Would you even consider an SES job these days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you get pushed out, how good are your exit opportunities?

I mean…the market is pretty terrible in general. I do tax controversy. I think so many people left and took the available positions that there isn’t much left for another round of us to exit. I may also have a huge amount of imposter syndrome given I’ve only ever worked for the fed and worry I wouldn’t measure up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would being an SES significantly improve your options if you leave? That's what I'd be thinking about.

This comes down to the specifics of the job and the person. I don’t think being SES per se gives you significantly better options. But the tyoe of people who become SES often have better outside options, and certain titles will also give you better options.

DP, and yes, that's exactly why the PP posed this question to the OP.

Very weird responses on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OPM is implementing a forced rank system for career SES.

OP here- are t they doing this overall as well? I’ve been told only 30% of the work force can get 4s and 5s and 70% have to be at 3 and below. Which is categorically insane. Why in the world would world would we want a workforce where more than 2/3s are mediocre? I’ve gotten 5s for many years now and they are arbitrarily just going to bust me down to a 3?

They are only encouraging it for the GS so far. And the answer is they will fire more people.

To be fair there is terrible grade inflation at my agency. It would not be hard for me to rate people lower if I had to.

OP here- I don’t feel that way at mine, where we are majority very specialized attorneys. It’s not easy to get a 15. Our journey level attorneys are 12-14, but many never get beyond the 14, or if they do, it’s long into their careers. If they keep me acting long term, I’m going to feel awful rating anyone lower than their current evaluation since we lost more than half our office and the remaining people, including me, are running ourselves ragged trying to keep things going.

Have you looked at the SES application these days? May answer your questions.

Only you can decide but I have turned down the (political) SES job in my office 4 times over the past 3 years. Now I just do the job as a GS-15 and I’m fine with that. To me the extra $$ isn’t worth it. I am not interested in the theory of management. I am happy as a first line supervisor who still gets in and does the work. And now the career SES aren’t much different from politicals, that’s not worth it either.

[Anonymous]

No, I would not.