|
|
Post by chieftain on Mar 20, 2009 12:09:38 GMT -5
i have to agree with Valkyrie. 135 judges were hired for 71 cities last time, then another 50 or so were hired. 155 for 88 cities is certainly not inconsistent with the previous hire. With more congressional hearings on backlog looming, and with a budget in place that provided a high level of funding for SSA, it just doesn't make political sense to cut the number of planned hires. I suppose the number of actual offers could be reduced depending upon what ODAR thinks of the talent pool on this cert, but I see no reason to drop the number of hires before interviews, etc. based upon what the Commissioner has already stated.
|
|
|
|
Post by workdrone on Mar 20, 2009 12:17:23 GMT -5
I thought of a way to guestimate the number on the cert. I looked at the number of responses to the raw poll on scores, estimated the total number of scores issued this year, and calculated a response rate. I then took the number of responses to the score poll for those who made the cert and assumed the same response rate. This formula suggested 166 people on the cert this time around. If SSA is hiring 157 people, there should have been 3 times 157 or 471 people on the cert total. Even assuming that the people from last years register have a much lower response rate, this suggests to me that the cert is much smaller than anticipated. Zero, Great effort but let's not get carried away here. The problem with the calculation are as follows: 1. this cert includes candidates from the 2007 NOR, and they obviously didn't respond to this year's scoring poll, and might not have responded to the cert poll either. 2. Participation on internet polls varies and the smaller the sample size, the more unreliable it is. So when you're only using two data points (participation rates for 2009 score poll & cert poll), the reliability is not all that high. All in all, I think there may be some merit to the speculation that this cert is only for 120+ spots and the agency will do another cert later in the year for the remain spots. However, we may be over-exerting ourselves in trying to guestimate the exact numbers...  |
|
|
|
Post by Volunteer on Mar 20, 2009 12:20:46 GMT -5
This is a tangential question involving the cert., and it might have been better to start a new topic.
My understanding is that OPM gave SSA a list of three individuals per geographic location and that the individuals OPM referred had the top scores for that geographic location. It is also my understanding that some of these top scoring individuals may have already been interviewed by SSA as a part of the last certification and interview process. Assuming that all three top scoring individual are a part of the new cert., will SSA interview all three? Does it depend in part on what they find out from the references and other information we provide?
|
|
|
|
Post by workdrone on Mar 20, 2009 12:31:42 GMT -5
It is also my understanding that some of these top scoring individuals may have already been interviewed by SSA as a part of the last certification and interview process. Assuming that all three top scoring individual are a part of the new cert., will SSA interview all three? You're correct. The new cert includes folks from 2007 NORs. They were requested to fill out the new forms, but the agency made it clear in its notice (see WWW post) they will not be interviewed again this year (I'm assuming the agency will just use the info from last year's interview). Does it depend in part on what they find out from the references and other information we provide? I'm actually not sure about the role of references. The notice that was posted in WWW states references will be contacted prior to interview, but that seems contrary to the experiences of some of the forum regulars from past years, where references were contacted post-interview. |
|
|
|
Post by zero on Mar 20, 2009 12:58:29 GMT -5
I thought of a way to guestimate the number on the cert. I looked at the number of responses to the raw poll on scores, estimated the total number of scores issued this year, and calculated a response rate. I then took the number of responses to the score poll for those who made the cert and assumed the same response rate. This formula suggested 166 people on the cert this time around. If SSA is hiring 157 people, there should have been 3 times 157 or 471 people on the cert total. Even assuming that the people from last years register have a much lower response rate, this suggests to me that the cert is much smaller than anticipated. Zero, Great effort but let's not get carried away here. The problem with the calculation are as follows: 1. this cert includes candidates from the 2007 NOR, and they obviously didn't respond to this year's scoring poll, and might not have responded to the cert poll either. 2. Participation on internet polls varies and the smaller the sample size, the more unreliable it is. So when you're only using two data points (participation rates for 2009 score poll & cert poll), the reliability is not all that high. All in all, I think there may be some merit to the speculation that this cert is only for 120+ spots and the agency will do another cert later in the year for the remain spots. However, we may be over-exerting ourselves in trying to guestimate the exact numbers... None of the people already on the register should have responded to the raw score poll. I agree their participation is probably much lower than people who just finished the test and interview. Nevertheless, 72 responses is much lower than one would anticipate from a pool of people giddy with the excitement of advancing to the next stage. 72 out of 471 is a response rate of less than 20% when the raw score poll had a response rate of more than 42%. Why would a person who made the cert be any less likely to participate in a poll than somebody who just received a score? Do I have a precise number? No. But I think this all points to a smaller than expected cert. |
