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Post by JudgeRatty on Mar 16, 2014 18:39:07 GMT -5
If I have a wide open GAL but only one city in particular gets me a ticket to the dance since that one city was the only one for which I was a high 3 scorer ... Do I get to be considered for all on my GAL now that I am on the cert or am I only considered for the one city that got me ON the cert?
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Post by JudgeRatty on Mar 16, 2014 18:49:07 GMT -5
If I have a wide open GAL but only one city in particular gets me a ticket to the dance since that one city was the only one for which I was a high 3 scorer ... Do I get to be considered for all on my GAL now that I am on the cert or am I only considered for the one city that got me ON the cert? When you get your e-mail from SSA, it will tell you the cities for which you are being considered. Presumably (although I should presume nothing with ODAR), those are all cities for which you are a top three scorer. That's it. You aren't considered for any others. And this is why the straight % evaluation of who may be on a cert etc is not easy ...so complex. There is no direct math formula that we can come up with to see who may make the 1st or even subsequent certificates. Thanks Patiently!
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Post by bartleby on Mar 16, 2014 18:59:55 GMT -5
IIRC, you get put down on the cert for every city you had on your GAL that is under consideration. At that point, they start at the top, ie, highest scores for the most popular city and begin the rule of threes. Higher points often get hit with the three strike rule and eliminated. This is where it seems the Vets get bounced unfairly as they are played off each other. I believe I saw a person that was around 256 on the list and he finally got selected at after 12 or 16 looks. They use the three struck rule as they want. If you have a good interview, ie., highly recommend, they can play around with the results to get who they want.
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Post by alj on Mar 16, 2014 19:00:00 GMT -5
S Ratty: Patiently is correct; however, if you have a wide open GAL, and you have a good enough score to be considered for one city, that score will probably be good enough to get you considered for other locations as well. It may have happened in the past, but I have never known anyone with a wide open GAL who was only considered for one location.
Good luck to you.
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Post by JudgeRatty on Mar 16, 2014 19:15:43 GMT -5
IIRC, you get put down on the cert for every city you had on your GAL that is under consideration. At that point, they start at the top, ie, highest scores for the most popular city and begin the rule of threes. Higher points often get hit with the three strike rule and eliminated. This is where it seems the Vets get bounced unfairly as they are played off each other. I believe I saw a person that was around 256 on the list and he finally got selected at after 12 or 16 looks. They use the three struck rule as they want. If you have a good interview, ie., highly recommend, they can play around with the results to get who they want. My concern is getting ON a cert to have all of this in play. SO many applicants appear to have high scores. At least reportedly so, give or take a few silly scores thrown in by trolls and such. And yes you can assume if I say this I am not one of the top scorers. I feel like I am standing at the roulette wheel yelling "come on crapland!" LOL!
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Post by funkyodar on Mar 16, 2014 19:49:56 GMT -5
If I have a wide open GAL but only one city in particular gets me a ticket to the dance since that one city was the only one for which I was a high 3 scorer ... Do I get to be considered for all on my GAL now that I am on the cert or am I only considered for the one city that got me ON the cert? When you get your e-mail from SSA, it will tell you the cities for which you are being considered. Presumably (although I should presume nothing with ODAR), those are all cities for which you are a top three scorer. That's it. You aren't considered for any others. Is this right P? I thought I had read elsewhere that the email you get is the list of all cities on the cert and they give no indication as to which you are actually in consideration. Thus, there is a danger of striking the one or 2 cities you actually have a shot at without knowing it. if that's wrong and the list they send is just the cities you are in the top 3e for, that eliminates a big worry.
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Post by redryder on Mar 16, 2014 20:25:06 GMT -5
Your position vis-a-vis the cities on the list of vacancies is in a constant state of flux. As the list is worked you may or may not be in the top three. For example you are the forth highest score for cities A and B. One of the top 3 is picked for city A. You are now in the top 3 for city B.
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Post by JudgeRatty on Mar 16, 2014 20:27:31 GMT -5
Your position vis-a-vis the cities on the list of vacancies is in a constant state of flux. As the list is worked you may or may not be in the top three. For example you are the forth highest score for cities A and B. One of the top 3 is picked for city A. You are now in the top 3 for city B. Ah then I was wrong. I thought once you get the email with your cities that was that. You are not locked in to what they send you in the email?
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Post by redryder on Mar 16, 2014 20:55:51 GMT -5
You will get a list of the cities where there may be vacancies filed from the certificate candidates. This list will be coordinated with the GAL you gave to OPM. You gave OPM a wide open list and you make the cert, you could be offered any one of the cities. But you may not even be considered for several rounds of selections. This is where your score comes in. What no one except those who do the selections knows is the order in which the cities are filled. Think of the candidate who reported the score in the 90's. Assume he says he will go anywhere and the agency wants him. No one will ask him where he wants to go but he will fill a vacancy. Once he is picked for a vacancy, he is no longer in contention for any other vacancies on the list. And everyone else's position shifts. In some ways the process is like watching the NFL draft. Once someone is drafted, he is no longer in play and everyone else moves into contention. As the draft progresses through the rounds, there are still players to be selected. There is no way to know when or even if you will be considered. If ODAR is hiring 90 judges, they may get a cert of 270 candidates. If your score is such that you are number 270, odds are you won't be reached even if you did well on the interview and were. highly recommended. It is unlikely you would ever be in the high 3 for one of the vacancies.
