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Post by valkyrie on Sept 17, 2009 9:50:21 GMT -5
The real problem, IMHO, is that OPM has no business in the testing and selection business for ALJs or employees of other departments. LB, maybe I'm just being stupid but I didn't understand this part of your post. Can you explain? PF I think what Legalbeagle means to say is that OPM is notorious for its arbitrary scoring whether the position be inhouse or open to all. Here you have an agency that allegedly knows who is best qualified to be a NASA engineer, a groundskeeper, a CDC scientist, a security guard, an accountant, a grammar school teacher, an ALJ, or a Postal executive, etc. The diversity of jobs and their requirements is mind boggling, and not unexpectedly OPM dumbs down the process. Look at how ridiculous the ALJ selestion process is in itself. That's just one job! You have to wonder how things are over at NASA for aeronautical engineer openings. Wernher von Braun: "Those dumkopfs! I can't believe that OPM only gave me a score of 57?" Robert H. Goddard: "What are you complaining about? At least you made the best qualified list. I got rejected as 'Not Qualified'!"
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Post by chinook on Sept 17, 2009 11:13:37 GMT -5
Val
The problem with your post and LBs is that it demonstrates a narrow view of the federal employment system. I don't defend OPM, they have significant issues. However, OPM does not determine if an individual meets the requirements for any of those jobs, except ALJ. In fact, the ALJ position one of the only, if not the only position for which OPM still issues scores -- the old civil service exam no longer exists and except for ALJs, OPM doesn't give exams and issue points to qualify an individual for a register. (Goddard does not need to take the rocket scientist exam) All other federal jobs are looked at at the agency that is doing the hiring. Applications are sent to the agency who pick and choose who it wants (hopefully following rules promulgated by OPM).
Both of you seem to forget that an ALJ is a unique position and that there are other agencies who hire ALJs and those agencies have other requirements for those positions. Most have an adversarial process that requires different skills than an SSA ALJ. The solution is to change the law and make the SSA ALJ different. Call them Hearing Officers, Social Security Judges or anything else. Then allow SSA to hire who it wants. Just guessing, but I think you (or many of the SSA ALJs) probably want to be an ALJ with the statutory protections associated with it and the qualification to move to another agency if you want, neither of which would come with being a Social Security Judge.
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Post by valkyrie on Sept 17, 2009 12:50:49 GMT -5
Val The problem with your post and LBs is that it demonstrates a narrow view of the federal employment system. I don't defend OPM, they have significant issues. However, OPM does not determine if an individual meets the requirements for any of those jobs, except ALJ. In fact, the ALJ position one of the only, if not the only position for which OPM still issues scores -- the old civil service exam no longer exists and except for ALJs, OPM doesn't give exams and issue points to qualify an individual for a register. (Goddard does not need to take the rocket scientist exam) All other federal jobs are looked at at the agency that is doing the hiring. Applications are sent to the agency who pick and choose who it wants (hopefully following rules promulgated by OPM). Both of you seem to forget that an ALJ is a unique position and that there are other agencies who hire ALJs and those agencies have other requirements for those positions. Most have an adversarial process that requires different skills than an SSA ALJ. The solution is to change the law and make the SSA ALJ different. Call them Hearing Officers, Social Security Judges or anything else. Then allow SSA to hire who it wants. Just guessing, but I think you (or many of the SSA ALJs) probably want to be an ALJ with the statutory protections associated with it and the qualification to move to another agency if you want, neither of which would come with being a Social Security Judge. The applications are still based upon the OPM, one-size-fits-all format, even if OPM doesn't do the actual scoring. Yes the KSA's differ from job to job, but the scoring is the same. Goddard would not have to take the rocket scientist exam, but his application would still be scored by some low-level HR clerk in a NASA regional office, who knows more about the Oscars and Emmys than a Nobel Prize. Accuracy and merit are sacrificed upon the altar of impartiality through an inaccurate numeric system run by people who don't need blinders, because they have little or no grasp of the subject matter they are grading.
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Post by Legal Beagle on Sept 17, 2009 13:39:54 GMT -5
What I meant was, OPM should not be the agency that sets up tests for hiring future employees for another agency. SSA, Dept of Defense are two biggies that come to mind. OPM should do what it says it is:Office of Personnel MANAGEMENT, not hiring, not testing, not investigating. It seems to be a duplicate of effort the way these hires have been done, as well as a waste of money. SSA has to pay OPM to do its hiring - or rather, give them a list of folks that OPM deems qualified, then SSA has to do most of it over again.
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Post by Legal Beagle on Sept 17, 2009 19:01:48 GMT -5
True - but, SSA and OPM still have to spend the money to do the first round of selections, so there is still a lot of wastful time, energy, and money.
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