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Justus posted:They absolutely do. I got a secret-level for my DoD job that took about 4 months. My buddy who got top secret to be an intelligence officer for the Marines took the better part of a year to get his. I'm plowing through my e-qip for my Secret clearance to do an embassy internship this summer. The emails said expect 90-120 days, which already has me fretting (the 120 mark puts me right at the start of June, which is when my internship would be beginning) but when I went to go get my prints taken at the DS office yesterday, I talked to the officer there and he said it takes longer. I mentioned that I have a lot of travel experience around Asia, and he said I should expect 180-90 days for mine to come through. Does that sound legit for just a Secret clearance? I have no doubt about my ability to actually pass the clearance investigation, I'm just worried about how long it'll take...
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Feb 6, 2014 03:33
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Sounds about right. For what its worth my State TS took exactly 8 months. You have a few things going for you: DS is aware they're dealing with a time sensitive internship clearance, its a S, your younger and ostensibly have a easier file (though you indicated some travel) and your adjudication process is a whole lot quicker not dealing with the Foreign Service Final Review Panel (FRP). I know my FRP added three months to the process.
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Feb 6, 2014 05:04
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They usually do a temp clearance until the whole thing comes back. At least that's what they did for me in 08.
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Feb 6, 2014 09:34
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CronoGamer posted:I'm plowing through my e-qip for my Secret clearance to do an embassy internship this summer. The emails said expect 90-120 days, which already has me fretting (the 120 mark puts me right at the start of June, which is when my internship would be beginning) but when I went to go get my prints taken at the DS office yesterday, I talked to the officer there and he said it takes longer. I mentioned that I have a lot of travel experience around Asia, and he said I should expect 180-90 days for mine to come through. Does that sound legit for just a Secret clearance? I have no doubt about my ability to actually pass the clearance investigation, I'm just worried about how long it'll take... Secret is usually like a 2-3 month process, but my friend took nearly 5 to get it because she had spent extensive time living in Germany and had a German boyfriend. My DoD Secret took only a month to get, whereas my DoS Top Secret has taken over a year and counting. Of course, with the government shutdown in October, budget uncertainties (clearance investigators are all contractors and I believe they downsized the number a fair bit), and increased scrutiny due to Edward Snowden, they may very well be taking considerably longer. psydude fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 17:25
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So I'm sick and tired of being an underemployed Political Science major. I think I'm going to start seriously looking into a career with the government. One thing that is becoming increasingly apparent is that applying for a government job is very much a long term proposition. Could someone explain the role civil service exams play in applying for government jobs? I know there isn't just one exam, but I have no idea if exams are held on an agency level or if they are specific to every position. I also hear they are held rarely, often with gaps of several years between examinations. Is this true?
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Feb 6, 2014 19:30
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psydude posted:Secret is usually like a 2-3 month process, but my friend took nearly 5 to get it because she had spent extensive time living in Germany and had a German boyfriend. My DoD Secret took only a month to get, whereas my DoS Top Secret has taken over a year and counting. I'm going through a DoD TS re-investigation, and it's taking way longer than even my initial did 6 years ago. They are no-poo poo interviewing EVERYONE. I have a feeling this is in response to OPM doing a poo poo job for the past X amount of time, and the criticism of that brought on re: Snowden.
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Feb 6, 2014 23:30
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Radio Talmudist posted:Could someone explain the role civil service exams play in applying for government jobs? I know there isn't just one exam, but I have no idea if exams are held on an agency level or if they are specific to every position. I also hear they are held rarely, often with gaps of several years between examinations. Is this true?
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Feb 7, 2014 00:10
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ryan_woody posted:I'm going through a DoD TS re-investigation, and it's taking way longer than even my initial did 6 years ago. They are no-poo poo interviewing EVERYONE. Might have something to do with OPM undergoing a RIF right now. ~360 folks fewer to do the work means it's not going to be fast. Must Love Dogs fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 00:46
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I think the DOD delays are due more to the Navy Yard shooting making them look again at the clearance process. Congress has been up their butt about it (rightfully so). The OPM RIF is why it's taking almost a year for retiree paperwork to get processed.
