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Well after whining about the procedure to apply....I took the plunge and did it! I actually took the tests for two positions! Yay me! I am pumped! The saga is over. I can do this!
Hope it turns out better for you. Shortly after I graduated I decided to try for an Illinois Forensic Scientist position. I had to take a 2 hour or so test downtown at the State of Illinois Building. It was based on pattern recognition, grammar, and surprisingly very little chemistry like Chem 101 level chemistry not even full on general/organic/analytical. Anyways I got an A rating and got put on a list for chemistry. Since I was a biochemist I also took the test for DNA. I came back a different day (no choice) and took what was basically 3/4 the same test and 1/4 bare bones don't even need to be a science major biochem questions. Once again I scored an A rating and got put on the list.
In the end nothing. The list expired after 1 year and they invited me to come back 2 more times to retake each exam so I could be put on the lists again. No thanks.
Good luck! I applied to the State of Oregon Fish and Wildlife and got a permanent position with my first interview. I was very lucky as lot's of people work seasonal positions for years before getting a permanent position. Well worth it though. The pay wasn't awesome, but the Benefits were great and the retirement plan even better. References are important, so have those lined up. College instructors can be an important reference.
Depending on the state where you applied, you could have a while to wait before hearing anything. Don't assume that silence is a bad sign, though; my spouse applied for a state job a number of years ago, and by the time they called him for an interview, it was so long after he had applied that he had literally forgotten what the job was. He still got the job anyway.
Agencies in our state are required by law to follow certain procedures and timeline. The stated purpose is to limit nepotism and to make the decision as fair as possible, though it can also make it very frustrating.
A job is posted as available for typically ten to fourteen days, during which time applications are accepted and exams are administered.
Then there is a period when a panel of three people review and score all the exams, and the three grades that each applicant gets are averaged to produce an average grade. The members of the panel all have to fit this in with their other work, so if there are many applicants, grading the exams can take a week or longer.
Depending on the position and the hiring manager, sometimes the top X number of exam scores are invited to interview, or sometimes all applicants earning a passing grade are asked to interview. Usually a lower-level person goes through the list of interviewees to schedule times - which can be tricky depending on the schedules of the interviewers.
The interviews themselves are conducted over a period of a week or so, by another panel of three people who are either at or above the position being hired. None of the panel can also have been a member of the exam panel. The panel has to include at least one man, at least one woman and at least one minority.
Once the interviews are complete, the panel averages their ratings and ranks the candidates, and a top candidate is chosen. The hiring manager calls references, then the name of the top candidate is sent to HR for a criminal background check (required for all positions). This can take up to a week to complete.
At that point, the hiring manager is required to submit a "hiring recommendation" to senior agency leadership. This is the point when things can break down; if the senior person is on the ball and responds quickly, well and good, but many of them consider paperwork to be the work of the devil and they do as little of it as possible - which can mean weeks or even months before the hiring manager is allowed to offer their chosen candidate the position.
If you've been tallying up the time periods in the preceding paragraphs, you can see that even with a quick response to the hiring recommendation, it can be five to six weeks after the person submitted their application until an offer is made, and I know of cases that have taken three or four months. Agencies in my state are statutorily required to follow this process and timeline.
So congratulations for applying, and don't get discouraged if you don't hear anything immediately. Keep searching the state jobs website and applying for others that you qualify for, because you never know which one will turn out to be the winner. Good luck!
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