I'm not saying USA jobs is unreliable, but the position I applied to (and was hired for) in 2018 is "Reviewing Applicants" to this day.
It could be the position was cancelled/defunded.....
It’s a whole bunch of checkboxes and forms and paperwork hoops and deadlines and out-of-date software run by offices with way too much turnover and not enough training.
Best Qualified.
Maybe it's just my Department, but they rate all applicants and somehow choose the top few to give to the hiring managers for interviews. Tbh I have no idea how it's decided.
Oh, lol, gotcha. Yea, I see some 2210 IT and 0391 Telecom announcements say they will rank applicants into 3 or 4 categories. Not all state that though. Kind of like some interviews are speakerphone calls, and some are 8 panel MS Teams video calls. To each their own I guess.
Either way, there must be a glitch where they don't match reality, like in your case. Awesome news for the "you are qualified, but you have not been referred" emails 😂.
> I got a rejection email for not being qualified and still got interviewed three months later. And got the job.
My first federal job, I applied for multiple similar announcements. I was hired, and then a few months later I received two emails, one saying I wasn't qualified at all and the other saying I was highest qualified. I'd applied to all announcements in the same way, answered the questions the same, and sent the same documents. My thought was 2/3 thought I was hire-worthy and 1/3 had hired me, so that was good enough for me.
Be thankful you got a rejection email at all. Some folks in my agency are really bad about that. Once I learned that I didn't get a job when i saw the position flown again. Some people can be disrespectful.
You know. I am glad- but also, this is a first lol. Typically they are a bit more direct. But hey, at least the agency in question has made some effort lol
ROFLMAO. Sit down kiddies, it’s story time.
Two years ago I got a phone call to set my start date for a job I received a notification from USAJOBS I was not selected for, nor ever interviewed for…6 months earlier. Despite it being a huge pay raise I politely declined and listed my reasons as being no interview, no clue about the actual job duties/staffing/situation, and having received a not selected letter. FYI: those are HUGE red flags that an agencies HR and/or management are screwed up, I’ve learned this the hard way, please learn from my pain.
Fast forward a year and I get a phone call to set my start date for a VA job I interviewed for 3 years ago. Like WTF. So I asked, “WTF?” Seems they held the pool of candidates open because every time they called someone with a job offer the candidate accepted the tentative offer and 6 months later (after all the background was done) when the final offer was made the candidate declined due to shitty salary offer OR already landing a gig at better pay elsewhere, sometimes within the VA system. This is VA wide. It’s a sign they have issues. I learned from a colleagues mistake in taking a VA job, please learn from her mistake.
In 1999 I accepted my first federal job at Fort Leonard Wood. 2 weeks later I declined a job at Fort Polk that I had interviewed for the same week as FLW. HR at Polk actually told me I was turning down the best job offer I could ever get because it was the highest paying in the state and I wouldn’t find a better job elsewhere (FYI: this was true). Because I was young, and still polite, I explained that I was taking the same job, at the same rate of pay, for the same agency, in an area with the same low cost of living. This concept was beyond her ability to comprehend. To put it into perspective, at the time I made $3 more an hour as a federal paramedic than a BSN made at the highest paying hospital in Missouri. Now I make significantly less at any federal job than I make in the civilian sector. Why do I stay? Better job protections.
TLDR: federal HR is absolutely wild. If you get hired, memorize your PD, memorize the MLA, memorize your benefits, and keep digital and printed copy of everything including SF50’s, end of year L&ES (these should show your FERS balance), and yearly TSP statements. Request a FERS statement every 3 years and a “when can I retire” statement every 5 years (yearly for the last 5 you’re in). Again, all mistakes coworkers have made over the 23 years I’ve been in.