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Feb 7, 2014 05:02
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CronoGamer posted:I'm plowing through my e-qip for my Secret clearance to do an embassy internship this summer. The emails said expect 90-120 days, which already has me fretting (the 120 mark puts me right at the start of June, which is when my internship would be beginning) but when I went to go get my prints taken at the DS office yesterday, I talked to the officer there and he said it takes longer. I mentioned that I have a lot of travel experience around Asia, and he said I should expect 180-90 days for mine to come through. Does that sound legit for just a Secret clearance? I have no doubt about my ability to actually pass the clearance investigation, I'm just worried about how long it'll take... Are they requiring a full clearance before you start or will they let you intern on an interim clearance? I did a DOD internship in the summer of 2012 that required secret clearance. I filled out e-qip in March and got my interim clearance right away. Let me fast forward to the last week of my internship in September...I finally get contacted by an investigator and we do the F2F interview on literally my last day. Two weeks later my full clearance comes through - after I completed the internship. Moral of the story is that I wouldn't worry about it.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:01
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Must Love Dogs posted:Might have something to do with OPM undergoing a RIF right now. ~360 folks fewer to do the work means it's not going to be fast. It's not nearly so bad now. psydude's is only taking so long because somebody lost his paperwork and don't want to admit it.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:49
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grover posted:The worst was back in the late 90s, where they computerized everything to make it so efficient they could do just as many clearance with half as many people, RIF'd half their people, and then realized the computers didn't work right and ended up going down for a solid month with nothing done at all; there was a backlog of something like 300,000 clearances at the worst point. They were taking 2 or more years to process even low-level. The OPM RIF strikes me as completely ludicrous, especially when you know more RIFs and voluntary early retirements are coming down the pipe in multiple agencies. Such is the logic of austerity. EDIT: Hope y'all aren't paid through DFAS because it looks like the Army is going to gently caress around with it, possibly requiring staffing cuts. I'm sure this won't impact performance at the closest thing to Kafka's The Trial that a payroll processor can be. Must Love Dogs fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 18:25
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I got calls from two personnel Special Investigators on opposite sides of the country within 15 minutes. poo poo just got real. (though if you are wondering, it turns out you cannot have someone verify your education who also verifies your living arrangement)
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Feb 7, 2014 22:40
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Must Love Dogs posted:Definitely true. Question: did you have any issues moving from temp/term to a permanent position? It's a long story, but the biggest issue I had was convincing the guy in charge that I was even eligible for it/deserving of it. My boss (aka my hiring manager) in particular had been brought on without any knowledge of DoD practices, but we were implementing new software and he claimed to understand enterprise resource planning systems. In the time that I worked for him, he had been the recipient of at least 5 EEO/hostile work place complaints that I know about. This guy even brought me into his office once when he first started and chewed my rear end out, ripped me up one side and down the other for being more loyal to my customers than my own organization because I wasn't able to provide a report that he wanted. But I literally wasn't able to to do it because of the limitations we had with the new software we were learning. This wasn't just a one-time thing; I could probably rattle off a dozen stories about this guy. Anyway, there was a serious mutual lack of trust between my boss and I from the get-go. But I was stuck with him and he with me, and personal issues really need to be set aside to accomplish the work at hand. So I had to work extra hard to show how necessary I was for our organization, and I became the go-to guy for everyone in the office who had ERP problems (they all did - the training we got was lovely.). Since he didn't know anything about federal hiring or DoD practices it was natural that he wouldn't understand the VRA; I had to learn everything about it and hold his hand. On top of that, getting my boss to follow through on it took months; it wasn't a priority for him because I was already working for him. Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free? But for me, I was running out of time on my term so I had to bust my rear end to make sure he realized I was someone worth keeping. It took a lot of pestering, but once I finally convinced my boss to hire me permanently through VRA, it was as simple as contacting the HR office to ask if I was eligible, and then them confirming that I was qualified for the position. At this point, I'm sure that I look like an opportunist because I was hired away less than 6 months after getting permanent status. But in the end you do have to think about your own personal career. He was a lovely boss and had turned a functioning office into a toxic work environment. Everyone in the office was sending resumes out; it was dumb luck that I got a job offer so soon after getting permanent. But that guy sent my blood pressure skyrocketing. I am still in touch with my friends from that office and one girl literally broke down, physically and emotionally, in the last two weeks because of him. Honestly, the whole experience was another reminder to me that my bosses were mostly incompetent. It blows my mind that those kinds of people can actually remain in their positions. Sorry, I know this is way more info than you were expecting. Moral of the story is - read about, learn, understand VRA as thoroughly as you can, because you can't expect your bosses to understand a hiring process that is tangential to accomplishing your organization's mission. You'll likely have to do a lot of hand-holding. And honestly, based on my own personal experience with it, I think it is incredibly challenging, maybe even impossible, to get VRA-hired by someone outside of your organization/local area. If you're going to try, you're going to have to sell it in a way that is meaningful to the hiring authority. I put out over 150 applications when I was applying for jobs, and would include cover letters with every single application explaining how I was VRA-eligible and what that meant to them, and in the end I got a permanent position through the competitive process. Drewski fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 21:37
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Nationwide all source air traffic control opening just went up today on usajobs. https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/361350500. Complete list of requirements via stuckmic.com (air traffic control forums): http://tinyurl.com/m9unkx4 It's a great job, the pay on the announcement may seem low but you get per diem at the academy in OKC; then depending on your ability, work ethic and training hour availability it can go up quickly as you certify on positions at your facility. Head over to the Aviation Megathread in A/T if you want any more info from ATC goons.
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Feb 10, 2014 18:50
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Oh boy oh boy, I got the "will this start date work for you?" e-mail today!!! It will have only been nine months from application-to-job if nothing changes from here on out--that sounds pretty short in the federal process!
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Feb 12, 2014 02:02
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Quarex posted:Random encouragement of the day: while I am not actually on the job yet and of course that means who knows what might happen, I am in the middle of my paperwork for an immigration services officer job--and I was turned down for at least a half-dozen "immigration services assistant" jobs on the way to getting this one, not to mention a few immigration services officer jobs at a lower pay grade. So, again, rhyme and reason are not completely absent from federal hiring, but I can further concur that the advice "work your résumé to death and shotgun-apply to everything that sounds applicable" can pay off. How many people here have ever actually heard back on a job that at all relates to immigration? If you have, what is your education and work experience like? I currently have two years experience as an ARO for a University's J-1 program. I speak Mandarin and German as well. I apply occasionally to usajobs stuff that looks like I could qualify for, but I have never heard back. They all seem to take more than four months (sometimes almost a year) to even say I was not selected. I'm only making $30,000/year (but with really good benefits, including free MS/PhD studies) in my current job, but if I worked in another state I'd probably start at around $42,000. I'm wondering if I should be pushing really hard to do immigration something or other for the government, or just get a higher degree for free while I am here and go into another line of work (or use that degree to get higher up within some university).
