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Post by zepplin on Feb 24, 2015 14:40:14 GMT -5
I feel like I'm placing a personal ad. That being said.... is anybody out there like me? Wide GAL. Greater than 73 score. Non gov. Non vet. Sign me: "feeling passed over and thrice struck." Feel free to post or pm me with theories, sympathies, or encouragement. I did read saaa's post on another thread. Is there legitimacy to the theory that those with small GALs are being selected first?
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Post by saaao on Feb 24, 2015 15:16:02 GMT -5
No hard information to add. Since it is my "theory", I will go on the record as stating that it is total speculation with a healthy (unhealthy?) dash of wishful thinking thrown in. Putting my personal hopes aside, I do think it does make sense from an objective standpoint. I also think that us that have been considered three times at this point will still be held over to compare against future candidates.
However there is really no way to tell until the next set of certs come out, other than calling Bob and straight up asking whether you have been three struck. I have been thinking about doing that myself, but my speculation is that the new certs will start dropping within a week or two, in order to have enough lead time for May reporting. I figure I will have my answer at that point.
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Post by moopigsdad on Feb 24, 2015 15:19:44 GMT -5
Zepplin I dropped you a private message. Thanks saaao, I do not think your theory is that far off.
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Post by Gaidin on Feb 24, 2015 15:34:37 GMT -5
I don't think there has been much 3 striking. Remember the decision to no longer consider an applicant is at the agency's discretion.
I question the idea that the agency is picking people with small GALs first. The only reason I question it is because I don't see how they could know how broad a GAL was other than you are only on their list for the cities in question?
I do think that a lot of people are getting bypassed in favor of insiders with highly recommends.
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Post by gary on Feb 24, 2015 15:45:57 GMT -5
I don't think there has been much 3 striking. Remember the decision to no longer consider an applicant is at the agency's discretion. I question the idea that the agency is picking people with small GALs first. The only reason I question it is because I don't see how they could know how broad a GAL was other than you are only on their list for the cities in question? I do think that a lot of people are getting bypassed in favor of insiders with highly recommends. Also, the decision to not consider a thrice-considered candidate is not an all-or-none thing; it is position-by-position. In other words, SSA could decide to not consider a thrice-considered candidate for 22 positions, and then on the 23rd position could consider and hire her.
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Post by tinman on Feb 24, 2015 16:38:18 GMT -5
Zepplin: As a non-vet, modest GAL (18 cities), NOR-77+, and considered for 7 cities/positions so far, I'll drink to "feeling passed over and thrice struck". But in all seriousness, if you and I received a "recommend" after the interview instead of a "high recommend", then we could get offers down the road once the list has been purged of all the superstars. At least that's what I say to comfort myself. Of course the waiting sucks as does not knowing whether you bombed the interview and will never get an offer.
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Post by privateatty on Feb 24, 2015 16:40:10 GMT -5
I don't think there has been much 3 striking. Remember the decision to no longer consider an applicant is at the agency's discretion. I question the idea that the agency is picking people with small GALs first. The only reason I question it is because I don't see how they could know how broad a GAL was other than you are only on their list for the cities in question? I do think that a lot of people are getting bypassed in favor of insiders with highly recommends. I disagree insofar as I think that the Puzzle Palace knows who you are. You folks are a small pool and they have spent a large number of hours looking at you in an interview and resume/app review. I don't know what the "pool in play" number is but say its 200. There have to be 50 or more they don't like and will not hire--making him or her susceptible to being thrice struck. And of course the worse part of being in the thrice struck category is that you have no idea that you in it and more importantly why. For you folks this is a cruel process and you have my sympathy. Good luck!
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Post by maquereau on Feb 24, 2015 17:04:19 GMT -5
What's crazy is that, on some previous certs, they were dipping down to catch people who had scores in the 40s!!!!!! I think they sincerely regret that they did so. Of course that's cold comfort to those currently waiting with decent scores.
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Post by anotherfed on Feb 24, 2015 17:13:18 GMT -5
What's crazy is that, on some previous certs, they were dipping down to catch people who had scores in the 40s!!!!!! I think they sincerely regret that they did so. Of course that's cold comfort to those currently waiting with decent scores. Maque, do you mean certs from this Register or previous registers?
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Post by chessparent on Feb 24, 2015 17:27:41 GMT -5
What's crazy is that, on some previous certs, they were dipping down to catch people who had scores in the 40s!!!!!! I think they sincerely regret that they did so. Of course that's cold comfort to those currently waiting with decent scores. And that's a fact, I have worked with several of them.
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Post by Missundaztood on Feb 24, 2015 18:02:41 GMT -5
I think as long as you keep getting the certs emails from Bob, there is still hope.
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Post by privateatty on Feb 24, 2015 18:03:32 GMT -5
What's crazy is that, on some previous certs, they were dipping down to catch people who had scores in the 40s!!!!!! I think they sincerely regret that they did so. Of course that's cold comfort to those currently waiting with decent scores. Maque, do you mean certs from this Register or previous registers? Previous registers. Too hard to do that now with the new OPM paradigm--which thankfully (for y'all) limits three striking.
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Post by alj on Feb 24, 2015 18:43:59 GMT -5
I do think that a lot of people are getting bypassed in favor of insiders with highly recommends. Yep, and I can't blame them either. Better to have a known quantity than an unknown quantity. The agency is taking some chance on an insider, but it is taking a huge chance on an outsider.
