Last month, the Office of Personnel Management published a draft of their strategic plan for 2010-2015 seeking to update, streamline, and modernize how the federal government recruits, hires, trains, and rewards its civilian workforce. John Berry, Director of OPM, stated in a speech entitled A New Day for the Civil Service, that they have set a lofty goal to make the ...

Are you considering transitioning from business to government? According to government human resource professionals, you'll need to watch where you step. A recent survey of senior public-sector HR executives conducted by us - Peter Daly and Michael Watkins, coauthors of The First 90 Days in Government: Critical Success Strategies for New Public Leaders at all Levels - found that in contrast ...

You’ve submitted your application and made the list of best qualified candidates -- now you’ve landed an interview for a federal job. Think the most important part of the application process is over? Think again. Federal hiring managers do not merely conduct employment interviews; they rely heavily on them to identify the best candidate. So how can you best prepare for ...

You may look good on paper or in your suit, but if you're looking to nail your big interview, looks aren't everything. How you sound is often more important. But many job seekers let careless speech habits sink their chances of landing that plum job. The Bottom Line: You don't have to study elocution to speak well. Simply slow down, ...

Our current system of government rests on faulty assumptions about how people think and vote. To deal with the world's most challenging problems—present and future—it needs fundamental change. [gate] This guest post is part of GOOD's series with the Institute for the Future. Last week Mathias introduced you to the need for futures thinking in our society. And it requires no ...

The adage says, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and its wisdom is applicable to job seekers. It is usually far easier to find another job if you're already employed. But how can you ensure that the worst never happens to you -- that you're never left without a job and possibilities for your next opportunity? ...

USAJobs.gov has a tool to help you can match a public sector job to relevant private sector jobs. But what good does that do to the government job seeker? GovCentral did the hard work for you and sorted through the search tool in order to help you apply your previous outside-of-the-government work experience to your new job search. [gate] This is ...

There is a lot of discussion about how government-sector jobs are more stable than others in our faltering economy and about how government hiring trends are predicted to be more resistant to the economic downturn than other sectors. Unfortunately, this doesn't do you a whole lot of good, if you've got no idea of where to start in order to get ...

One of the best part of serving in the Military is playing with cool toys. Newsweek has compiled some of the best and strangest ones in a photo gallery they call, ahem, Weapons Porn. Gadget blog, Gizmodo, has picked a favorite. It's the Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot aka the Care B.E.A.R. I think this would be appropriate to extract over-served interns during ...

The landscape for job seekers today is more treacherous than at any other time in recent memory. In other words, if you want a job today, the hard work starts when you prepare for the interview. That means not just nailing the questions you are asked, but actually asking the kinds of questions designed to make the interviewer sit up and ...

According to the Office of Personnel Management, in the next 10 years, 60 percent of federal workers will be retiring in the next 10 years. There is plenty of opportunity, but job seekers need to remember that the process for landing a job with the federal government is radically different than what they may be used to in the private sector. ...

You're interested in working for the US government, but you're not exactly sure what to do first. Maybe you're having difficulty figuring out what type of government job would best match the skills that you have. What are the major branches of the Government? How many jobs are available? What agencies will be hiring rapidly over the next few years? Find ...

KSAs are often a critical part of the Federal job application process, but most Federal job applicants are often confused about exactly what a KSA is. The information provided below provides a brief overview of KSAs and their part in the Federal hiring process. What does KSA mean? "KSA" is an abbreviation for knowledge, skills, and abilities. KSAs are attributes required ...

As the saying goes, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. If you're doing a job search or resume submission via email, the first impression any employer will have is from your cover letter. [gate] Some tips for creating successful email cover letters are the same as for paper cover letters: Be professional, with correct spelling and ...

Employees have been criticizing their bosses since the beginning of time. Until the birth of social media, these conversations generally played out in lunchrooms or restrooms, around the water cooler, over a few cocktails at the local pub after working hours, and in the smoker’s circle outside the office building. [gate] Regardless if the criticisms were true or not, the context ...

Are you wondering how to deal with a sticky work history issue? Whether you were laid off from your last position, took time off to raise children or are looking to change careers, the cover letter is the perfect place to address potential red flags. One caveat: Keep the explanation brief. Writing a cover letter is an exercise in selling yourself, ...

Career experts are unanimous on the importance of customizing our resumes for each new job we apply for. But for many of us, when it comes to revising our resumes, the first question is "How?" It's easy to get stuck in rut when you're working with material you know so well. So here are some ways to take a fresh look ...

Whether you're looking for a job or trying to advance your career, networking is very important (in a recent HotJobs poll, 57 percent of respondents said that networking was a factor in landing their most recent job). And networking shouldn't end when you log off of LinkedIn or head home from a conference. Valuable contacts are on the perimeter of your ...

Federal agencies are catching on to the social media craze and leveraging that technology to attract job seekers, especially young recruits. For example, the Labor Department advertises open positions on Twitter and plans to upload its recruitment videos to YouTube. The State Department regularly updates its Facebook page and maintains the @DOSCareers Twitter account. But conventional wisdom, which holds that recent ...

Submitting a job application is an emotional investment. You spend hours reviewing your resume and KSA essay to make sure everything is worded correctly and accurately describes just how awesome you are. After you send it, you just know that the hiring manager is going to think your application is a masterpiece of accomplishment. Surely this application must be included into ...