Rebecca Dedmond on Saturday 08/01/2015 at 11:30 AM
Eraina, Thank you for this clear, concise, and information-packed article. Clearly your background and experience will impact all readers and practitioners, whether career counselors, career development facilitators, or coaches!
Renate Stewart on Saturday 08/01/2015 at 12:29 PM
While this article gives a great overview on the emphasis on competencies in federal job applications and announcements, the key area of questionnaires was missed. Many agencies are using the addition of these questionnaires as an easy screening tool to determine the level of competency of applicants. Often an individual cannot fill out these questionnaires till after submitting the application and have missed key areas that need to addressed. I always advise my clients to preview the questionnaire to ensure they have identified all competency areas, key words, and key phrases that will need to be described in their applications. In the directions for the questionnaires there is often a statement such as: “Responses to questions that are not fully supported by the information in your resume may result in lowering to your rating.” Just one more way to ensure an individual is being rated as high as possible so they can move to the interview stage.
Andre J. Castillo on Sunday 08/02/2015 at 01:54 PM
Have you see www.mycareeratva.va.gov? It's the best authority on Federal hiring. It has a lot of articles and training resources to help anyone navigate Federal hiring.
(I'm the former PM for that program.)
Kathryn Troutman on Saturday 08/01/2015 at 11:10 AM
Dr. Schauss, I like your Civil Service Applicant Competency article. The competencies are so important and not taken seriously among job applicants. My favorite competencies are: customer services, flexibility, teamwork, resiliency and communications. It is truly amazing that if a federal job applicant does not mention these competencies and skills (and prove it with past experiences / anecdotes), they may not get Best Qualified for a position. The competencies are real and important for an applicant to show that they can work in a federal job to meet complicated missions and be flexible with changes that come up on the federal job everyday! I am the author of 7 books on federal resume writing and job search, including Federal Resume Guidebook, 5th edition. Your article is very good!