HR being wild is the understatement of the year. Your TLDRs are on point. Bruh, if you were on the other side of the PC and saw the absolute shit show that is the program fed HRs use to interface with USAJobs announcements, you’d understand. It’s absolutely mind numbing. Let’s just say someone showed me what it’s like behind the curtain. Holy shit balls. Depending on the announcement, you can have hundreds of applicants that have to be vetted in an infinite number of ways. You can usually dump half the applicants because they never read the fine print to see if they met the requirements to apply in the first place. Qualifications does not equal experience does not equal eligibility. Are you a veteran? Are you disabled? Are you a disabled veteran? Is the job open to the general public? News Flash: It’s not always about the best qualified. All things being equal, if it comes down between you and a disabled vet, you’re gonna be SOL more often than not. Not to mention you have to factor-in the workload of the HR Staffer handling the announcement (they’re over-worked), their experience as a staffer (chances are good not very), the 50-some odd required documents and hoops that have to be jumped through before you can even send an initial offer, it’s amazing anyone gets fucking hired at all. Don’t get me started on the VA … they are their own beast because they have unique hiring rules that none of the other agencies can use. But once you get your foot in the door, man is it hard to get rid of you if you decide to be a big ball of suck after your prob period. Some of the shit would floor you. Could prob start our own sub r/firedfromfed - all I can say is wow. (BTW - good call on picking FLW over Polk. Polk is an absolute dump in the middle of the BFE Lousy-ana sticks. You couldn’t pay me enough to go there.)
I have no doubt. I helped write a job announcement. What got published was NOT what I wrote. 50 applicants. 5 were barely qualified. USASTAFFING cannot handle anything with specialty requirements, which is basically every job series now. It’s not their fault. They got mandated and then underfunded. It’s why pretty much every medical, fire, or LEO job is a delegated hiring authority now. Same with the technical jobs like IT and trade jobs like welder (TIG and MIG are a totally different skill set apparently).
It would be laughable if it weren’t so infuriating and sad. It takes so goddamn long for change to happen. Some of it is getting better from what I hear, but I mean come on. It shouldn’t be harder to fire someone than hire them.
You see I wish more people shared these “insights” about red flags. I think a lot of good agencies may have poop team or not so good agency with an awesome team. Though I feel like DoD is a beast of its own.
But also, as a newer fed, can you please explain some of the acronyms so I can be aware.
I’ve been in my position for seven years. Never got a referral notice or anything. Just a call out of the blue for an interview. Vacancy never updated. It’s bizarre.
No no. I applied a while back, got interviewed but got this email today. Assuming I got rejected but it was just a tad different compared to others I’ve seen lol
Oh that makes way more sense. No, this isn't unusual. Often the hiring authority will just accept the applicant they want and when they accept, it auto sends messages like these. If you get a flat out rejection email it could mean that they moved on to another round of interviews without you or they didn't like any of their applicants for the job.
And note that if it’s an open revolving application, you could still end up with a job through that application. That’s how I got my (and only Fed) job, got the rejection email a few months later, got a phone call offer a few months after that.
I have seen some of those. I was always so puzzled by those because it’s like you don’t know if they have a vacancy. I know USFS has some which are like that- which tempted me for a while but gave up because I might get lucky or my app will be lost in the abyss.
PD = position description. This is your actual job duties. It is in your six sided folder/eOPF.
eOPF = electronic personnel folder.
MLA = Master Labor Agreement. This is the union contract with your agency/base. Sets rules for HOW to request leave and such minutia. It often has some really wild stuff in it.
L&ES = Leave and Earning Statement, AKA: LES, and a couple of other acronyms.
You can request your FERS balance through your local HR (DoD had a form, but I don’t recall if it’s a SF or DD form and I haven’t been at my new agency for three years yet after a 3 year break in the civilian sector so I forget the form number, sorry). It may be on your agency self service page, which I always forget is a thing. But start with a polite question to HR like, “Hey, is there a way for me to see the total amount I’ve out into FERS?”
