Declination Danger

[privateatty]

I wanted to post Hooligan's post from February to emphasize the danger of declinations:

Re: Geographical Preferences
« Reply #1 on Feb 19, 2009, 6:00pm »

Feb 19, 2009, 5:40pm, gadourylaw wrote:
Please forgive me in advance, I know that this issue has been touched on previously (and more than once I believe). When are we afforded the opportunity to reduce our geographical preferences ? Is it before the SSA interview (assuming we are asked of course) or after ?

Thank you.

The way it worked for me in 2001 was that I was placed on a certificate. I had originally said I would go to ANY location. Each candidate was sent a list of sites for which they would be making selections. I was given the opportunity to reject any specific location. My list had 80 locations and I crossed off 10.

When you limit locations, you reduce your chances of selection. If you have a very high score, it probably will have little impact. If you are nearer the bottom of the list of eligibles, it may prove to be a selection killer.

My advice would be to keep your name in play for any site you could tolerate. However, there is no sense leaving a site on the list that you would not accept. If you were to be considered for that site and selected, your declination would probably kill your chances of any selection in that round of hires. Better to have a shot at a place you would actually go than to let an unacceptable site reduce your chances.

I have seen this advice before: decline at your own peril.

[pm]

The other side of the admonition however is that you also accept at your own peril.

If you live in Florida, have a good job, but have no equity in your house, and are offered a position in Seattle, and have to pay your own way to get there, it would be a very tough decision. It's even tougher if your spouse currently has a job in Florida and would have to look for a new job in Seattle.

Two of my friends on the cert have reluctantly decided that they will decline offers for most of the cities on their list (if they should get offers).

[darious]

Can any of you (you all seem pretty knowledgeable) explain to me how all this works on a multi-city cert?

[pm]

Apr 23, 2009 21:36:01 GMT -5 darious said:

Can any of you (you all seem pretty knowledgeable) explain to me how all this works on a multi-city cert?

I'm not sure what you are asking, but here is the situation, for example, that some people may find themselves in:

Joe lives in Florida. Joe is on the cert for Jacksonville which is where he really wants to work. But Joe is also on the cert for 5 other cities- Macon, Kansas City, Nashville, Seattle and Phoenix. Joe is hoping he willl get an offer for Jacksonville, or maybe Macon. He is not sure he would take an offer from the other cities because of issues related to the economy. But if ODAR offers Joe a position in Seattle and he declines, they probably will not offer him any other cities off this cert (they can, but probably wouldn't).

So what is your question?

[odarite]

The number of cities on the cert don't matter to you in this situation. You will get one offer for one city. If you decline, you will not be considered again for another city on this certificate. You may, however, get on a future certificate and get a different offer. I wouldn't count on it, however. You sign something somewhere along the lne that says you will accept any of these cities if offered. So what do you think would be the feeling about you if you then said "King's X I didn't mean it"?

[privateatty]

Apr 23, 2009 19:05:52 GMT -5 pm said:

The other side of the admonition however is that you also accept at your own peril.

If you live in Florida, have a good job, but have no equity in your house, and are offered a position in Seattle, and have to pay your own way to get there, it would be a very tough decision. It's even tougher if your spouse currently has a job in Florida and would have to look for a new job in Seattle.

Two of my friends on the cert have reluctantly decided that they will decline offers for most of the cities on their list (if they should get offers).

This is hard to understand for me.

The job, for me, has never been primarily about the money. Sure a steady paycheck would be nice. For me, the dream of someday having thirty days off in a row, in one year, not to mention EVERY weekend is like dreaming of leaving boot camp those many years ago. It is literally a dream.

But to come all this way, go through this incredible gauntlet for this very special position and then decline? What changed? Certainly the housing market hasn't fallen that far in two months.

[pm]

The housing market in some areas has steadily declined for 18 months now. For some people that means their equity may have died 12 months ago, or 8 months ago or 4 months ago. I know many attorneys who had a two income family 6-12 months ago. Now they have a one income family.

Everyone has a different dream. For some, the ALJ position isn't so much "special" as it is simply "preferable" to their current job. For some people, the ALJ position is also a large paycut.

[tallgreenfrog]

Some of us are already ALJs but wanted a change. And others have family that has taken ill and some of us have houses that we can't sell right now and while we can risk eating a grand a month (mortgage - rent) for two years, after that it could get ugly. And others didnt think it through. Its not as simple as four months ago things were different.

[barkley]

tallgreenfrog said:

And others didnt think it through.

DIDN"T THINK IT THROUGH?

I can honestly say that I cannot imagine someone not thinking through a major decision like moving across country.

Here is something to think about. To use the example above, Joe from Jacksonville has now certified twice that he wanted to move to Seattle, when he initially file his applicaton in May 2007 or July 2008 and JUST LAST MONTH! If I am SSA, I would be concerned about someone who can't make up his mind over such a personally important decision.

Here's the kicker. Joe from Jacksonville is an excellent candidate. He had a good OPM score, good references and a good SSA interview. He would have been picked for Jacksonville, but Seattle came up first, so he was offered Seattle. Joe's cavalier attitude about the process has hurt not only him, but also Sue from Seattle. Sue was the second best candidate on the list and would be a fab judge, but she only put down one city. When Joe declines, SSA cannot move on to Sue. In September when SSA puts together its supplemental class, the deck is reshuffled and Sue does not make the list of three. So Joe has not only kept himself from becoming an ALJ, but also blew Sue's chance. Thanks, Joe.

[lawmaker]

Except for the people who got poor scores (beause of OPM's vagaries and arbitrary process) and would have made equally good or even better judges than either Sue or Joe, I don't feel sorry for any of the people in that scenario.
It's a monumentally flawed process from the moment that they offer a job opportunity for less than a week because they don't want the workload, to the very last employers interview.
It's time to get over it

[valkyrie]

None of us owes ODAR or OPM anything. They have not guaranteed any of us anything, other than a random shot at a job offer. Both the candidates and the agencies have invested plenty of time and money in the process, which is both lengthy and opaque. Tomorrow ODAR could decide to cancel the cert, or any number of candidates could decide that they no longer want to pursue an ALJ slot for various excellent reasons. If Patriotsfan had gotten and accepted his offer from another agency yesterday, his name would likely still be on the cert, and he could get an offer, which he would probably decline. The whole process is a moving target for the agencies and the candidates with all sorts of variables. In the end, we all have the option of declining offers, while ODAR has the option of declining to make us a second offer.