Career Pro Inc. supports all initiatives for veterans. Here is key information available through Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS).

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we observe two minutes of silence for our for our heroes who died in service to Canada.

November 11, 2011 at 11:00am.

The poppy is the symbol of Remembrance Day.

The closer you get to separation or retirement, the more you start noticing the culture difference between the world of the uniformed services and the planet where more than 95 percent of people have never served on active duty.

Even if you live off base, the differences don’t seem to mean much until you start hearing about them in the transition assistance program or in stories from other veterans who have already made the leap.

But there is one, very subtle, cultural difference that can delay or derail your career. The good news is you can avoid it. And when you do, you may also be far ahead of your civilian job seeking competition. … Read more

You would think that local government hiring processes might have similarities to one another when they are located in the same geographic region. As I conducted research for my book, Jobs That Matter: Find a Stable, Fulfilling Career in Public Service, I found this definitely to not be the case.

For instance, in the Seattle area where I live, there are several different local government agencies that all have a fairly different application process: … Read more

Interview with Karen Kurt, Human Resources Manager, City of Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Eden Prairie was just ranked number 1 on MONEY magazine’s 2010 list of the 100 “Best Places to Live” in America.

1. I know local governments have been hit hard by the recession. How has hiring been reduced? Have there been layoffs or furloughs?
The City of Eden Prairie has definitely seen an impact from the recession. For the first time, we had layoffs last year, in 2009; and some vacant positions were frozen or eliminated.  We also have a pay freeze for 2010. There is much less turnover in positions, too.  We would normally turnover 20-25 career positions a year, but last year we filled only 1-2 positions. Most of the turnover is from retirement.

We have about 270 career positions (regular full and part time employees),  and then there are what we call PTS employees – part-time, temporary or seasonal employees – who work at the city’s liquor stores or in parks and recreation. The PTS positions don’t qualify for benefits, and are temporary or work 20 hours or less per week. We might have 350  PTS employees during our busiest months in the summer.
2. What positions do you hire for the most?
We do a lot of hiring for PTS positions. In terms of career positions, in a normal economy, the largest group is in the police department. In a hot economy, we saw a lot of turnover in positions that could cross over to the private sector like HR, IT, and communications and so did more hiring for these positions.  Positions that don’t easily transfer to the private sector, like urban planning, assessing, or parks/recreation, don’t have as much turnover, since our city is one of the premier employers in our metro area for these occupations.

We are very open to people coming from the private sector.  For instance, in the HR department, we have hired employees from Target and  Best Buy without public sector experience; people in IT, facilities, and communications come with mostly private sector experience. Volunteer experience in the public sector can be a good way to make the transition. Most of our Fire Department is staffed by volunteer firefighters who have day jobs in the private sector. The employees who hold the handful of full time fire positions were former volunteers who used that experience to land a full time job.
3. When candidates apply for jobs, can they submit a regular resume and cover letter, or do they need to write application essays or fill out questionnaires?  Do they need to fill out any special application forms?

Under Minnesota law, we have to formally “score” applications to give preference points to veterans. HR scores the applications based on the qualifications of the job. In this economy, we may have 300-400 applications in front of us for one job. To be a good candidate, make it as clear as possible how you fit the requirements of the job, rather than relying on the HR person to connect the dots. For instance,  put in the cover letter a box with two columns; one column that lists each requirement and another that explains how you meet it.

Typically, we don’t use special application forms, but we do use an online application. Candidates have to complete the online application and can attach their cover letter and resume. There may be some questions in the application to help with initial scoring but they are usually brief. The scoring varies by position and includes points to make sure we meet the veteran’s preference law. For certain jobs with fewer applicants, it could be that 70+ points gets you an interview; for jobs with many applicants, you would most likely need more points. We review all applicants with the required minimum number of points with the hiring manager.  Generally well qualified veterans and other underrepresented groups are slated for an interview right away. The hiring manager has a lot of discretion in determining who gets the remainder of the interview slots from the candidates who were determined to be well qualified as a result of the scoring process. If you have a lot of points but have a red flag – like being fired from a prior job – you might not get the interview, especially if we have a lot of well qualified candidates to choose from.

4. Does your city use a civil service hiring process?  If so, are there examinations? What kind of exams (written, in-basket exercises, physical exams)? Are there any tips for candidates to prepare for the tests?

We do not have a civil service hiring process. Typically, the next step after your application is an interview. There are some exceptions. We give tests for firefighter and dispatcher positions.  Our interviews are behavior based —questions include things like “tell us about a time when you successfully resolved a conflict”; or “tell us about a time when you managed a project from start to finish.” There usually are some technical parts of the job interview; but we also place a great deal of emphasis on our City’s shared expectations of teamwork, customer service, flexibility, initiative, public stewardship and results orientation.  We look for those attributes in all hires.

5. Are most staff unionized?

Less than most Minneapolis area cities. About 25% of the staff is unionized, representing the maintenance employees, i.e. parks and street maintenance, water utilities.

6. Do candidates have to be residents of your city in order to apply, and/or need to live there in order to be employees? No.
7. Any other tips for candidates looking for jobs in local government in general?

