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Scuse me if I missed it somewhere but what if anything does HR do in the way of reviewing resumes, or is the hiring manager the only one who does that?
Scuse me if I missed it somewhere but what if anything does HR do in the way of reviewing resumes, or is the hiring manager the only one who does that?
Part of the confusion is in the titles and in the variation among agencies. "HR" staff can exist at a regional level and also at a local duty station level (where the job actually exists) depending on the number of employees and the workload. Duty station HR people, at least in the agency offices I've worked at, do just about all personnel related work; manage payroll, prepare staffing plans, get funding for positions, help prepare vacancy announcements, complete hiring paperwork, deal with conflicts, disciplinary issues, leave, benefits, staffing budgets, making sure Is are dotted and Ts crossed. Its a lot. Smaller offices may not have any HR staff so the agency's regional office personnel division handles it for them. For smaller agencies (the ones I'm most familiar with) the POC you see listed in vacancy announcements is the regional or maybe the duty station HR person. Sometimes applications are reviewed by a panel, and an HR person can be on that panel.
The initial application screening and processing (basic eligibility...making sure the applicants can be legally hired, all the required forms are received, applicants meet the basic qualifications such as education, certificates, degrees, required amount of experience, etc) gets done by a centralized personnel action contractor that services part or all of the agency nationwide. Each region of the agency contracts with them to do it. Some HR staff deal more directly with the contractor than others.
The contractor prepares a list of eligibles (a "cert"). The cert might go next through a regional HR division for another screening (there may be regional requirements all applicant needs to meet, such as meeting the requirements for "local hire" in the case of Alaska, or "local commuting distance") or it might go directly to a hiring official.
"Hiring officials" may either be the person who needs the new employee or their direct supervisor. They probably created the vacancy and drafted the vacancy announcement with the help of the office's HR person. They may do all the interviewing and select the new hire. Once their selection is made, that office's HR person contacts the selectee with a formal job offer and starts all the hiring paperwork, arranges relocation, etc.
Again, this is how it works for the civilian agencies I've worked for. Don't know how much different it is for others.
Do different agencies in the federal government have different hiring practices?
Yes, but many of the differences depend on what branch of government the agency is in (legislative, executive, judicial) or whether its civilian or military.
I haven't applied for a while but it is a numbers game. I applied for about 200 Chemist and closely related openings all over the country and got about
50% black hole never hear from again no status updates nothing
15% not minimally qualified (have no idea how I didn't apply for openings I weren't qualified for)
30% not among best qualified
5% referred and got a call at least from about 1 in 3-4 referreds.
The apps were like have you Run and Agilent 6800-5975 GC/MS with Chemstation MSD D version to test for pesticides in citrus on a Friday Yes/NO please describe your experience "the above"
Yes you did, I was just trying to elaborate a little more, my apologies if I offended you.
Most of the time it is not just yes and no, rather:
A. I have no experience with PowerPoint
B. I have knowledge of Power Point but have never used it.
C. I use Power Point but I do so with supervision
D. I use Power Point with little supervision.
E. I am considered an expert in Power Point
Yes, I am aware of that, but my point is, it is usually specifically that you have done it *on the job*. That's pretty yes-and-no. Either you have, or you have not; the amount of on-the-job experience you have with it is secondary because that doesn't matter if you've not... done it on the job. You can have all the experience in the world from school, volunteer work, you do it for funsies*, but if it isn't from your employment, you cannot truthfully answer "yes" to the question, even though it's a technicality. I also mentioned other hiring systems that are similar. Many employers, I discovered back in my post-college days, were only interested in what you had done in paid employment; any other experience you had apparently didn't count (I suppose they thought it was less-quantifiable?).
In fact, I once used one system where, after I had uploaded my resume, answered a bunch of questions (including all of my personal contact info, etc.), etc., it then said, "Do you have at least five years of experience?" No, I did not (though I think I had some experience and it was a pretty easy job so wouldn't have taken me long to pick up). I answered that I did not... and the next page was "Thank you, you are not qualified, your application will be discarded."
Seems to me if that was a complete dealbreaker, they could've put that question FIRST rather than wasting at least half an hour of my time...
THAT is a yes-or-no question. Do you have five years of experience. Not one, not three, not four-and-a-half. There was one correct answer. Yes, I'm sure there were people who lied (or would have, if they'd known it would stop their application short).
*Some people just do. Learn languages, learn skills, whatever. I knew someone who, at a job interview, brought up something he'd done, coding-wise, just because he had wanted to try it. The interviewer said, "Um... you just... taught yourself and did it? In a few days? Because we send people to training for *months* to learn that." (Yes, he got the job. But had the interviewer only wanted to know did he do it as part of employment... would've been a hard fail.)
I think all agencies are different. I was offered a job in Manhattan Jan 17. Then: Hiring Freeze. They couldn't give me a start date and it took until August to decide they couldn't fill the position. (In the meantime I was slinging out applications everywhere.)
Dec 18 they called and asked if I still wanted the job. I had already accepted another and relocated to the left coast but I certainly didn't burn that bridge!
Do different agencies in the federal government have different hiring practices?
They can. I've worked for divisions under the same agency and they have different general hiring/onboarding practices. A lot of it has to do with the size. Smaller groups may rely on a larger division or the agency for support. The larger ones may have their own process.
Yes, I am aware of that, but my point is, it is usually specifically that you have done it *on the job*. That's pretty yes-and-no.
I think a lot of the ones I've applied for also allow experience done as a volunteer, although probably not stuff you've done strictly "for funsies". And they usually say whatever you claim must be backed up by your resume.
Are they checking resumes against the test answers? Are they checking to see whether I listed driving 2008 Green Subarus on Highway 66, and if I don't specifically mention that do they take points away? If they see that I only drove a Blue 2009 on Hwy 67 do they take points away from my test answer, throw my application in the trash, or assume I answered honestly and refer me to the hiring manager?
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I had already accepted another and relocated to the left coast but I certainly didn't burn that bridge!
