Return to Article: MSPB: Competitive hiring on the decline
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83769
The philosophy of the MSPB contradicts its purpose.
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65833
Just as the LA District Army Corps of Engineers, who went to the extreme of hiding the announcement from me so that they could get the less qualified individual in the promotional position. Through FOIA they first claimed the job was posted on usajobs, but one HR Specialist confessed that they did not advertise it online. Another HR Specialist said that they didn't have to post it online because they placed in on a bulletin board in the building. The bullten board just happens to be next to my desk, which I check daily, and alas nothing. I asked other who also never saw anything posted.
Democracy, when you absolutely need to have it! The Federal Government OPM and HR Specialists should do the hiring of private firms, they'll fill all the positions with aunts, uncles, and siblings.....food for thought!
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58286
I am completely shocked to say the least of how I was treated in the applicant process, and in my opinion constructivley discharged from the process, and sincerely believe my civil rights have been violated.
Allow me to share this with you, I applied for a call center job with the departmnent of veteran affairs (VBA) that would consist of helping veterans in a customer service type atmosphere and my qualifications were (1). A B/S in Sociology (2). A Paralegal (3). A certificate in call center management.
I was misled into thinking I was being considered for one of approximately 55 positions, and unwittingly disclosed to several people that I would take a stand if I was not picked for one of these positions since I had completed two vocational rehabilitation programs designed for disabled veterans and was not gainfully employed despite approximately 75,000 dollars spent to effecuate the process of me being gainfully employed.
I found out later through a FOIA that the employee I had told this changed my scores inserting the number three over the five that was originally given. I complained and the hiring authority despite having factual information that a 40% disabled veteran was potentialy being passed over had nothng to say except "you sued my employer" and then went on to hire approximately 25 more people over me, (clearly in my opinion wreaks an animus), for discrimination.
Then another employee perpetrated to be the director of EEOC when in fact she was only an analyst, and another one of the employees that I had disclosed information to.
I reach out to anyone that will help me in this matter because this is abuse and exploitation of a 40% disabled veteran that should not be tolerated in a civilized and respected society. I believe it would be found that cronyism exist in Nashville Tennesse and needs cleaned up.
Stephen A. Downs PO Box 2071 Madison, TN. 37116-2071 (615) 739-5890 sadownssr@comcast.net sdowns116@hotmail.com
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55878
Yep this is cronyism at it finest. This article just confirms what I already know. I think it all starts with the current administration. They have set the example. Starting with the Gonzalez fiasco and the firing of the attorneys.
I know of an organization that has the grandmother, mother and newly hired grandson all working in the same buuilding doing the same job!
Lastly, it is common practice for most organization to "put the job out" knowing that the hiring decision has already been made. This is done to protect themselves from lawsuits.
So really what is the MSPB going to do about this problem? that is the million dollar question.
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55672
Nepotism, cronyism, burrowed-in political hacks run amok in today's Federal Service. The people who know something have their career path blocked or they leave because they can't make a difference! What a shame... this was not the way it was supppose to be.
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55631
You think that 28% is low, just wait until NSPS kicks in. We just went under NSPS this past November and already the "good old boy" system is up and running. You'll never know which job you never got the opportunity to apply for until it's filled by someone with "friends in high places." So much for Merit Principles.
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55453
Treena, excellent post! Yes managers, just direct-hire your pre-selected candidate and quit wasting everyone's time with the "competitive" farce.
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55414
When I first came to the agency, I am currently working at, the intern program was on a hold. One of the higher personnel during my tenure here said that HQs does not hire interns and that it hires experts. I had to serveral higher personnel concerning what I wanted out of a job. I even acquire degrees. They were told this. Responses I received: I have applied for over 200 jobs since I been here, to no avail. It must be rotten polities that partnered with the competitive jobs. Here it is over 10 years later and this agency is bringing in a surge of interns as if they are flooding the market. I guess that is the difference between move right ups and stay left outs of opportunity.
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55342
Relatives, friends, college students. This is the norm for hiring where I work. The public suffers. Career employees feel stabbed in the back and, again, the public suffers. Promotions are nonexistent. I have 23 years of service at 42 years old. I continuously score at the top of the so called best qualified list but to no avail. Starting to run out of fingers to count oustanding service awards and Regional Commissioner Citations. They obviously don't mean blank!! The newbies that they hire get promoted in a matter of months, apparently without management recommendations, and 90 percent are White. They can't even create a basic notice and then I have to explain these dumb notices to the public on the 800 number. The biggest smack in the face is that before these people are properly trained in their new jobs, THEY ARE SENT TO TEACH NEW HIRES A JOB THAT THEY DON'T EVEN KnOW YET. This is what management uses to justify the promotions that they were promised when they were hired. The retention rates still suck though because as soon as the probation period is over, they are out of here. Again, the public suffers.