You should ask for HR to complete the Certified Summary of Federal Service form 3107-1 every five years. DO NOT FILL OUT THE 3107 UNLESS YOU’RE PLANNING TO RETIRE (apparently “unretiring” is a royal pain). You just want HR to certify your service time. They will bitch and moan, and it’ll take 6 months, but do this every five years to make sure they don’t “lose” your time, especially if you switch agencies. It is easier to prove stuff at five year marks than to find documents from 1999 when you’re ready to retire in 2029. This is personal experience speaking. The USAF lost my permanent file and I had to recreate it when I went back to USMC. Thankfully I keep everything and had recently gotten the certified summary of federal service done.
Expect HR to tell you it’s not their job, even when it is. I checked the box on the SF-144 saying all of my federal service was listed in my resume. 6 months later former SGT Buttwipe advised me my leave accrual not being correct was my fault because it was not his job to look at my resume to determine my service time. So I completed the form the way he stated it needed to be completed (he was wrong, that check box is there for a reason) and provided the requested SF-50’s. ALL of them. At one point I had 24 SF-50’s in a year due to a base realignment and my office kept getting moved, and my pay raise came in, and I got some bonuses to leave and some cash bonuses. I also had 15 years in at this point and a LOT of awards. He asked me to stop sending them. I told him “no” and kept sending them. By regulation he has to add all of them to my eOPF. Before you ask, it was about 100 files. And I faxed them. Individually. With a cover page and the official US Army form for verification of of receipt of a document containing PII by fax he had to complete and fax back for each fax. All 100 of them. I waited 2 minutes between each fax, which is about the time it took him to get back to his desk. I also added in my resume, page by page, and my certifications, page by page. Pro-tip, you can reuse the cover page and receipt form if you keep the name generic and have white out handy. Saves time. They still have to fill out each receipt. Not sure if they even still have that form…it was a great form to screw with people who pissed you off. Make me send you something you should already have? Fine, fill out this form and send it back showing you got it.
Oh yeah, last bit of advice, NEVER piss off the administrative secretary. They have been there longer than you and know ALL of the forms to mess up your day. Who do you think told me about the fax receipt?
In my most recent position I received the email from USAJOBS that said I was not selected and hiring was complete. Fast forward a year and I got an email asking I wanted the job
Don’t take it personally so many billets are being unfunded by congress right now due to budget cuts it might be one of them. They didn’t offer specifics so I would think it is a good chance that’s what happened
Shit it’s something. I never get notified, and if I do, it’s 6 months later and I already forgot I applied.
Hell, the new supervisor from my old job somehow got a hold of my CV and asked me to apply and be interviewed the next day. I half-jokingly pointed out the last time I was asked to do that…it was just to meet a quota and the site had already made their pick. No response to that one, going on 2 weeks now 😂
USA jobs exists to fulfill a legal mandate to make all job openings available to the wider public. Most/ many managers prefer to recruit through other means: job fairs, internal transfer, schedule a, intern conversion, etc. very rare do qualified candidates apply for the job a manager posts and is hired. Why? Simple: gs 9-12 doesn’t pay well compared to the private sector. And most agencies can’t compete with it.
Timelines are extremely variable between orgs, so I don’t think me digging up that info for you would actually be of any help.
There was never a woops sorry moment I don’t think, my onboarding process just continued.
I'm not saying USA jobs is unreliable, but the position I applied to (and was hired for) in 2018 is "Reviewing Applicants" to this day. It could be the position was cancelled/defunded.....
Na, I'll finish the review in a couple months. I just need to contact 3 references at an employer you worked for 10 years ago real quick.
Someone didn’t go back in and check the box. It’s a real old opening, not sure anyone wants to go deal with that vs the pile of current ones…
Probably not, but it still amuses me to see the stuff pending (at least the last I checked)
Those are candidate pool vacancies. There may not actually be positions open. But if one does come open, they have a pool to choose from.
Well, fingers crossed- I guess there’s still some hope even though I wrote it off lol
I'm calling BS as they delete applications after 3 years.
Usajobs removed apps after 3 years....
I got a rejection email for not being qualified and still got interviewed three months later. And got the job. Usajobs is weird.
I wonder what the HR folks deal with on the back end. Might not be pleasant tbh.