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Post by JudgeRatty on Mar 16, 2014 21:02:07 GMT -5
You will get a list of the cities where there may be vacancies filed from the certificate candidates. This list will be coordinated with the GAL you gave to OPM. You gave OPM a wide open list and you make the cert, you could be offered any one of the cities. But you may not even be considered for several rounds of selections. This is where your score comes in. What no one except those who do the selections knows is the order in which the cities are filled. Think of the candidate who reported the score in the 90's. Assume he says he will go anywhere and the agency wants him. No one will ask him where he wants to go but he will fill a vacancy. Once he is picked for a vacancy, he is no longer in contention for any other vacancies on the list. And everyone else's position shifts. In some ways the process is like watching the NFL draft. Once someone is drafted, he is no longer in play and everyone else moves into contention. As the draft progresses through the rounds, there are still players to be selected. There is no way to know when or even if you will be considered. If ODAR is hiring 90 judges, they may get a cert of 270 candidates. If your score is such that you are number 270, odds are you won't be reached even if you did well on the interview and were. highly recommended. It is unlikely you would ever be in the high 3 for one of the vacancies. Thank you. I have been confused about which cities are in play once on a cert.
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Post by privateatty on Mar 17, 2014 10:29:31 GMT -5
I think redryer said it best. Those with wide open GALs will get all the cities the Puzzle Palace is hiring for. I remember it being somewhat less in terms of the number of cities on my OPM GAL because I was considered back in the big hire years of '07 and '08. All the cities that are on the list you get from them, the Puzzle Palace will be in play.
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Post by 71stretch on Mar 17, 2014 10:34:00 GMT -5
One key phrase in redryder's excellent explanation is "may be filled". It is not at all unusual for cities to appear on a cert and then have any vacancy filled by a transfer or go unfilled. So, particularly, with a small GAL and even a good score, if you've only got one city on your GAL that matches, and there reslly isn't an opening, you can't be hired off that cert.
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Post by robespierre on Mar 17, 2014 13:05:44 GMT -5
IIRC, you get put down on the cert for every city you had on your GAL that is under consideration. At that point, they start at the top, ie, highest scores for the most popular city and begin the rule of threes. Higher points often get hit with the three strike rule and eliminated. This is where it seems the Vets get bounced unfairly as they are played off each other. I believe I saw a person that was around 256 on the list and he finally got selected at after 12 or 16 looks. They use the three struck rule as they want. If you have a good interview, ie., highly recommend, they can play around with the results to get who they want. Re: the bolded, how do they decide what city is the most popular? The one that appears on the largest number of GALs?
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Post by sandiferhands (old) on Mar 17, 2014 15:48:11 GMT -5
bartleby said: IIRC, you get put down on the cert for every city you had on your GAL that is under consideration. At that point, they start at the top, ie, highest scores for the most popular city and begin the rule of threes.
redryder said: You will get a list of the cities where there may be vacancies filed from the certificate candidates. This list will be coordinated with the GAL you gave to OPM. You gave OPM a wide open list and you make the cert, you could be offered any one of the cities. But you may not even be considered for several rounds of selections. This is where your score comes in. What no one except those who do the selections knows is the order in which the cities are filled.
These statements (bolded) of SSA’s method seem to be in conflict. The difference between these (assuming the below-described GALs and good interviews/references for these hypothetical candidates) seems to be thus:
(1) In bartleby’s solution SSA decides which are the most “popular” cities for which they need to fill vacancies, and then begins matching the three highest scores on the board to that city. Let’s postulate they have 3 vacancies in (in order of decreasing popularity) San Francisco, Nashville, and Hattiesburg, MS.
If Able, Baker and Cain are considered and Able is chosen for SF, Baker and Cain each have one strike. SSA turns then to Nashville, popular city #2, and considers Baker, Cain and Dunn. Baker, the best of the three, is chosen for Nashville. Cain now has two strikes. Now SSA moves to the most unpopular city, and considers Cain, Dunn, and Emmett. If Dunn is chosen, then a great candidate Cain has been 3 struck, and effectively is off this cert. He might have been a far superior choice to Xavier, Yolanda and Zach for “lesser” cities. That is a wasteful result for a good candidate and for SSA. (But it has been suggested this is what SSA may do to work around the vet preference for select candidates.)