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55328
Competitive hiring is all but impossible for us. We have positions that have been with our HR folks for going on 2 years and haven't been announced yet. In order to get work done, we have to rely on other means, including contractors.
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55322
As a non-Veteran with master's degree and 4.0 GPA, and years of outstanding expereinces, my poor husband wanted to get into the government to make a difference. After applying to 40 or so Fed jobs in 6 months with very messy and slow USAjobs.gov process, he is lucky to finally get an interview through the special direct hire authority process, simply because these direct hire authority process DO HELP AGENCY to get the qualified people quicker and fairer, not the traditional 125 old system. There are more than 2000 applicants and he made it to final 100. And the supervisors can interview them and make the decision quick. I think OPM should really think about why only 1/3 of federal employees are hired by the so called "Competitive hiring". Because it doesn't work and the government need to keep operating!!!!! If by purely OPM's competitive hiring process, the government can maybe get 20% of its job done. The ones are lucky and persistent to get through that door will never leave the government no matter they are good worker or not, after their huge investment in the application process. My husband's new dream is to fix OPM. Good luck to him.
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55311
"36 percent of supervisors involved in the hiring process did not recognize that they had accepted applications under a specific hiring authority" That shows me they are simply working from a list provided to them. If that is true, then is this change in recruitment occurring due to managers or the personnel policies? The personnel offices are implementing directives given them. If a manager has a vacancy, submits it for filling, gets a list of candidates, interviews, and hires from it; are any personnel trends derived from this action being established by the hiring authority or the personnel system that culminates in the list?
"We have a different standard than the average private sector company," funny how we only hear that when it benefits management. I wish they had thought of that during the NSPS development and fielding.
"If the public thinks we're targeting specific groups or hiring someone's cousin, that undermines our credibility and the perception of the work we perform." And what does it bode for the workers already in place? I'm at a quandary here. An advocate for military and ex-military rights, I must commend the Mil-to-Civ action even though it MUST have influenced these findings. Still, I've heard too many civil servants chafe at the glass ceiling they sense by these higher-than-standard-entry-level hiring actions. Military retirees and interns who come in at higher than normal entry position levels and on special accession actions fill gaps sought by the proletariat. There must be some happy medium.
Still, this trend does benefit the government for the same reason NSPS does; it saves money. The 2006 Fact Book showed 25.2% of the work force to be ex-military and only 5.5% to be retirees. I have a STRONG impression from the Mil-to-Civ action has changed that. Regardless, retirees are starting late and will likely exit the work force in mass with 20 year careers at 62 and ex-military will convert their green-suit time to civilian credit. Most of these will have statistically shorter careers than civilians hired straight off the street, costing the government less. And the interns; IF they're as smart as Uncle Sugar would like to think, they will likely see the debacle that is NSPS and exit the force after "doing their time".
I seem to see the next personnel bubble forming now. Step to the left, please?!
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55308
Non Veteran's that works for the government have No Rights. "Give me liberty or give me death" it is our military that gives us liberty. If you are not willing to fight for this country then you should be the last choice to be hired by this country. You're not serving this country by working for it, your making a living off it! Privet sector would fire you or lay you off every two years or less - so don't try to say your serving you country you're getting fat off it.....Period.
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55307
The government gave up on the civil service exam long ago, but I think that was a fairer way that actually did support a competitive process and find some excellent hires. With exams in vogue now (No Child Left Behind and all that), I'd like to see it brought back.
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55306
I find this to be an interesting article. While I am "involved" in the hiring process, I was under the impression that CPOC choose the hiring authority. I am not overly familiar with the almost secret rules surrounding the hiring practice. I was informed, many times, that if I chose to "open" a hiring action to the public, I would still be forced to choose a preference eligible person, seemingly back to the "exceptions." If this is true, virtually all grades under GS-11 will always be filled by preference eligible people and it is no surprise that we rarely use competitive hring. Over that grade, there is a possibility of no qualified preference eligible people and a "competitive hiring". However, even then you are likely to end up with a internal candidate and therefore a "preference".