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Feb 12, 2014 17:22
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Hey guys, I've been doing some research into jobs with the federal government and wanted to get your input on a few things: 1. Has anyone here used a temporary staffing agency to get a placement at a federal agency - and then successfully transitioned to full time work at that agency? Do people here know of reputable temp agencies that cater to the Gov't? 2. When applying to jobs on USAJobs and other sites, I've noticed that a cover letter isn't always required (and there isn't always a way to submit one via the site's application system). Should I take the initiative and submit a cover letter anyway, maybe to the Human Resource department of the agency I'm targeting? EDIT: 3. I think that I'd like to try and get an entry level (G5) analyst position at an agency. That being said, my work experience after college has very little to do with that sort of work, but my undergraduate degree was in Political Science. I graduated with honors at a reputable private college. Would it be worthwhile to remove some of the (possibly irrelevant) work experience from my resume and instead write more about how my education would tie into the expectations and duties of an analyst? This sort of thing would be better suited in a cover letter, but I wonder if I should or could incorporate into my resume. Radio Talmudist fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Feb 14, 2014 |
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Feb 14, 2014 03:48
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systran posted:How many people here have ever actually heard back on a job that at all relates to immigration? If you have, what is your education and work experience like? When I applied for my ISO job I had just graduated law school but had no real work experience. I was sent my email about 2 months after applying/taking the tests and started a year later.
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Feb 14, 2014 03:51
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systran posted:How many people here have ever actually heard back on a job that at all relates to immigration? If you have, what is your education and work experience like? If you're planning on working for the government I'd say just take your higher degree and go in at a higher grade but other people here might think differently
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Feb 14, 2014 04:05
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Also for Radio Talmudist's question about cover letters, only in the rare cases where the job posting asked for a cover letter did I write one (I think I only had like two out of hundreds, though it could vary on agency/job type) and I have about a, uhh, 0.66% return rate, so it is non-zero but your odds could potentially improve with specific cover letters for each job I suppose. And if you are applying to all similar jobs, it might be more practical.systran posted:How many people here have ever actually heard back on a job that at all relates to immigration? If you have, what is your education and work experience like? Speaking Mandarin and German, though, uhh, like, I feel as though you are going to be instantly hired by a half-dozen agencies and be unable to stop the process from happening. That is probably a huge overstatement but you know. I am currently being hired as an Immigration Services Officer, and I have two social science master's degrees, qualify (through education) at a higher pay grade than there are any positions available, and have work experience that is probably of minimal benefit (working on a couple of short-lived political campaigns, doing some uninteresting local government work, adjunct professor time). Also worth noting again that I applied for almost 300 jobs overall before finally getting one, though I applied for this one only about three months into my 10 months of applications, so you just never know.
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Feb 15, 2014 01:32
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Radio Talmudist posted:Would it be worthwhile to remove some of the (possibly irrelevant) work experience from my resume and instead write more about how my education would tie into the expectations and duties of an analyst? This sort of thing would be better suited in a cover letter, but I wonder if I should or could incorporate into my resume. If it isn't in your resume, it will not be considered by the lowest-level person who also happens to be the person that decides whether or not you are qualified to advance in the hiring process. This will often be a person with a high school education, so spell everything out and don't presume the reviewer will know that certain duties are inherent for any particular position you may have held. Don't worry about irrelevancy. The resume you submit is essentially an exam. You pass the exam by having your resume plausibly match as many KSAs as are listed in the vacancy announcement. The biggest bullshit fed hiring reform was the announcement that KSAs were being done away with. While separate KSA statements are no longer required, the reality is the same information now needs to be in the resume. We've gone from having a two page standardized application form with a supplement of a paragraph to address each necessary skill to a monstrous resume that typically exceeds seven pages. Don't worry about including too much information. If you are afraid such a lengthy resume will reflect poorly on you (it won't), bring a more traditional-style resume to your interview.
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Feb 15, 2014 04:10
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JohnnyHildo posted:If you are afraid such a lengthy resume will reflect poorly on you (it won't), bring a more traditional-style resume to your interview. Okay this is just an anecdote but I had an interview a few weeks ago at a state park that is partially under federal management so there were both state and federal employees at my interview. I did what you said, brought my resume to the interview and handed out a copy to everyone. They all looked at the HR lady who was there at the interview, and did not, I assume COULD NOT look at my resume. I saw the guy who would be my direct supervisor trying to peek at my resume when the HR lady was not looking. Before that second, he had never seen my resume and did not know anything about me or my qualifications for the position. I know this for a fact because I met with him the day before. So the sad reality is the guy who would be my boss, who I would be working directly under, has absolutely zero say in the hiring process, it's all done through HR. You "win" the job if you say the right keywords during the interview, much like you "win" an interview if you put the right keywords in your resume. Depending on the job, the people you will be working for may not be able to even look at your resume because of government hiring laws. It's a screwed up system but there you go.
