Biden to prohibit use of salary history for federal employee hires

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. I’m a minority woman who has been underpaid in the nonprofit sector my entire career. This benefits lots of underpaid workers and is a HUGE step forward towards pay equity. It’s not about saving the feds money, it’s about valuing the job and work experience above salary history. It’s about time!

I’m a minority woman who went fed from biglaw and I think you should have planned your career differently.

Your opinion is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Are you advocating for systemic pay disparity just because you managed to profit from the old ways?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do agencies do this? My first agency started everyone at step 1 regardless of prior salary. My current agency uses a formula based on years of relevant experience.

+1 I have the same question, what agencies are starting people at higher than step 1 regularly?

I started as a GS-10 having come from biglaw. I’m a woman. Would not have been able to afford to come if a GS 1 given the hours meant I missed day care pick up and had to choose a more expensive child care option. Race to the bottom.

you worked in Biglaw and now you work in the feds and yet you still do not know the difference between step 1 (what the previous poster was talking about) and grade 10 (what you are talking about)? Is this serious?

Seems obvious to me that PP was referring to steps, not grades. This is based on the context clues from the fact that the previous poster was talking about steps and that the fact that there is no grade 10 for attorneys.

This was an absurd thing to pick on PP about, even if you were right, which you aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do agencies do this? My first agency started everyone at step 1 regardless of prior salary. My current agency uses a formula based on years of relevant experience.

+1 I have the same question, what agencies are starting people at higher than step 1 regularly?

Only with previous Fed experience and the Agency’s needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do agencies do this? My first agency started everyone at step 1 regardless of prior salary. My current agency uses a formula based on years of relevant experience.

+1 I have the same question, what agencies are starting people at higher than step 1 regularly?

A lot of agencies will do it. Of course it’s at the discretion of the manager and HR. If they want to recruit someone from the private sector, they can match their salary. If they have plenty of qualified candidates who will take the job, then maybe they can just start everyone at Step 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cant say I understand the move. No two employees are exactly alike and I’d argue external experience is *more* valuable than fed experience in many cases.

If this is a cost saving exercise, congrats. You saved very little over 30 years. Maybe stop spending so much on blowing up brown people in foreign lands.

Uh, Biden is the one who got the US out of Afghanistan once and for all, so good news for you, no more blowing up brown people in foreign lands!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow those biglaw burnouts are going to really have to take a pay cut to join now.

Seriously! I took a haircut 7 years ago but it would be so much worse if the agency hadn’t accounted for my prior salary. Woof.

They would be accounting for your prior experience. But the difference between someone coming from a NYC biglaw and someone coming from a midwest non-profit for the same job should be factored based on years of relevant experience, regardless of raw income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do agencies do this? My first agency started everyone at step 1 regardless of prior salary. My current agency uses a formula based on years of relevant experience.

+1 I have the same question, what agencies are starting people at higher than step 1 regularly?

I started as a GS-10 having come from biglaw. I’m a woman. Would not have been able to afford to come if a GS 1 given the hours meant I missed day care pick up and had to choose a more expensive child care option. Race to the bottom.

This isn't a priblem it is a situation. Many of us have passed over jobs because we can't afford to take them. If you had not taken the job, someone else would have.

The problem is the person who would have taken the job would not be as good as me, and the public interest would suffer.

Unlikely. One of the reasons that this is important is that there are still many more qualified candidates than positions available. You may think that the person who would take the job would not be as good as you, but in most cases, this is not true. I've been in the hiring position and often the "first choice" is only more impressive on paper, but that the second, third and fourth choices are all well qualified for the job. And there are many people who want to move to the federal civil service for the work-life balance, job flexibility and benefits packages. So, you aren't as irreplaceable as you think you are.

One of the facts is that there are more lawyers than positions to hire them. Too many people over the last 30 years thought that law was the best path and there are now more lawyers than jobs. So, even if you don't take it, there is no shortage of lawyers looking for work and the federal government does not need to pay top dollar to get good lawyers. And especially, the federal government does not need to pay top dollar to get the lawyers from the most expensive law schools. There are many lawyers who did not go to Harvard or Yale who will make excellent federal government lawyers.

I agree. And I think

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do agencies do this? My first agency started everyone at step 1 regardless of prior salary. My current agency uses a formula based on years of relevant experience.

+1 I have the same question, what agencies are starting people at higher than step 1 regularly?

I started as a GS-10 having come from biglaw. I’m a woman. Would not have been able to afford to come if a GS 1 given the hours meant I missed day care pick up and had to choose a more expensive child care option. Race to the bottom.

This isn't a priblem it is a situation. Many of us have passed over jobs because we can't afford to take them. If you had not taken the job, someone else would have.

The problem is the person who would have taken the job would not be as good as me, and the public interest would suffer.

Unlikely. One of the reasons that this is important is that there are still many more qualified candidates than positions available. You may think that the person who would take the job would not be as good as you, but in most cases, this is not true. I've been in the hiring position and often the "first choice" is only more impressive on paper, but that the second, third and fourth choices are all well qualified for the job. And there are many people who want to move to the federal civil service for the work-life balance, job flexibility and benefits packages. So, you aren't as irreplaceable as you think you are.

