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Monday, November 29, 2010
Want a job with the federal government but think the odds are against you? Not necessarily.
According to Kathy Troutman, owner of The Resume Place, a federal resume writing and federal career consulting firm, and author of “Ten Steps to a Federal Job: How to Land a Job in the Obama Administration, 2nd Edition,” there are enormous opportunities with the federal government, but there are also several myths circulating about the federal government jobs process. AOL Jobs recently spoke to Troutman to debunk eight of these myths.
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News
Monday, November 29, 2010
The federal government is the largest employer in the United States. It employs more than 2 million people across the country and its territories. Only 15 percent of these jobs are held by people in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. For job seekers in 2010, with the unemployment rate running at 9.6 percent, one of the greatest challenges is finding a job with stability. Working for the federal government is one such job.
The federal government has more than 100 agencies and bureaus, all of which do their own hiring, and it has jobs in hundreds of occupational specialties. Most list their jobs on usajobs.opm.gov, the official federal government hiring website. Available jobs can be searched by title, agency, salary, keyword and location. Each job gives a description of the duties and qualifications and includes an application, which can be submitted online. It also notes any special qualifications needed, or hurdles that must be overcome, for each specific job. For example, you might need special security clearances, and these involve extensive background checks. If required, these extra steps are noted. Job titles are standardized and don’t always match a private sector title, so don’t abandon a title just because it isn’t familiar to you. It might be just what you’re looking for.
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News
Monday, November 29, 2010
When a student receives his or her financial aid package for college, there are several types of aid that he or she may be awarded: scholarships, grants, federal loans, or federal work study hours.
Federal Work Study (FWS) - formerly known as the College Work-Study Program - is a federally funded form of financial aid available to students who qualify based on the income levels of the student, and the student’s parents if the student is considered a dependent. According to the United States Department of Education, over 3,400 post-secondary institutions offer Federal Work Study employment as a financial aid option to qualifying students.
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News
Friday, November 12, 2010
I was having a conversation recently at lunch with a participant in our executive education program for GS-15’s finishing up at the Kennedy School shortly. He noted that he was, to his knowledge, the only member of his Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) 1999 cohort still working in the government. He believed that PMFs were disillusioned with government service in large part because there are few GS-9 jobs that are interesting enough to engage smart young people. You generally need to get to higher-level jobs to have interesting work assignments, he felt, and by that time PMFs have jumped ship. After his observation, I sat down at lunch a few days later to discuss this issue with some of the other participants in the class.
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
People looking for work with the federal government often call Kathryn Troutman and her company, The Resume Place, for tips on writing the perfect federal job application. But business is down right now because, she suspects, potential federal job seekers are waiting until this week to take advantage of promised changes to the tedious federal job application process.
“We’re very concerned and not very happy that our business is really down,” Troutman said. “We’re really shocked about it actually.”
President Obama in May gave federal agencies until this week to radically overhaul the federal hiring process, mandating simply worded job descriptions and the end of the lengthy “KSAs,” or essays that describe an applicant’s knowledge, skills and abilities. Applicants for federal employment should be able to apply and be rejected or hired in about 80 days once changes are fully implemented.
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
It was one of those uniquely Washington moments.
A beauty queen led a toast Monday to improvements in the federal hiring process. Let’s hail the new and bid farewell to the old, said Jen Corey, Miss D.C. 2009.
In a statement issued before the toast, John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, explained the reason that government geeks and those who want to be one are celebrating.
“Today is an important milestone for the hiring reform we need to best serve and protect the American people,” he said. “Six months ago, President Obama directed all agencies to hire based on resumes, eliminate KSA essays, and reduce time to hire. We’ve made substantial progress, and we’re making sure everyone knows that there’s no turning back.”
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News
Monday, September 27, 2010
President Obama signed the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act into law earlier today, Sept. 27. The law creates a $30 billion resource to activate greater lending to small businesses by community banks.