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Feb 21, 2014 02:50
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So are the right keywords guaranteed to be in the job listing?
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Feb 21, 2014 05:58
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VideoTapir posted:So are the right keywords guaranteed to be in the job listing? Almost assuredly, yeah. I've gotten through to the next phase of the hiring process just on the strength of rewriting my cover letter to include their magic words (e.g. verbatim phrases in the job description) without changing anything else about my application.
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Feb 21, 2014 06:02
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VideoTapir posted:So are the right keywords guaranteed to be in the job listing? Yes, definitely. The description of the position will have key words and phrases; use them as much as possible. It's a weird system. Your primary goal is to survive the first round and get human eyes to look at your resume.
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Feb 21, 2014 06:17
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razz posted:Depending on the job, the people you will be working for may not be able to even look at your resume because of government hiring laws. It's a screwed up system but there you go. This happens for our support contractors too; the contractors we get from our current support contract are given to us without a resume or an interview, and then if they can't do the job, we can just complain to the company (and be largely ignored). Sometimes we get lucky and get a good candidate; sometimes we end up with people largely wasting one of our slots that we can't get rid of. (That's a result of the current A&AS contract we have, though, not a support contractor thing in general. Our previous A&AS contract was far better.) Oh, and our team is 75% contractor, so that presents a bit of a problem.
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Feb 21, 2014 14:32
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VideoTapir posted:So are the right keywords guaranteed to be in the job listing? Yes but putting the keywords in your resume doesn't guarantee that you'll make it to the next round. They send anywhere from 10-15 resumes to the hiring manager's desk, and there could be hundreds of applications. A friend of mine and I were discussing the whole government hiring process the other day and he summed up the system pretty nicely: "Because the public doesn't trust government, we've had to construct an elaborate process to separate the people hiring from the applicants to avoid corruption, which erodes the quality of the Federal workforce and the motivation of earnest and qualified people to join it. And having an increasingly less qualified and earnest Federal workforce does not inspire public trust, so there's a positive feedback of crappiness."
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Feb 21, 2014 15:26
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JohnnyHildo posted:If it isn't in your resume, it will not be considered by the lowest-level person who also happens to be the person that decides whether or not you are qualified to advance in the hiring process. This will often be a person with a high school education, so spell everything out and don't presume the reviewer will know that certain duties are inherent for any particular position you may have held. Don't worry about irrelevancy. The resume you submit is essentially an exam. You pass the exam by having your resume plausibly match as many KSAs as are listed in the vacancy announcement. The biggest bullshit fed hiring reform was the announcement that KSAs were being done away with. While separate KSA statements are no longer required, the reality is the same information now needs to be in the resume. We've gone from having a two page standardized application form with a supplement of a paragraph to address each necessary skill to a monstrous resume that typically exceeds seven pages. Don't worry about including too much information. If you are afraid such a lengthy resume will reflect poorly on you (it won't), bring a more traditional-style resume to your interview. So it's not poor form to have lengthy resumes, as long as they clearly elucidate my skills and experience? I've always been taught to keep everything to a single page and I've followed this rule like doctrine, but this was for private sector gigs.
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Feb 21, 2014 16:49
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What kind of job , if any, should I be applying for with almost little to no actual work place experience?