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55297
We all knew this would be a consequence of the increase in pay-for-performance programs. I'm surprised it came so early as it indicates an opening of the flood gates for personal discretion in hiring. NSPS is also a part of it. Enough of the platitudes like -"The federal government is supposed to be a model employer with hiring practices that focus solely on merit principles..."! - "what gets watched is what gets done" and nobody's 'minding the store' on this, especially those put there to 'mind it'! It gets worse because Bush called for a new hiring preference for military spouses in his last state of the union address. What kind of hiring practices will that bring about? Think about it!
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55295
The report contains a questionable message regarding the excepted service recruitment process. In discussing the VRA and FCIP excepted service authorities, the report repeatedly stresses that one of the perceived benefits of using such authorities is that no public notice is required. While the public notice requirements of 5 USC 3327 and 3330 pertain only to competitive service vacancies, the merit principles in 5 USC 2301(b) do apply to the excepted service, including the expectation of "fair and open competition." It is, however, left up to each agency to define how it will meet this mandate in its excepted service hiring. This is why OPM's requirement in 5 CFR 302.301(a) that agencies establish "definite rules" governing the excepted service hiring process and apply these "uniformly" to all applicants is significant, as agencies must thereby establish an orderly, objective approach, as opposed to treating excepted service hiring as a quasi direct hire authority. Only in discussing the NTEU suit is there any hint that there may be a serious issue here: "Agencies should therefore be sensitive to how they use this authority to ensure there is no adverse impact on qualified candidates who may not be reached through narrow recruitment methods." But this begs the question; how will an agency so "ensure" this outcome when the very nature of the less than full public notice recruitment process allowed for excepted service hiring guarantees that many "qualified candidates" will, of course, never learn of such hiring opportunities? Indeed, this is the primary reason for the FCIP authority's popularity, especially at the GS-5/7 entry levels, i.e., agencies deliberately limit FCIP recruitment in ways that enable them to greatly narrow the pool of candidates. There is also a bottom line problem as to just how the FCIP was justified as a Schedule B hiring authority in the first place. The definition of positions fillable under this Schedule is those "for which it is impracticable to hold open competition or to apply usual competitive examining procedures." However, the very same positions being filled under the FCIP are being filled also through the competitive examining process; so where's the "impracticality"?
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55293
First, to Pat, you obviously need a little clairifcation on the use of veteran's preference: even if it's used the candidate still must have the where-with-all to do the job. Secondly, I'm asking that managers stop wasting the time of serious job seekers by posting positions "because it's required" when they have someone for the position already. When you actually do encounter a competitive process, it takes six months to a year to hire - now that's the real crime.
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55281
Of course, there is less competitive hiring. That is because fewer Federal employees are being hired/promoted overall.
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55279
What a interesting statement that John Crum, acting director of MSPB's Office of Policy and Evaluation made regarding that agencies should not give up on the traditional competitive process -- I just chuckled. He also said credibility to the public in hiring fairness is important. If the public thinks we're targeting specific groups or hiring someone's cousin, that undermines our credibility and the perception of the work we perform."
Does he really belive what he says? Mr. Crum, I suggest that your organization studies the hiring model at the DOJ. They only hire or reassign friends of management. No one has a shot at SES or more senior jobs if you are not in the current network. They are not looking for talent, they only hire their politically correct friends. Sure let's advertise to meet the requirement, then hire who we want, that may not be qualifed. Were are the blacks and women in leadership roles in DOJ? The good old boy network is still how you get a position at the DOJ. You sound good Mr. Crum, but that is only theory. I just explained the way it really is in the govt. That is why hard decisions can't be made by federal employes, they can't do their jobs without micromangers telling them what to do, and therefore, the public is trusting government less every day. Look at all the program failures at the DOJ (US Attorney fiasco), FDA (tomatoes), Homeland Security (detention problems) and so on... And why does the public not trust government, it can't do anything right.
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55265
More legal discrimination through "Veteran's This, That, or The Other".
If one was not drafted, they should not receive extra points or any unqualified consideration or opportunity for merely making a job choice to join the military. I serve my country, too, just not in a capacity where I made a conscious decision to put my life in peril.
Veteran's "Preference" and the other non-merit ways to hire people who are not qualified for jobs should be scrapped.
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55262
What a crock! Want to know the real reason why the "usual" personnel system is not being used? BECAUSE IT'S TOO %^&*%*&^(* SLOW AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUTSOURCED YEARS AGO.
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