(2) In redryder’s version: again, 3 cities (in order of decreasing popularity) San Francisco, Nashville, and Hattiesburg. Able and Cain have ONLY San Fran and Nashville on their GAL; Baker, however, is playing it wide open and has all three cities on his GAL (two desirable and one crapville [sorry Hattiesburg, it’s just a hypo]).
IF SSA uses redryder’s method, they can do this: Able, the best candidate, goes to SF. Baker the second best candidate, gets PASSED OVER for Nashville because they “reserve” him to go to a hard-to-fit crapville town that he is willing to go to, and Cain is not willing to go to. Thus, Cain gets Nashville and Baker gets bumped down to Hattiesburg, despite having been the superior candidate.
Baker, by opening his GAL, got screwed by making himself “too” available. This is the point I tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to make in my thread about finding out as closely as possible where the current vacancies may be. IF SSA is using redryder’s method, then opening your GAL too much, especially for a top-scoring candidate, may allow SSA to stick you someplace convenient for them but not your preferred choice. Depending upon the interplay between the particular vacancies, your (probably unique) GAL, and the relative strength of your score, you may well have a valid strategy in making yourself a little less malleable for SSA. OR, you may realize that you need to keep every crapville town on your GAL to have prayer of getting a job.
So does SSA use the more formulaic method of bartleby? Does it use the more free-wheeling chessboard presented by redryder? Idunno. It would be helpful to know this, and to have some idea of where the openings may be, before deciding whether or not to trim your GAL.
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Post by 71stretch on Mar 17, 2014 15:58:02 GMT -5
I don't think we know that they start with the "most popular city" at all.. And, what seem to be the "most popular" cities, are rarely even on a cert.
And, no one HAS TO BE three struck. If they still want you, they will hire you. Period.
And, you are not going to know which vacancies are likely to be filled before a cert, or even after a cert is issued and you get a notice with a list of cities. You can edit your GAL based on that list, but must keep in mind that not every vacancy listed on a cert gets filled. I know getting all this info in advance sounds like a great idea, like many things we chat about here. But, it won't happen. I don't know any way of improving your odds of getting an offer in a city you want, versus one you left on your list just to get an offer. ODAR doesn't care which city(ies) you really want, nor do they care about rewarding a high score and/or a good interview with a "better" city.
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Post by philliesfan on Mar 17, 2014 18:45:05 GMT -5
Just remember, ODAR does not fill vacancies by most popular cities first such as San Diego, San Francisco, etc. In fact, vacancies there are usually filled by transfers. ODAR fills vacancies by where they need ALJs based on workload and backlog considerations in each office that has space, that is a vacant ALJ's office. That means, if anyone has watched past hiring the offers are more likely to be in places like Toledo, Huntington, St. Louis, Springfield, MO, etc. In other words, crapland. Sometimes, the offers don't make sense. In my class, there was a Judge from Southern California who went to Akron and a Judge from suburban Cleveland who went to San Bernardino. After about 6-8 months, they effectively switched. This has to do with the much discussed rule of three. If they want you and your score isn't so hot, you may get offered one of those offices. My advice, based on my own experience, is take it. Most of my class got where they wanted to go in about a year or less. In my case, five months.
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Post by hamster on Mar 17, 2014 18:54:59 GMT -5
What Philliesfan said.
In my case, 27 months.
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Post by bartleby on Mar 17, 2014 19:30:24 GMT -5
From the Cert I saw from a FOIA a few years back, the start with the top scorers and worked down the list. normally the top scorers also have the best sites listed on their GALS. Since this is the case, the most desirable sites get the better scorers, however, the better scorers get played against each other. A high scorer with a less than desirable site will increase their chance of getting that as they likely will be played off of lower scorers. Unfortunately a lot of high scorers will be three struck with their first few most desirable sites. Very few people will get their most desired choice. It happens occasionally, very occasionally. I know a 10 point vet that listed only one site and it doesn't have a vacancy..
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Post by 71stretch on Mar 17, 2014 20:20:44 GMT -5
now I am confused. I'll just drink a glass of wine & wait Wine, or a favored beverage here, "situational bourbon" is a better approach than making your brain hurt trying to figure all this out, especially before anyone has even seen a cert. it's best not to get too far ahead of ourselves.
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Post by robespierre on Mar 18, 2014 13:24:39 GMT -5
now I am confused. I'll just drink a glass of wine & wait Yah, me too. I still have no idea what that first step is in putting the cert together. Do they start with the highest scorer, and match him up to a city on his GAL? If so, which city? If "the most popular city," how do they determine what's "popular"? Or do they start with a city, and pull in the three highest scorers with that city on their GAL? If so, which city do they start with? If "the most popular one," again, how is that determined? Clear as mud despite the heroic efforts of folks on this board to explain it. [The one thing I now understand - and I thank everone for that - is that they do NOT start with the highest scorer and match him up to all cities on his GAL. Because if that were the case and he had a wide open GAL, he would be High 3 for every city. And if the next two highest scorers also had wide-open GALs, they would also be High 3 for every city, and there would only be 3 people on the cert.]
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