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Post by maquereau on Feb 25, 2015 8:31:14 GMT -5
Privateatty is correct; I should have written previous REGISTERS
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Post by maquereau on Feb 25, 2015 8:32:27 GMT -5
So that's what it takes to become a legend (200). Maybe it should be tougher to level up.
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Post by JudgeRatty on Feb 25, 2015 9:07:05 GMT -5
I think as long as you keep getting the certs emails from Bob, there is still hope. I think this is key. If you have a city on your GAL and were not chosen (but did have the cert email for it), and if that city comes up again and you no longer receive a cert for that city--then I think the writing is on the wall, at least one strike. If you keep getting cert emails, you are not out. But until something clear like this happens, there really isn't a way to know if you are out. They may be going through pulling all the highly recommends first and then making another pass later once all of them are picked up. You just never know. Remember you will not know if you received a "highly recommend" or a "recommend." Surely they treat them differently or there would be no point. Keep the faith people! We still have at least 3 more hires in this fiscal year alone (May and 2 more at least), and then a repeat for 2016!
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Post by moopigsdad on Feb 25, 2015 9:18:57 GMT -5
I think as long as you keep getting the certs emails from Bob, there is still hope. I think this is key. If you have a city on your GAL and were not chosen (but did have the cert email for it), and if that city comes up again and you no longer receive a cert for that city--then I think the writing is on the wall, at least one strike. If you keep getting cert emails, you are not out. But until something clear like this happens, there really isn't a way to know if you are out. They may be going through pulling all the highly recommends first and then making another pass later once all of them are picked up. You just never know. Remember you will not know if you received a "highly recommend" or a "recommend." Surely they treat them differently or there would be no point. Keep the faith people! We still have at least 3 more hires in this fiscal year alone (May and 2 more at least), and then a repeat for 2016! I think you are absolutely correct Sratty. The key is do you still receive the cert email from SSA? If yes, then you still have a chance for an offer, if not and your GAL included cities in the cert there may be an issue. It depends upon your score and other factors, but if you have a score in the 70s and your GAL includes cities in the cert, then the likelihood is your may have received one or more strikes. Keep the faith, as Sratty and many others have said, there is still a lot of hiring to be done by SSA this year as well as next year.
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Post by Gaidin on Feb 25, 2015 9:35:40 GMT -5
I think as long as you keep getting the certs emails from Bob, there is still hope. For the record I think being 3 struck is premature for anybody that continues to receive emails. The person above who said if you got recommend and someone else got highly recommend you may just be waiting for those folks to clear the path. I figure as long as I keep getting emails then what Bob is really saying is:
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Post by redryder on Feb 25, 2015 10:10:45 GMT -5
Your enthusiasm and desire to be ALJs are commendable to some. However, others may see this as desperation. So please watch what you post on the board. There have been instances in which the folks in ODAR have figured out who you are despite your avatar or screen name. You will never know if and when something you posted turned them off and resulted in your being passed over.
Your OPM test scores only get you an invitation to the dance and a place on the dance card. After that, determining if you are the "right fit" for the job depends on subjective assessments. Your presentation in the interview. What your peers, references, boss and/or supervisors report. What you are posting on this board.
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Post by Loopstok on Feb 25, 2015 10:24:04 GMT -5
Let's look at this from a mathematical perspective. How many folks on the present register (the one opened in 2013) have actually interviewed so far? Of those ialready nterviewed, what is the percentage of highly recommended, recommended, and not recommended ratings assigned by the corps of interviewers? Is it 10/80/10? 20/60/20? 5/90/5? Also, of the interviewees, how many were insiders and how many were NODARs?
We know that this was supposed to be a litigation-heavy register, because they reinstated the two-year litigation requirement which (if memory serves me right) was absent from the previous register (the one opened in 2007). That requirement may ruled out a lot of career ODAR attorneys who joined the agency at age 26 and haven't been inside a courtroom or hearing room yet. So qualified insiders who already know how to read medical evidence, people who already know how to work the five-step sequential analysis, people that SSA already suspects will get off to a flying start as ALJ, might be a very small subset.
The puzzling part of this for us is that, we know who the insiders are, but we don't know who the highly recommendeds are, or many of them are in the pool. But, we can deduce that:
Insiders on the register = very small subset Highly recommendeds on the register = very small subset
My suspicion is that they're hiring the highly recommendeds first, in something vaguely resembling decreasing score order. I'm a non-vet insider with a score a tick below 70, and I got my offer last month, in the 3rd ALJ class hired from the new register. Does that mean I was highly recommended? Possibly, because insiders with scores above mine and similarly broad GALs are still staring impatiently at their cell phones.
But, they want to hire 250 ALJs, and we can be pretty sure from the math (the number of folks interviewed thus far) that there are not a total of 250 "highly recommended"s on the register. Nor are there a total of 250 insiders on the register (the number of insiders from my region on the present register can be counted on the fingers of one hand, from what I understand).
So if you interviewed, and didn't say anything openly disqualifying, and your score is above mine (or even a few dots below minee) ... it stands to reason they're gonna get to you. There are too many spots to fill that can't possibly be filled by highly-recommended insiders. It may be a circuitous route to get back to your name, but... the math is still on your side. Trust the numbers. Lots more folks still to be hired off the register, and no whisper that the register is going to be refreshed/augmented over the next 12 months or so.
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