hell with usajobs.gov. I deleted that site from my favorites years ago.
I also have veteran's preference and have had no trouble getting a federal job from USA Jobs. I applied to 5 in some capacity and heard back from all of them eventually. The highest I was offered was GS-12. Ultimately, I turned them down for a contracting job (which pays way more).
To be honest though, I have a lot of contacts and was actively networking before I left the military.
Well fake is perhaps the wrong word admittedly. But what do you call a position listing that there is no intention of hiring ANYONE that applies to it? In other words, and I worked in the government a long time, they are required to post a position on USAJobs for purposes of promotion of a internal candidate. There is NO intention of hiring outside candidates. None whatsoever.
The USAJobs posting clearly states who is allowed to apply, i.e. current fed employees only, all citizens, agency employees only, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TestEngr
1. There are real positions where the intent is to HIRE an external candidate. I put it at 5% of listing. Perhaps it is 4% or 8%, I don't think anyone tabulates.
The agency has the option of opening a position to external hires or not, often you will see two postings, one for internal and one for external. They do not make any secret of this, it clearly states this in the posting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TestEngr
2. The vast majority of listings for jobs are internal candidate, a requirement to post a position but they will NEVER hire an external candidate. It is a formality. They do this with every position almost over GS-11 but depends on agency, some agency as low as GS-5 may be required to post a position listing on USAJobs to give a promotion. Other agencies only GS-13 and above.
There is no requirement to post a position for external hires. The only requirement is to post for the displaced fed employees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TestEngr
3. The second most common posting is candidates preselected. They may be a student who worked many years and they intend to hire this known candidate as a FTE. They are a student intern or other position currently. Some are just buddies of somebody working inside. By law they MUST advertise before conversion of student intern to FTE. They will NOT hire any applicants via the USAJobs portal but they MUST list position.
Nothing wrong with having a preselected person, the private sector basically runs this way. It is absurd to jump through hoops to promote someone to something they are obviously the best fit for. Call it the buddy system if you want, which happens, but often it is that the person is just the best for the job. Also, if they really wanted it for a buddy, they would just post the job for ICAP/agency employees only for five days, stated on the position description.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TestEngr
Call them what you want but approximately 95% of positions listed (maybe 4% maybe 8% who knows) are not to hire somebody through USAJobs. Call them flowers if you want. It is a colossal waste of people's time and wrong thing to do to the public. Anyone that thinks the governments best use is to waste the publics money and time, well, let's say I don't think that and leave it at that.
I will also add again that during the whole 1980's, 1990's, and perhaps well into early 2000's the majority of government job listings were actual openings, not for promotion and not for hiring a FTE who is preselected. It is only as USAJobs became the required applicant job portal that the not real opening type of listings became 90%+ (I say 95%) of government job listings.
No, what needs to happen is for people to know how to read the job announcements, and look under the heading "who may apply".
What shocks me on this thread is one of the worst areas of the government, USAJobs, which has WASTED money extraordinarily, and built huge amounts of fraud/waste into the government is being defended. I worked in the government a long time, you can't tell me what goes on. I worked there. I know exactly.
What has happened is the pattern of the past which included some minor aspects of this waste has been turned into a charade of mega-waste with USAJobs. It represents everything gone wrong with the government. A gigantic effort that produces lots of paperwork, wastes the publics time, costs taxpayers huge amounts of money, and is at its roots completely unethical by offering jobs that can't be had even yes if you read every word and do everything they say.
People defending USAJobs are likely complicit with propagating government waste. There are hundreds of great people in the government, and there are the money wasters. Anyone defending USAJobs well, you have not convinced me you are not in the money wasting category. Get real if you think USAJobs is offering actual positions outside the small percent that is actual. There are a few, but they don't need this huge model of waste built around them. Government waste abounds, defenders of USAJobs are surely in that camp or they are super super naïve.
I also have veteran's preference and have had no trouble getting a federal job from USA Jobs. I applied to 5 in some capacity and heard back from all of them eventually. The highest I was offered was GS-12. Ultimately, I turned them down for a contracting job (which pays way more).
I work in government.
I've seen the cycle several times already-a LOT of young men and women are big fans of contracting, usually during periods when we can't get enough solid GS employees and the money is flowing freely.
Later, some of them get a little older and family concerns/quality of life/retirement starts looming larger than strict pay, or contracting dries up a little.
Then they are scrambling trying to get into the GS system during a downsizing, wishing they had gone GS when the option was there.
Oh, so now you are agreeing with the OP when they asked if there was more worthless site and you said "No".
Yes, sure. ONE person that you know of got a job so that is what everyone else who has had fruitless experience should bank the site on.....uh huh.
That is about as bad as your distorted logic regarding 'online applications'.
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