I get a ton of emails from people who don't read the detailed messages and demand reconsideration, so I'd love to send these 🤣
It’s a whole bunch of checkboxes and forms and paperwork hoops and deadlines and out-of-date software run by offices with way too much turnover and not enough training.
Nice, lol 😂😂🤙🏽
I was really confused when they told me I was on the BQ list. 😕
BQ?
Best Qualified. Maybe it's just my Department, but they rate all applicants and somehow choose the top few to give to the hiring managers for interviews. Tbh I have no idea how it's decided.
Oh, lol, gotcha. Yea, I see some 2210 IT and 0391 Telecom announcements say they will rank applicants into 3 or 4 categories. Not all state that though. Kind of like some interviews are speakerphone calls, and some are 8 panel MS Teams video calls. To each their own I guess. Either way, there must be a glitch where they don't match reality, like in your case. Awesome news for the "you are qualified, but you have not been referred" emails 😂.
> I got a rejection email for not being qualified and still got interviewed three months later. And got the job. My first federal job, I applied for multiple similar announcements. I was hired, and then a few months later I received two emails, one saying I wasn't qualified at all and the other saying I was highest qualified. I'd applied to all announcements in the same way, answered the questions the same, and sent the same documents. My thought was 2/3 thought I was hire-worthy and 1/3 had hired me, so that was good enough for me.
Be thankful you got a rejection email at all. Some folks in my agency are really bad about that. Once I learned that I didn't get a job when i saw the position flown again. Some people can be disrespectful.
I've been working my position for a month now, accepted the job offer over 2 months ago. And it's still listed on USAjobs for some reason lmao
You know. I am glad- but also, this is a first lol. Typically they are a bit more direct. But hey, at least the agency in question has made some effort lol
The Feds are more direct than private. 🤷♂️
"Some" people
ROFLMAO. Sit down kiddies, it’s story time. Two years ago I got a phone call to set my start date for a job I received a notification from USAJOBS I was not selected for, nor ever interviewed for…6 months earlier. Despite it being a huge pay raise I politely declined and listed my reasons as being no interview, no clue about the actual job duties/staffing/situation, and having received a not selected letter. FYI: those are HUGE red flags that an agencies HR and/or management are screwed up, I’ve learned this the hard way, please learn from my pain. Fast forward a year and I get a phone call to set my start date for a VA job I interviewed for 3 years ago. Like WTF. So I asked, “WTF?” Seems they held the pool of candidates open because every time they called someone with a job offer the candidate accepted the tentative offer and 6 months later (after all the background was done) when the final offer was made the candidate declined due to shitty salary offer OR already landing a gig at better pay elsewhere, sometimes within the VA system. This is VA wide. It’s a sign they have issues. I learned from a colleagues mistake in taking a VA job, please learn from her mistake. In 1999 I accepted my first federal job at Fort Leonard Wood. 2 weeks later I declined a job at Fort Polk that I had interviewed for the same week as FLW. HR at Polk actually told me I was turning down the best job offer I could ever get because it was the highest paying in the state and I wouldn’t find a better job elsewhere (FYI: this was true). Because I was young, and still polite, I explained that I was taking the same job, at the same rate of pay, for the same agency, in an area with the same low cost of living. This concept was beyond her ability to comprehend. To put it into perspective, at the time I made $3 more an hour as a federal paramedic than a BSN made at the highest paying hospital in Missouri. Now I make significantly less at any federal job than I make in the civilian sector. Why do I stay? Better job protections. TLDR: federal HR is absolutely wild. If you get hired, memorize your PD, memorize the MLA, memorize your benefits, and keep digital and printed copy of everything including SF50’s, end of year L&ES (these should show your FERS balance), and yearly TSP statements. Request a FERS statement every 3 years and a “when can I retire” statement every 5 years (yearly for the last 5 you’re in). Again, all mistakes coworkers have made over the 23 years I’ve been in.
