Posted in Federal Resume Writing
by Paulina Chen on February 27th, 2009 | 2 Comments - Make a comment »
Welcome, Federal Resume, KSA, ECQ and NSPS self-asssessment writers,
I’m teaching the American Public to write Federal Resumes and KSAs now! I’m thrilled to have my first blog where I can write to you and you can write to me — and everyone — about what’s new with federal job search!
Because of the dire job situation, and the HIRING in government, I have started teaching “open enrollment” Ten Steps to a Federal Job courses – Federal Resume & KSA Writing in a computer room. Jobseekers bring their resume on a thumbdrive and dive into the resume with NEW FEDERAL JOB KEYWORDS! The classes are open to the public – and many people who are attending are out of work, or almost out of work. We are spending a day talking about what job they would qualify for in government … then we dive into the announcements, keywords and resume matching. The first class filled up registrations in a day!
It is a challenging class because every person has a differnet career direction, but I go around the room and ask people what job they are seeking and if they know their potential federal job title. If not, we figure it out, and go straight to USAJOBS.gov and begin to research jobs. In the last class EVERYONE in the room had a target job title and grade. And EVERYONE FOUND AN ANNOUNCEMENT THAT WAS GOOD FOR THEIR SEARCH!!!
Please share your federal job search, federal resume writing and KSA writing challenges and success stores in this blog.
Thanks, Kathryn Troutman, Federal Career Coach, Author and Speaker
Posted in Self-Assessment
by Paulina Chen on February 27th, 2009 | No Comments - Make a comment »
Yesterday I was at US Army Sustainment Command in Davenport, Iowa. I was contracted to teach Executive Core Qualifications writing. But then we started talking about writing NSPS Self-Assessments and Job Objectives (JOs), and this topic was one of great interest.
I told the class of supervisors and executives that I had just written two newsletter articles on a technique for writing the job objectives in the SMART format by using a vacancy announcement. They were intrigued, so I showed them my two articles and my analysis of the SMART JOs.
I asked the class, “How many of you have your JOs written in the SMART format?” Nobody raised their hand. They said, “We can’t figure out how to do it”.
I admitted that the SMART JOs were hard even for me to write.
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Posted in Federal Job Search, Federal Resume Writing, Self-Assessment
by Kathryn Troutman on February 13th, 2009 | 3 Comments - Make a comment »
We recently had a federal employee ask us to help him restructure his resume so that he could get his current job reclassified. The employee had a professional degree in Engineering, but had accepted an Engineering Technician position to “get his foot in the door.” He felt he was performing professional work, and wanted to ask the classification specialist to review his job and change it to that of a professional. He believed that re-writing his resume would convince the classifier to change the position.
What is the relationship between your resume and your job classification? Actually, they are two different things and are used differently in the federal employment process.
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