Yesterday I had the opportunity to serve on a selection board reviewing resumes for 7 vacancies in my agency and I got to thinking about the process involved in applying for a Fed job. I've identified a generic four step process covering everything from applying to selection and thought I'd couple that together with my recent selection board experience and kind of lay out how it all works. While every federal government agency will have their own particular process, I think each will contain elements of what you read below.
1. Submitting Your Resume for a Specific Vacancy. This is the most critical step in the entire process. If you don't pay close attention to detail here you will ensure your resume is NOT in the final pile given to the selecting official for decision. First you need to make sure you are qualified for the job. Read the entire vacancy announcement closely and make sure it fits with your experience, training and education. Note any other special requirements like a security clearance, polygraph examination, or drug tests. Also note the closing date of the announcement because no resumes will be accepted for that position after that date. Here are the most important things you need to do...read the qualifications carefully and write your resume showing how you qualify for the position. Most people aren't going to perfectly meet each qualification, but (as best you can) you need to address each. As I reviewed resumes yesterday, for many of them I wondered if these people actually read the vacancy announcement. By looking at job history, I could tell generally many of the people probably could qualify for the position, but they didn't write their resumes in a way to distinguish themselves from others. Out of the 40 I reviewed, only about 10 people tailored their resumes to the specific positions. Think of it...30 people who wanted (needed) a job disqualified themselves from the the very start.
2. Agency Human Resource Department Screening. Once you submit your resume it goes to the agency's human resource department for screening. This process varies from agency to agency, but generally this is where all submitted resumes are screened and those having the basic qualifications are forwarded to the selecting agency. In my agency, this step involves automated key word searches, taken from the announcement, to determine basic qualifications (NOTE: This is why it's important to tailor your resume to each announcement). Once this screening process is completed, those resumes appearing qualified for the position are then forwarded to the selecting official.
3. Selection Board. Not all government agencies use selection boards, but many do and they are a good way of further screening the resumes so a smaller set of very qualified individuals can be sent to the selecting official. Yesterday, in my agency, we convened a board of three subject matter experts who individually read and graded each resume against the position description and based on their knowledge of the skills/abilities/experience needed for the position. As I said earlier, about 30 of the 40 resumes I reviewed were graded very low because the applicants didn't take the time to make sure they were in line with the vacancy announcement - in effect, they disqualified themselves. Of the remaining 10, only 5 appeared as really good candidates and this was mainly based on how they wrote their resume. I'm not saying you should lie or exaggerate your expertise or experience, but you do need to tailor your resume to fit the announcement - generic resumes just do not cut it.
4. Selecting Official. In the whole hiring process the applicant has influence in two of the steps: writing a good resume and having a good interview with the selecting official. Once the selection board finishes screening the list down to the best qualified, the selecting official will usually interview each and make a decision. This part of the process is similar to the private sector, and can be either face to face or over the telephone. Sometimes the selecting official does the interview alone or sometimes it's a panel. I've also seen situations where there were no interviews and the selecting official makes the decision based solely on the resume.
Conclusion. Sometimes this process appears overly bureaucratic, but it's not a bad way to hire employees. It takes a bit longer sometimes than in the private sector, but hey, the private sector is shedding jobs and the federal government appears to be growing. The key lesson in the whole process is to write a resume fitting the vacancy announcement - if you do this you have a good chance of making it to the final step in the process.
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