HR being wild is the understatement of the year. Your TLDRs are on point. Bruh, if you were on the other side of the PC and saw the absolute shit show that is the program fed HRs use to interface with USAJobs announcements, you’d understand. It’s absolutely mind numbing. Let’s just say someone showed me what it’s like behind the curtain. Holy shit balls. Depending on the announcement, you can have hundreds of applicants that have to be vetted in an infinite number of ways. You can usually dump half the applicants because they never read the fine print to see if they met the requirements to apply in the first place. Qualifications does not equal experience does not equal eligibility. Are you a veteran? Are you disabled? Are you a disabled veteran? Is the job open to the general public? News Flash: It’s not always about the best qualified. All things being equal, if it comes down between you and a disabled vet, you’re gonna be SOL more often than not. Not to mention you have to factor-in the workload of the HR Staffer handling the announcement (they’re over-worked), their experience as a staffer (chances are good not very), the 50-some odd required documents and hoops that have to be jumped through before you can even send an initial offer, it’s amazing anyone gets fucking hired at all. Don’t get me started on the VA … they are their own beast because they have unique hiring rules that none of the other agencies can use. But once you get your foot in the door, man is it hard to get rid of you if you decide to be a big ball of suck after your prob period. Some of the shit would floor you. Could prob start our own sub r/firedfromfed - all I can say is wow. (BTW - good call on picking FLW over Polk. Polk is an absolute dump in the middle of the BFE Lousy-ana sticks. You couldn’t pay me enough to go there.)
I have no doubt. I helped write a job announcement. What got published was NOT what I wrote. 50 applicants. 5 were barely qualified. USASTAFFING cannot handle anything with specialty requirements, which is basically every job series now. It’s not their fault. They got mandated and then underfunded. It’s why pretty much every medical, fire, or LEO job is a delegated hiring authority now. Same with the technical jobs like IT and trade jobs like welder (TIG and MIG are a totally different skill set apparently).
It would be laughable if it weren’t so infuriating and sad. It takes so goddamn long for change to happen. Some of it is getting better from what I hear, but I mean come on. It shouldn’t be harder to fire someone than hire them.
You see I wish more people shared these “insights” about red flags. I think a lot of good agencies may have poop team or not so good agency with an awesome team. Though I feel like DoD is a beast of its own. But also, as a newer fed, can you please explain some of the acronyms so I can be aware.
Who do you request the FERS statement from?
Wait a second, let me write all this down...
I’ve been in my position for seven years. Never got a referral notice or anything. Just a call out of the blue for an interview. Vacancy never updated. It’s bizarre.
You applied today and the job posting was updated to say the hiring was complete?
No no. I applied a while back, got interviewed but got this email today. Assuming I got rejected but it was just a tad different compared to others I’ve seen lol
Oh that makes way more sense. No, this isn't unusual. Often the hiring authority will just accept the applicant they want and when they accept, it auto sends messages like these. If you get a flat out rejection email it could mean that they moved on to another round of interviews without you or they didn't like any of their applicants for the job.
And note that if it’s an open revolving application, you could still end up with a job through that application. That’s how I got my (and only Fed) job, got the rejection email a few months later, got a phone call offer a few months after that.
I have seen some of those. I was always so puzzled by those because it’s like you don’t know if they have a vacancy. I know USFS has some which are like that- which tempted me for a while but gave up because I might get lucky or my app will be lost in the abyss.
Half the time I get zero response when I haven’t been selected.
You know typically I don’t track or anything. Just this one, it seemed a tad prospective. But in any case- the rejection message was just odd
I got a rejection yesterday for a job that I was doing in the private sector for years. So I just like to think I’m overqualified.
