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How federal hiring works:
1) The folks reviewing your resume explicitly look for key words from the job announcement and enough context around them to support you meeting the minimum qualifications standards--it has to be explicit, they cannot infer details in your resume
2) Depending on the position, there might be anywhere from 20 other applicants to 20k+ other applicants for the position
3) The HR specialists screening applications will have a limit (either set by the hiring manager or by policy) of how many applications they can refer to the HM, and there are certain hiring preferences that can bump certain people to the front of the line, such as veterans preference
4) The HR specialists, resuming there are enough qualified people, will refer the top X people to the HM for review (this is called a certificate, or a cert) and the rest of the applicants vanish into a black hole; the cert might be 10 people, it might be 100, or it might be everyone who applied, and anywhere in between--the magic number for a cert is not standardized across the government
5) The HM or their designee(s) will review the referred applicants and rack and stack them, then the HM will choose X to interview--could be the top 3, top 10, top 15, etc; if the HM finds the candidate they want to hire, then the rest of the referred group fall by the wayside
6) Presuming the selectee passes all the onboarding stuff and HR due diligence, they eventually onboard
You might have 1000 applicants for a position, of which 100 get referred and 10 get interviewed. Federal hiring, unless you have an in with the HM, is often a numbers game and the correct approach is to often fire and forget.
I feel your pain. Just keep grinding it out. The market in Federal is good now,
You do know Vets get hired first, then American Indians. I used to think Schedule A came next, but now I've been told that has always been a lie. So if you are not a vet or American Indian, look elsewhere
Hi! I’m a terrible typist and my computer lags about 5 seconds behind, so please forgive any grammatical errors.
I'm a certified Federal Resume Writer and Coach….and recently laid off Govie. Keep in mind that there is a hiring freeze across many Federal agencies. However you should always be ready to strike when the iron is hot. So don’t wait, get ahead of your competition.
My first recommendation is to buy the book "Ten Steps to a Federal Job" by Kathryn Troutman. (I do not get a $$ payout for recommending the book. But she personally taught me everything I know about USA Jobs & Federal resumes. I've applied her advice and received many referrals/interviews/offers ahead of Veterans. (More importantly, my clients got offers!) It’s only about $20, and I PROMISE you will learn something useful. Veteran Preference and Schedule A are not automatically referred ahead of you. If you are more qualified (as evidenced in your resume) or if they wrote a crappy resume, you may get that magic e-mail.
Look at the "Specialized Experience" section. Extract the key words from that paragraph, Capitalize those KEY WORDS, and plug them into your resume. Match the job duties from your existing resume, into those keywords, using them as headers for each paragraph.
Like this:
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Served as the first point of contact.....for providing accurate and timely information regarding the blah blah blah......
PROBLEM SOLVING: Coordinated manpower requirements, ensuring compliance with current governing directives, policy, and ...........
COMMUNICATION: Efficiently conducted inbound and outbound correspondence....... Liaised with Commanders, Senior Enlisted Leaders (SEL) Subject Matter Experts (SME) and yadda yadda yadda......
Using ALL CAPS in your headers draws the attention of the HR reader, and makes your resume easier to read. You are more likely to get a referral if you make their job easier.
Next, preview the Assessment/Questionnaire for more KEY WORDS. And if, when answering, you're choosing answers that show you are only somewhat familiar with the topic, then don't bother applying. Only the candidates that score in the top will be considered. BUT!!! do not think you can edge your way in by just answering "expert" on all questions. If the HR reviewer cannot find PROOF to support your answers, then you'll be downgraded, and likely not referred. Bottom line is your resume and assessment answers must support that you are the best candidate.
If you have experience that is not relevant, then you need to really re-examine that experience and find a way that it IS relevant. A good career coach can help. And reach out to former co-workers to pick their brain; maybe they’ll remember something useful that you forgot. If the experience is 10+ years old, then just omit it.
The magic phrase is referral
There are applications who will get pushed ahead based on their status such as if they are a veteran, etc. There is A LOT of competition. However, it is not impossible. You first must know that it can take a year and in this season longer to get a government job because of my first two statements. There are candidates that pay resume writers to write their government resumes...sometimes thousands of dollars depending on the level of the position. My recommendation is to find a resume writer/coach to consult with to increase your chances of getting your resume at the top of the pile. Its not easy but it certainly is not impossible. You need to keep trying, keep refining, and keep networking. Lastly, there are a lot of people who are hired because they are consultants to the clients who bring them on full time. That's another route. Good luck!