The law also includes an extension of a program that lets businesses write-off 50% of the cost of newly purchased depreciable property. In addition, it expands and extends a program that lets companies write off up to $500,000 in capital expenditures in tax years 2010 and 2011, which is double the current limit for 2010.
The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) lobbied heavily for the act’s passage. “For months, our member companies and small businesses across the country have struggled to gain access to capital and credit,” says SEMA CEO and President Chris Kersting.
“In many cases, tougher credit access has nothing to do with the SEMA member’s business and everything to do with the bank’s difficulties in meeting current lending to capital ratio requirements. Under this new law, funding for loans will be infused into community banks nationwide that are positioned to lend, helping small businesses to become an engine for economic growth and recovery.“Read Full Article
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News, Washington DC
Thursday, September 16, 2010
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Washington state will be getting $208 million to help pay teacher salaries.
The money is targeted toward saving educator jobs during the 2010-11 school year, but the federal government is giving the states some flexibility in how they use the money.
Gov. Chris Gregoire said the money will be distributed to Washington school districts using the same formula other education dollars are sent out. She says the money will pay for classroom teachers, as well as other school employees such as paraeducators, school counselors and school librarians.
The federal government announced the grant to Washington less than a week after the state sent in its application.Read Full Article
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News, Washington DC
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Economists at the Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg estimate that, without the economic policy action of the Federal Reserve and the Bush and Obama administrations, national unemployment would be approaching 16 percent and the state unemployment rate would be in the neighborhood of 14 percent.
A non-profit economic research group today released an annual report on the state of workers in Pennsylvania that concluded that, absent policy actions taken by the federal government in the wake of the recession, Pennsylvania and the nation would be looking at double digit unemployment rates today.
Economists at the Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg estimate that, without the economic policy action of the Federal Reserve and the Bush and Obama administrations, national unemployment would be approaching 16 percent and the state unemployment rate would be in the neighborhood of 14 percent.
“Our economy is a product of conscious policy choices,” said Dr. Mark Price, labor economist for the KRC. “Federal policy stopped the economic free fall. And policy choices at the national and state level will powerfully shape the future health of the economy for middle class families.“Read Full Article
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News, Washington DC
Thursday, September 02, 2010
At first blush, working for an agency that keeps tabs on critical safety issues at nuclear power plants staffed by the likes of Homer Simpson might not seem like the ideal job.
OK, Homer is a fictional, animated character, cast in the Simpsons as a lazy, incompetent worker at a nuclear plant. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has the heart-stopping responsibility of policing the nation’s nuclear facilities, tops a new survey of “best places” to work in the federal government. The fifth such list compiled since 2003 is the first report card on working conditions under the Obama administration, according to The Washington Post.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko At the bottom, only 57.1 percent of employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development—HUD—and the same percentage at the National Archives and Records Administration were satisfied with their jobs. Those two agencies tied for 31st in the rankings.
What makes government workers happy? Effective leadership from senior management, seems to be the answer. That’s where the NRC scored high, with 72 percent of its people crediting their bosses for strong leadership. Second on the most desirable list was the Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, followed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Smithsonian and NASA.
The Office of Management and Budget and the Securities and Exchange Commission, an agency faulted in the past for weak oversight of the financial industry, were downgraded by federal employees in the survey by the Partnership for Public Service and the American University’s School of Public Affairs. OMB, which prepares the president’s budget and also institutes management reforms, slipped from third among small agencies to 25th.
The SEC, which has endured restructuring and a turnover in top management, dropped from 11th in a previous survey to 24th in employee satisfaction among large agencies.
“We would have liked to see different numbers. But we’ve been through a lot in the last 18 months,” the SEC’s chief human capital officer, Jeffrey Risinger, told the Post. “When you go through those kinds of efforts, communication is challenging. There are times when you don’t have clear answers to communicate.”
Overall, it appears the federal government is a pretty decent place to work. Employee satisfaction was up for more than two-thirds in the polling of 263,000 federal workers. Nearly 79 percent said they were at least “satisfied” with their jobs.Read Full Article
posted in: Blogging, EmployerNews, News, Washington DC
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