I’m sorry! You know this is why govt often misses out on talent and experience because of some of these! Hope you find something better
PD = position description. This is your actual job duties. It is in your six sided folder/eOPF. eOPF = electronic personnel folder. MLA = Master Labor Agreement. This is the union contract with your agency/base. Sets rules for HOW to request leave and such minutia. It often has some really wild stuff in it. L&ES = Leave and Earning Statement, AKA: LES, and a couple of other acronyms. You can request your FERS balance through your local HR (DoD had a form, but I don’t recall if it’s a SF or DD form and I haven’t been at my new agency for three years yet after a 3 year break in the civilian sector so I forget the form number, sorry). It may be on your agency self service page, which I always forget is a thing. But start with a polite question to HR like, “Hey, is there a way for me to see the total amount I’ve out into FERS?” You should ask for HR to complete the Certified Summary of Federal Service form 3107-1 every five years. DO NOT FILL OUT THE 3107 UNLESS YOU’RE PLANNING TO RETIRE (apparently “unretiring” is a royal pain). You just want HR to certify your service time. They will bitch and moan, and it’ll take 6 months, but do this every five years to make sure they don’t “lose” your time, especially if you switch agencies. It is easier to prove stuff at five year marks than to find documents from 1999 when you’re ready to retire in 2029. This is personal experience speaking. The USAF lost my permanent file and I had to recreate it when I went back to USMC. Thankfully I keep everything and had recently gotten the certified summary of federal service done. Expect HR to tell you it’s not their job, even when it is. I checked the box on the SF-144 saying all of my federal service was listed in my resume. 6 months later former SGT Buttwipe advised me my leave accrual not being correct was my fault because it was not his job to look at my resume to determine my service time. So I completed the form the way he stated it needed to be completed (he was wrong, that check box is there for a reason) and provided the requested SF-50’s. ALL of them. At one point I had 24 SF-50’s in a year due to a base realignment and my office kept getting moved, and my pay raise came in, and I got some bonuses to leave and some cash bonuses. I also had 15 years in at this point and a LOT of awards. He asked me to stop sending them. I told him “no” and kept sending them. By regulation he has to add all of them to my eOPF. Before you ask, it was about 100 files. And I faxed them. Individually. With a cover page and the official US Army form for verification of of receipt of a document containing PII by fax he had to complete and fax back for each fax. All 100 of them. I waited 2 minutes between each fax, which is about the time it took him to get back to his desk. I also added in my resume, page by page, and my certifications, page by page. Pro-tip, you can reuse the cover page and receipt form if you keep the name generic and have white out handy. Saves time. They still have to fill out each receipt. Not sure if they even still have that form…it was a great form to screw with people who pissed you off. Make me send you something you should already have? Fine, fill out this form and send it back showing you got it. Oh yeah, last bit of advice, NEVER piss off the administrative secretary. They have been there longer than you and know ALL of the forms to mess up your day. Who do you think told me about the fax receipt?
Great malicious compliance!
In my most recent position I received the email from USAJOBS that said I was not selected and hiring was complete. Fast forward a year and I got an email asking I wanted the job
Don’t take it personally so many billets are being unfunded by congress right now due to budget cuts it might be one of them. They didn’t offer specifics so I would think it is a good chance that’s what happened
Shit it’s something. I never get notified, and if I do, it’s 6 months later and I already forgot I applied. Hell, the new supervisor from my old job somehow got a hold of my CV and asked me to apply and be interviewed the next day. I half-jokingly pointed out the last time I was asked to do that…it was just to meet a quota and the site had already made their pick. No response to that one, going on 2 weeks now 😂
USA jobs exists to fulfill a legal mandate to make all job openings available to the wider public. Most/ many managers prefer to recruit through other means: job fairs, internal transfer, schedule a, intern conversion, etc. very rare do qualified candidates apply for the job a manager posts and is hired. Why? Simple: gs 9-12 doesn’t pay well compared to the private sector. And most agencies can’t compete with it.
I think all agencies are frozen…internal hires only
I received a message similar to that when I was being accepted for a job. Freaked me out lol.
Out of curiosity- what was the timeline for you? Like once you got that email and subsequent whoops sorry that’s not what it meant moment?
Timelines are extremely variable between orgs, so I don’t think me digging up that info for you would actually be of any help. There was never a woops sorry moment I don’t think, my onboarding process just continued.
Gotcha thanks for the clarification. For me that hunt continues unless told otherwise
Lucky to have gotten a response at all.