One of the facts is that there are more lawyers than positions to hire them. Too many people over the last 30 years thought that law was the best path and there are now more lawyers than jobs. So, even if you don't take it, there is no shortage of lawyers looking for work and the federal government does not need to pay top dollar to get good lawyers. And especially, the federal government does not need to pay top dollar to get the lawyers from the most expensive law schools. There are many lawyers who did not go to Harvard or Yale who will make excellent federal government lawyers.

I agree. And I think

This isn't the case for technical positions. Average candidate quality is very low. You might get a few qualified candidates, and you're likely to not be able to get your first choice because someone else has already made them a better offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do agencies do this? My first agency started everyone at step 1 regardless of prior salary. My current agency uses a formula based on years of relevant experience.

+1 I have the same question, what agencies are starting people at higher than step 1 regularly?

I started as a GS-10 having come from biglaw. I’m a woman. Would not have been able to afford to come if a GS 1 given the hours meant I missed day care pick up and had to choose a more expensive child care option. Race to the bottom.

This isn't a priblem it is a situation. Many of us have passed over jobs because we can't afford to take them. If you had not taken the job, someone else would have.

The problem is the person who would have taken the job would not be as good as me, and the public interest would suffer.

Unlikely. One of the reasons that this is important is that there are still many more qualified candidates than positions available. You may think that the person who would take the job would not be as good as you, but in most cases, this is not true. I've been in the hiring position and often the "first choice" is only more impressive on paper, but that the second, third and fourth choices are all well qualified for the job. And there are many people who want to move to the federal civil service for the work-life balance, job flexibility and benefits packages. So, you aren't as irreplaceable as you think you are.

One of the facts is that there are more lawyers than positions to hire them. Too many people over the last 30 years thought that law was the best path and there are now more lawyers than jobs. So, even if you don't take it, there is no shortage of lawyers looking for work and the federal government does not need to pay top dollar to get good lawyers. And especially, the federal government does not need to pay top dollar to get the lawyers from the most expensive law schools. There are many lawyers who did not go to Harvard or Yale who will make excellent federal government lawyers.

I agree. And I think

This isn't the case for technical positions. Average candidate quality is very low. You might get a few qualified candidates, and you're likely to not be able to get your first choice because someone else has already made them a better offer.

Some of that has to do with HR not knowing how to evaluate resumes to put through and the amount of time it takes to come on board if they’re in a cleared position.

[Anonymous]

The problem with the federal govt is that its dependence on mandates really curtail creativity, even from a hiring perspective. I was hired at the FDA at incredibly low salary because they *had* to go with what I was paid before (I was a freaking resident from a top training program who wanted to work on drug development instead of chasing the money to see patients!). From then on, raises were miniscule-- didn't even matter if I kicked ass and had gloried reviews. I jumped to the private sector for a 150K raise after a year. I love public sector work, but I have student loans to pay and a life to build too. Now I can't go back because I have waaaay too much stock equity to lose.

So my opinion on this is deregulate the federal hiring process!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Man this is dumb for the government. The comparison to private sector rules makes no sense.

So many regulations that make no sense. We're becoming Brazil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cant say I understand the move. No two employees are exactly alike and I’d argue external experience is *more* valuable than fed experience in many cases.

If this is a cost saving exercise, congrats. You saved very little over 30 years. Maybe stop spending so much on blowing up brown people in foreign lands.

They aren't say external *experience* isn't taken into consideration. They're saying *salary* is
So if you've been underpaid historically at your corporate job, despite having a ton of experience and doing a fantastic job, then it won't hurt you when being hired by the fed.
And if you've been overpaid at your corporate job, you aren't going to get an automatic boost because of it when becoming a fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cant say I understand the move. No two employees are exactly alike and I’d argue external experience is *more* valuable than fed experience in many cases.

If this is a cost saving exercise, congrats. You saved very little over 30 years. Maybe stop spending so much on blowing up brown people in foreign lands.

They aren't say external *experience* isn't taken into consideration. They're saying *salary* is
So if you've been underpaid historically at your corporate job, despite having a ton of experience and doing a fantastic job, then it won't hurt you when being hired by the fed.
And if you've been overpaid at your corporate job, you aren't going to get an automatic boost because of it when becoming a fed.

Which would be fine if HR could reliably assess experience, as opposed to being basically a dumpster fire of incompetence that you have to fight with every step of the way to get qualified hires.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. I’m a minority woman who has been underpaid in the nonprofit sector my entire career. This benefits lots of underpaid workers and is a HUGE step forward towards pay equity. It’s not about saving the feds money, it’s about valuing the job and work experience above salary history. It’s about time!

100% agree with you.

+1000

Past salary history is used to continue to underpay women and minorities as their careers advance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. I’m a minority woman who has been underpaid in the nonprofit sector my entire career. This benefits lots of underpaid workers and is a HUGE step forward towards pay equity. It’s not about saving the feds money, it’s about valuing the job and work experience above salary history. It’s about time!

100% agree with you.

+1000

Past salary history is used to continue to underpay women and minorities as their careers advance.

Do you seriously think that the feds have some plan to underpay women and minorities? I know this is very anti pc, but I've never seen so many overpaid people as I have in the government, and newsflash, most are minorities. Now, go ahead and clutch your pearls, but it's true.