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Post by barkley on Mar 10, 2009 12:50:14 GMT -5
I am planning on whittling my list from 70ish to 35ish.
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Post by barkley on Mar 10, 2009 12:53:37 GMT -5
[Thanks. I wonder how many people they had to move last year. I think the opposite might be easier to determine. How many government people were hired last year? 50? 75? I saw the list for the initial selection, but not the second. Seems like I recall just a handful of people staying in their local areas. Maybe JH has real numbers. |
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EagleJAG
Full Member
ALJ...a high-G career field worth the fight
Posts: 36
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Post by EagleJAG on Mar 10, 2009 17:38:40 GMT -5
Is anyone here going to significantly cut down their Geo Preference list? How about 157 (whatever the max was when we applied) to about 20? |
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Post by lawlord on Mar 10, 2009 17:39:28 GMT -5
I'm whittling my list from 35 to 12 or 13.
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Post by privateatty on Mar 10, 2009 17:59:07 GMT -5
So, shall we do a poll on the inverse ratio of score to whittle? Pride goeth before the fall....
Put another way, is just HOW BAD do you want this job?
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Post by pm on Mar 10, 2009 21:59:58 GMT -5
Does 90 to approx 60 count as "significantly cut down"? Yes - I am leaning the same way myself. That's pretty significant. Approaching the geographic choices with an eye toward trying to figure out what number will guarantee an offer may not be the best way to do it. As others have posted, it might be better to try to figure out where you would be willing to live for 5 years. If that number is 90 different cities, great. If that number is 15, great. To me, it's not too hard to choose cities when I just pick the ones where I truly want to live. The hardest part for me has been evaluating cities that I know nothing about. I have less than 10 cities listed. Ditto for my wife. We have distinct preferences about where we want to be. We don't want to live in a huge city nor a small city. I know there are very many nice places out there with less than 200,000 people, but that's just not where we want to live. Nor do we want to deal with DC, NYC or LA. But that's just us. |
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Post by Legal Beagle on Mar 11, 2009 9:00:30 GMT -5
I had been told by a dear friend who was an ALJ and recently died, that when he 'got on' some 20 years ago, he was told to put down that you would go anywhere, then request a transfer. He had a wife and 2 small children at the time, and followed that advice, being posted first to Cleveland OH before being transferred back home.
That was my rationale in listing a lot of places in the initial AR, fearing that limiting them in the beginning might keep me from going any further in the process. Now after finding this Board (Thank you God!), I am beginning to see that this is not a realistic approach in this day and time, since that seems to be what everybody did, and it has backfired.
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Post by privateatty on Mar 11, 2009 10:07:32 GMT -5
It only backfires if you are at a place that you are really, really unhappy with.
Early on, in 2007, we were told by a number of ALJ's what they are now telling you; that is, the transferring can take years and years. I seem to remember one ALJ lamented that it took eight years to "get home".
No one, to my memory has ever offered any type of yardstick as to how many cities are "enough". I don't see how anyone could. Obviously, there is a proportional ratio between your score and the number of cities that you have listed in your geographical preference; with the caveat that, historically, if you are an "insider" that SSA really wants, you will get hired if your score is at least a 60.
My personal belief, devoid of any hard data other than this Board, is that if you are an "outsider" you must dazzle them at the SSA interview, have a whole lot of cities listed and have a score of at least 65, if not higher.
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