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Feb 21, 2014 17:26
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Radio Talmudist posted:So it's not poor form to have lengthy resumes, as long as they clearly elucidate my skills and experience? I've always been taught to keep everything to a single page and I've followed this rule like doctrine, but this was for private sector gigs. You are correct on both counts. 1 page résumés are a good doctrine for private sector (entry level) jobs. For public sector, you wanna fluff em up as much as possible. Nf3 posted:What kind of job , if any, should I be applying for with almost little to no actual work place experience? GS-5/7 listings are a good place to start if you've got a college degree. GS9 for masters, GS11 for a doctorate.
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Feb 21, 2014 18:25
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Here's a question that I haven't been able to find an adequate answer to. I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer finishing up service soon and I've been looking at government job opportunities. Now one of the things that is made very clear from the second you start applying to the Peace Corps is that any affiliation with intelligence agencies, be they CIA, NSA, or even intelligence for another country, is an instant disqualifying factor. Even having a family member who currently or in the past worked for the CIA can mean you are unable to serve in the Peace Corps. This is obviously so that Peace Corps Volunteers aren't viewed as spies by a foreign government (don't even get me started on how ridiculous this is, but I completely understand and agree with it). However, I haven't been able to find any information on Returned Peace Corps Volunteers eligibility for working with intelligence related government agencies. Over the years I have heard a lot of vague, unsubstantiated claims about this subject. I've heard "You are only barred from working in the country you served in", "You have to wait 3/5/10 years before applying to an intelligence agency after finishing Peace Corps", and "You are forever barred from working at any American Intelligence Agency". I'm not necessarily interested in applying to any of these agencies, but I am curious as to if anyone has any solid information about this.
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Feb 23, 2014 10:55
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Any tips for applying to national laboratories? The application is *not* through USA Jobs. Should I still try to include as many buzzwords from the application as possible on my resume to get it to a humans eyes?
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Feb 23, 2014 18:00
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Tequila Sunrise posted:Here's a question that I haven't been able to find an adequate answer to. It varies by agency, from what I've heard, and it's usually a set amount of time that they require you to wait. I've only seen it in writing a few times, and I believe it was a two-year wait.
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Feb 23, 2014 18:41
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Tequila Sunrise posted:Here's a question that I haven't been able to find an adequate answer to. Fellow RPCV here (as you might recognize from the other thread!) with an interest in those same agencies. There is no simple answer to this question. I've been researching it off and on since I COSed in 2009, and routinely get answers ranging across all the ones you offered, even from people who actually do work in the intelligence community. The best I've been able to figure out is around 4 years for some Military Intelligence positions (though others seem to bar it), 5 years for CIA intel analysis, and I believe 10 years out for most others... but again, I probably haven't been able to find any more distinct answers than you have. If you're really curious, the only option is to get in touch with HR with the agency you want to look into and ask them directly. People on the internet (myself included!) really don't know what the hell they're talking about.
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Feb 23, 2014 18:51
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"Within the past five years, have you been employed by or associated with the Peace Corps in any capacity (including as a trainee or volunteer)?"
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Feb 23, 2014 23:26
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Which agency is that for?
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Feb 23, 2014 23:52
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I remember seeing a phrase something like that last year when I basically went down the list of intelligence agencies and applied for entry-level jobs with all of them, and I want to say it happened more than once. But which ones I cannot recall since it did not apply to me (though I did think it was an interesting question even before I knew why it was asked).
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Feb 24, 2014 05:08
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Even though this is a trick for the Canadian Civil Service I would guess it works for the US one as well based on this thread. Copy the job description down and basically cut and past your resume around it. You will get through the first level auto screening that way.
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Feb 24, 2014 21:35
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sbaldrick posted:Even though this is a trick for the Canadian Civil Service I would guess it works for the US one as well based on this thread. You MIGHT get through the first level that way. I have done this and even spoken with the hiring manager for a job who said he had no idea why my resume didn't get in. Well, they only send a certain number of resumes to the hiring manager's desk (in my case 10 and absolutely no more) so even if you do everything right, maybe so did 50 other people. Doesn't mean yours will get through.
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Feb 24, 2014 22:34
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