Government hiring process wins the day.

I've recently encountered a mind-blowing observation.

I never thought I'd say it, but the US Federal Government may actually be AHEAD of private industry in one area - the job hiring process. This process may be different globally, but most US Citizens would agree that our process is broken, or at least severely fractured, as well as inconsistent and inefficient.

TL;DR - If you've ever thought that there needs to be more communication in a company's hiring process, it's unlikely you'll think that when searching for and applying to a Federal job.

If you've ever worked on a technology project with the U.S. public sector, be it Federal, State or Local, you would probably agree that their systems have traditionally been years behind the private sector. Based on my recent experience, I suspect that the Feds may have figured out how to unbiasedly manage the hiring process and funnel candidates from start to finish, while multi-billion dollar companies and startups still struggle to be efficient, fair and humane about it.

I've served in the military, which has a unique hiring process that I won't cover here. If any hiring manager makes you "duck walk", you might want to run the other direction, depending on the situation.

Both before and after my military service, I've worked for multiple companies. Due to the current layoff trend in technology jobs and a similar one during the COVID lockdowns, I've applied to hundreds of companies and interviewed with dozens of them over the years.

What's so different?

A few words come to mind.

• Comprehensive.
• Transparent.
• Consistent.
• Inclusive.
• Fair.

Overall, the process incorporates and communicates a lot of details to help candidates determine if the job is a good fit, and mange their expectations from start to end.

For corporate organizations struggling to get a process to promote DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion), there's a lot of lessons to learn here.

Job Announcement

If you go to USA Jobs and look at any job listing, you'll see all of the following details that are not normally included in all corporate job descriptions, to include if the answer is "No":

• Open and Closing dates of the opportunity
• Salary Range
• Levels of qualification
• If eligible for WFH (companies are getting better)
• If travel is required
• If relocation expenses are reimbursed
• Supervisory status
• Drug Test
• HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED, meaning what parts of your application process will be scored with points, and what won't.
• How disabled and special need candidates can request accommodations.

There are no jobs listed that are not actually available, and most are open for a month or less. (You'd better set up job alerts if you're even half interested.) Some listings also include:

• How many candidates will be considered.
• An advisory that if, once a threshold of applications is reached, the listing will close earlier than stated.
• If candidates will be considered on a rolling basis and could be contacted prior to the closing date. (Could be open for a year, but they consider candidates monthly because they're consistently hiring.)

The USA Jobs website itself also provides tons of information about:

• Tips on applying and interviewing.
• EEO Policy & Privacy Act
• Reasonable accommodation policy
• Text and Video overview of every hiring organization.

Candidate Notification

In addition to being notified if you're not selected, the following information is provided to communicate with candidates as they go through the process:

• Application received
• Basic Qualifications met and application sent to hiring manager
• Invited to interview (or not)
• Advance notice of the interview structure (1:1, group panel, potential of multiple interview stages)
• Interview questions provided about 10-15 minutes before the interview starts. (Meaning all candidates are asked the same questions), and how much time is allotted during the interview to answer all of the questions.
• Equal time to ask questions as was given to answer questions.
• Timeline for "next steps" and when a final candidate will receive an offer.

If for some reason the candidate misses and email, they can go to their profile on USA Jobs and see the status of job listings they've saved and applied for, and where they are in the process.

Unbiased Screening

Thanks to the easy access to remote communication, it seems standard now that all interviews are conducted via conference call, with the following practices:

• If more than one interviewer is required, all of them will attend the call.
• Voice, but no video.
• Special need accommodations are adapted for.

Interviewing in this manner allows for neutrality and inclusiveness in assessing skills. It's hard to completely neutralize a candidate's gender in the interview process, but if an organization is going to be inclusive and not discriminate about age, race, and other individualized discriminators, the Feds are way out in front in doing so.

Extra Points

The Federal application scoring system has a minimum point value (cut score) that must be reached in order to meet or exceed the qualifications, which is normally 70 out of 100 points. Points are given based on their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) the candidate provides in their resume, and attached documents such as college transcripts and proof of certifications. For some positions, a screening assessment might be included, with a multiple choice skills test or a Q&A with interview style questions (provide an example when...)

Companies claim to give preference to veterans and individuals with disabilities, but few actually make a conscious effort to add this in their considerations when comparing candidates. In the Federal scoring system, individuals with disabilities, veterans, and even military spouses can get extra ("preference") points (5-10 depending on the category). All candidates must meet the cut score before these extra points are given, with the exception of severely disabled veterans who have the points added to be considered for the cut score. (If they still don't meet the cut score, they are disqualified.)

How is giving preference points "fair"?

It's fair for two reasons:

1. Not all jobs are open to the general public, and so the candidate pool might only be filled with people who get the extra points to begin with, which them balances out that competitive group of candidates.

1. Veterans, their spouses and Disabled individuals are already at a disadvantage when applying to the job market.

• Those with military ties are forced to move frequently. Although they don't "apply" for a job, they are also forced to learn new skills, missions, processes, technologies, and working relationships just like anyone at a new company.
• Job titles are meaningless. The military has the view of "This is your job title? That means you can do 'X', no matter what your last job was." You're a Systems Engineer and have been working in AWS the past 3 years? Well, we have on-prem Unisys mainframes here, it should be easy for you to transfer your skills.
• Many military jobs require a security clearance. How can you show impact if you aren't allowed to mention it? It becomes natural to not talk about the details of work while off duty, to avoid letting anything slip. Over time, the details are forgotten entirely, and impossible to recover when trying to put success statements, especially on an unclassified resume.
• Many physically disabled workers may or may not have issues in discussing successes. For Neurodiverse people with ADHD, Autism, or other cognitive and learning disabilities, Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) is common, and makes bragging about one's self almost impossible. Try writing a resume when you can't parse your individual success and impact from the team.
• There's little to no "sales and marketing" in the Public Sector. There's no quantification of how many products were sold, churn rate, growth revenue, or how much market share you have in comparison to competitors. There's no "increased blog readership by X%", because once something is available to a Federal organization, everyone has to use it, whether they want to or not. Everyone knows they did something, but the way success is measured is different, and not considered for how it would translate to the private sector.

The world ahead of us

In our Post-Covid world, corporate America will adapt. There are job boards out there that are finally improving the application process. There's probably systems available or in development that will manage the communication and workflow of the interviewing process. (If you need help on building one, let me know. I could be a part-time consultant.)

This is a pain point that needs to be solved, for both sides of the process. I hope we get there as a society before my grandkids become old enough to enter the job market.