|
|
|
Post by workdrone on Mar 20, 2009 13:11:29 GMT -5
Why would a person who made the cert be any less likely to participate in a poll than somebody who just received a score? Because they made the cert and got interviewed last year and didn't get picked up? And since SSA isn't going to re-interview them again this year, they're therefore less interested? But I do concur that this current cert may be for less than the full 157 spots. Guess we won't know for certain until the offers are out and someone provides a list of new ALJs.  |
|
|
|
Post by carjack on Mar 20, 2009 13:39:25 GMT -5
A number of cities that had large hires last year are on the list again. Maybe they're hiring large numbers for certain locales again, which would allow 157 openings for 80+ locales. Were there really 7+ openings in Cleveland last year, (7 hired last year and its on the list again) or are they enlarging some of the numbers at certain locations? If so, the 2 to 1 ratio could work again. One can hope so.
|
|
|
|
Post by Legal Beagle on Mar 20, 2009 13:46:02 GMT -5
How do you know that everyone is on this board?  |
|
|
|
Post by zero on Mar 20, 2009 14:59:01 GMT -5
How do you know that everyone is on this board? I'm pretty sure that everyone is NOT on the board. I just assumed that participation in the poll would roughly continue at the 40-45% rate of successful candidates. One possible explanation for my data: people who were on the board were less likely to make cert. |
|
|
|
Post by oldjag on Mar 20, 2009 15:21:20 GMT -5
While I have not seen the e-mail, I understand that the training schedule has been published with two training sessions of three classes for judges at 75 each session plus an "extra" session as needed.
Anyone else hear this?
|
|
|
|
Post by pm on Mar 20, 2009 17:56:30 GMT -5
i have to agree with Valkyrie. 135 judges were hired for 71 cities last time, then another 50 or so were hired. 155 for 88 cities is certainly not inconsistent with the previous hire. With more congressional hearings on backlog looming, and with a budget in place that provided a high level of funding for SSA, it just doesn't make political sense to cut the number of planned hires. I suppose the number of actual offers could be reduced depending upon what ODAR thinks of the talent pool on this cert, but I see no reason to drop the number of hires before interviews, etc. based upon what the Commissioner has already stated. I totally agree that it does not make political sense to hire less ALJs than you can, but if there are insufficient offices, that would explain a lot. It also makes no political sense not to hire for Columbus, Springfield and Madison when they have such slow response times, but it is a fact that they are not hiring in those three cities this round. Clearly some practical cosniderations trumped the politcial considerations in those cities. |
|
|
|
Post by pm on Mar 20, 2009 18:00:12 GMT -5
This is a tangential question involving the cert., and it might have been better to start a new topic. My understanding is that OPM gave SSA a list of three individuals per geographic location and that the individuals OPM referred had the top scores for that geographic location. It is also my understanding that some of these top scoring individuals may have already been interviewed by SSA as a part of the last certification and interview process. Assuming that all three top scoring individual are a part of the new cert., will SSA interview all three? Does it depend in part on what they find out from the references and other information we provide? On a multi city cert OPM does not list three people per city. OPM lists the top performers who accept any of the listed cities. If ODAR wants 150 ALJs, then OPM lists the top 450 scorers who have any of the requested cities. OPM interviews everyone on the cert if they return their paperwork and have not been previously interviewed. |
|
|
|
Post by barkley on Mar 21, 2009 20:19:30 GMT -5
While I have not seen the e-mail, I understand that the training schedule has been published with two training sessions of three classes for judges at 75 each session plus an "extra" session as needed. Anyone else hear this? I have heard they are planning three classes, July, August and September, but I have not heard the 75 number. I thought that last year, there were about 50 in each class, each class divided into two smaller groups. There may not be room for 75 people. |
|