What’s different in public sector vs. private sector: we tend to use panel interviews. Virtually always. Typically in the private sector, you go through a series of one-person interviews, but at  our City you are likely to have 3 panel interviews, with at least 3 people per panel. Be prepared for the interview, because it is more intimidating to be panel interviewed. Really reflect on the organization, visit their website and learn about their values, and  think about how your experiences demonstrate those values.  Also look at the job ad, reflect on how your past experience demonstrates how you fill the requirements. Think of examples in advance. Practice if you have the opportunity.
8. Can networking help?

It can’t hurt! If you fall in well-qualified category and were referred by a current employee, it can help to set you apart to reach the interview stage. But a referral  doesn’t guarantee anything; if you are not well qualified it won’t get you an interview.

Interview with Scott Jay Regner, Human Resources Analyst Supervisor, Department of Budget and Management, Office Of Personnel Services, Recruitment and Examination Division, Technology Services Unit, State of Maryland.

Many thanks, Scott!

1. I know state governments have been hit hard by the recession. How has hiring been reduced? Have there been layoffs or furloughs?

Yes, hiring has been reduced over the last few years actually, even before the recession.

Maryland is a “balanced budget” state, and its employees are its largest cost, so each request for hire must be approved by budget officials first, which has slowed the rate of hiring for the last 6 years or so.

With the recession, we have had some periodic layoffs (perhaps a thousand or so, all told over the last couple years).

Last fiscal year and this one all state employees were also furloughed a certain number of days related to their salary (for a salary reduction essentially), plus a certain number of standardized furlough days next to holidays that everyone takes.

You can find out the specifics of this here.

2. What positions do you hire for the most?

The top six jobs we hired for in FY2010 were:

1-Correctional Officer

2-Family Investment Specialist I

3-Direct Care Trainee

4-Office Clerk Assistant

5-Correctional Officer Sergeant

6-Registered Nurse

3. When candidates apply for jobs, can they submit a regular resume and cover letter, or do they need to write application essays or fill out questionnaires? Do they need to fill out any special application forms?

Depends on the job being recruited what they are required to send in to apply. It can be everything you’ve mentioned and more.

4. Does your state use a civil service hiring process?

Yes, we have a merit system process encoded in law (basically Titles #6-12 of the State Personnel and Pensions Act), though it’s been decentralized mostly to the agencies and most recruitments are position specific (not class based), so its effect is diluted. EEO monitors every recruitment also.

If so, are there examinations? What kind of exams (written, in-basket exercises, physical exams)?

The vast majority of our ‘exams’ are either simply ratings of applicant’s resume/application; or training and experience evaluations, some of which require questionnaires.

We do most of the large scale written exams in our overseer department mainly (like the Correctional officer Test, which has several components, from online BioData/Personality testing to watching videos and taking multiple choice questions, etc)

There are some other multiple choice exams for classes where they recruit a lot, like revenue examiners, which are handled by the agency that has that unique job class.

And there’s the very occasional in-basket exam which is used primarily for police type classes–but extensive testing processes have become quite rare in our State, not like it was when I started back in 1980.

There is a physical exam for certain police positions also, like Natural Resources Police.

And we do have a number of “interview and hire” job classes also, where the test is the interview itself.

Are there any tips for candidates to prepare for the tests?

If it’s a written multiple choice or knowledge-based exam process, the general areas to be tested will be listed on the job announcement.

Other than that, none that I’m aware of (however, what the agencies are doing we don’t generally know, we just receive their final eligible list after the process.)

5. Are most staff unionized?

I don’t know how many belong to a union, I don’t have access to those figures. We have several unions that represent the state workforce and we have some bargaining agreements with them, but I’m not aware of what they are.

6. Are there any hiring preferences, i.e. for veterans?

Yes, definitely.

Brief explanation of our ‘scoring’ system—every applicant will receive a final score (if they minimally qualify) between 70-100 points–regardless of what type of ‘test’ they take, which can be everything from just giving them 100 points if they minimally qualify (our ‘streamline certification’ lists, where everyone gets a top score), to elaborate 5 part exams where the tested points have weights, need to be tallied, etc.

But everyone will wind up with 70-100 points after they’re ‘tested’…

Then for preference, we give veterans 10-12 extra points above their ‘test score’ (depending on whether they are disabled or not) when they provide a copy of their DD214.

(However, once they’re a state employee, this preference goes away.)

Currently there is also an outreach effort to recruit veterans from the Gulf, Iraq and Afghan wars. We also are acquiring stats on how many we hire each year to provide data for the Governor on this.

We also give a five point preference for any citizen of the State of Maryland who applies (which winds up giving 97% of everyone five extra points)

We also have a five point preference for Public Safety applicants only, if they live in certain counties where the unemployment rate is above the state average.

We also have a five point preference for the Department of Juvenile Service applicants who live in an election district that has a youth center—or an election district tangential to that district.

(I had the lovely task of attempting to program that for our HRIS system)

We also give each State employee a quarter point for every year of State service up to 20 years or five points (seniority points).

7. What makes an applicant stand out positively?

The main things are the most obvious and simple—Being a very knowledgeable candidate, following the exact directions on how to apply, providing all the detail we ask for and in the proper format (resume, application, etc), responding to interview letters, showing up on time, and appropriately and professionally attired for the interview, etc. Basic stuff.

8. Any other tips for candidates looking for jobs in state government in general?

Aside from what I said in # 7, paying attention to the current recruitments on our website, checking in at least once a week to see if there’s a job for you.

Here’s our job listing link.