How do I change my Geographic Preference?

[ohaer]

If anyone has any idea how I could change my geographic preference before the next round of hiring (August), I sure would appreciate someone (anyone) letting me know.

After watching two people with substantially lower scores than mine be selected for my home office, I'm prepared to range a little further afield.

[jerseymom]

It's my understanding that you must wait one year from receipt of your NOR or when the register reopens.
Good luck!

[leprechaun]

ohhh, ohaer, I feel your pain! I actually looked into this and received a curt reply from OPM informing me that I must wait until the register reopens. Check out the original Notice of Vacancy - it's in there.

I still don't understand why you can make a cert and then NARROW your availability, but cannot enlarge your availability until the register reopens, at which point the grading may be done totally differently for an inexplicable reason, changing where the holdovers rest on the curve.

Feel like Yossarian yet? ;-)

[gator]

My understanding is that you can change it only while the exam is open. In other words, from the time they announce a new exam until midnight on the day OPM gets the number of applicants they are looking for. So it is a very short window of opportunity. If SSA has asked OPM to refresh the register before the 2010 hirings, such an announcement could come anytime. It was only 14-15 months between OPM announcing the exam in 2007 and 2008. Set up and "Agent" on USAJOBS to alert you to when the exam is reannounced.

[chinook]

The reason you can narrow your availability when on a cert but cannot expand unless the register reopens is because you are dealing with two different agencies. SSA (or another agency) wants to know where you might accept so they can fill their jobs. OPM is just providing names and told you when you applied what the rules for adding locations would be. I don't think they are very sympathetic when you ask to change.

[gator]

But when you narrow the list for SSA doesn't that also narrow your list for all other agencies? That is my understanding.

[morgullord]

I checked and there is no line item in the OPM budget for sympathy.

[carjack]

M, you are all heart. Reminds me of the first year law students who exclaim that something isn't fair and receive the standard - 'nobody ever said it was fair, only the law.'

I, like most neophytes, learned about geo range the hard way. When you apply while the announcement is open you set your geo limits for all agencies. You go through the testing process, etc. and get referred to an agency like the SSA, they have matched up your choices with their openings. Your certified for all of the matches. They contact you and say you're being considered for cities x, y, and z and if you want to continue to be considered for any or all of those, please mark the form as instructed and send it back. You do so and don't get chosen. You decide you want to expand your availability realizing for the first time that 20 of the cities you originally chose are likely to never be on any list and that you failed to pick certain cities that might increase your chances. When can you expand your availability? Only when the announcement is reopened and the existing register will continue on and will be increased by the new applicants.

If there is no new announcement until 2010 when the current register expires, everyone who wants to be considered will have to go through the whole application and testing process again and you can include an expanded geo range.

If they open it before then, like they did last year, you can also just increase your geo range without retesting.

Last year when they made a new announcement and I, like everyone else from 2007, couldn't retest because it had not been a year since being put on the registry (10/2007), I was able to expand my geo range. Of course it didn't actually help me, but I felt like I was being proactive.

[ohaer]

Hey Morg: I knew full well what I was doing when I filled out my geographic preference sheet, but that was under the 2-year transfer rule. When the agency foolishly waited until AFTER making selections to announce the change in the transfer rule--and I make no beans about it, my score was 73.5, and the two people selected for my home office (and so far as I can tell for every slot on any of my geo preferences but one--who had a score of 84--had a score lower than mine. All I can figure is that I farted in the Falls Church interview without knowing it--but it must be common, because another attorney in my office with a score as good or better than mine was not selected either.

I won't go into the moribund reasons I restricted my geographic preference, other than to say it all had to do with my family and faced with the same situation again, I would do the same thing.

As far as symphathy goes, I have always known where I could find sympathy anytime I wanted to find it. It can always be found between SH___ and Syphillis in the dictionary. And it's always there for anyone who needs it. I don't need anyone's sympathy. I'll match my quality of life against damn near anyone's in the agency, even at my lower salary. That's one reason my geographical preference was so restricted to begin with. Granted, my quality of life would be higher as an ALJ (in one of those office close enough to keep my family at home now and commute), but there certainly isn't anything wrong with my quality of life right now. So I'll either be selected or I want on the merits of myself as is, and if it doesn't happen, it wasn't meant to be.