Are Fed jobs really that great?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our household, I am a federal contractor and my spouse is a Civil Servant. Spouse has been a CS for about 35 years and is due to retire in about 5 years. They are a GS-14T/9. I have been with my agency for 30 years. Here are some of the differences to note:

Leave:
My spouse has 26 days of AL plus 11 days of sick leave. Rarely uses sick leave and just uses AL as needed. In order to keep annual rollover of AL maxed, will sometimes work credit hours on weekends or evening before we go on vacation and use the credit hours to ensure that even with Use-or-Lose at the end of the year, they keep to about the cap on rollover.

The problem with being a federal contractor, is that when a contract turns over, you have a choice to leave your job and find another one by your current contractor, or to stay with the job and switch to the new contractor. Over the years, I've had 7 employers and 7 jobs within the agency, not overlapping. I've had times I've stayed with the job and had to get a new employer. I've also had times that I've stayed with the employer and found a new job on a different contract. The issue is that each time you switch employers, they pay out your vacation time in cash and you start out again at zero with the new company. More importantly, every employer has different benefits plans. I've had some employers where I could negotiate additional leave to match what I had at the last employer, but there are some employers who have strict leave policies based on seniority within the company. My current employer is one of those (I've been with this contractor for just over 5 years now). I had 5 weeks of PTO leave at the last employer, but this employer strictly ties leave to the years you've worked and I had to move back to three weeks of leave. While negotiating, the recruiter understood and she negotiated adding salary dollars slightly over one week of pay (one week of pay, rounded up to the nearest $5K mark) to my offer since she couldn't get me the additional PTO. She said this way, if I needed, i could take LWOP for the time off and still break even. But most employers are not this good when they can't meet your time off requests during negotiation. After passing the 5 year mark, I am up to 4 weeks of leave, but it was still hard making do with less PTO, especially with kids.

Pension:
In my case, with the 401K and company matching, my retirement benefits are close to what I would get with FERS, although still not quite as good. Mostly a break even, but not quite. My spouse on the other hand has been with the federal government long enough, that they are on CSRS-offset (the brief transition plan offered at the change from CSRS to FERS for about 2 years worth of hires). The CSRS-offset is signficantly better than my retirement. But that's no longer available.

Health insurance:
One of the big perks with being a fed is that when you retire, if your spouse and children have been on your health insurance for at least 5 years, they are guaranteed insurance for life (children to age 26 if they are full time students, 22 otherwise) even if you predecease them. This was big for us. So a few years ago, we switched all of us to my spouse's BCBS plan for the guarantee. My spouse was qualified to retire about 4 years ago, but will continue working to maximize the pension payouts. But we are set so that at any time if they choose to retire, they can. It was close in 2017 when the administration changed; things got very difficult at work and my spouse considered retiring, but stuck it out and things got tolerable. Spouse may again consider in 2025 at the change of administration if things get difficult again, especially since they'll be within 2 years of maxing out retirement benefits.

But, I have the best of both worlds. I have the health insurance and the pension benefits of my spouse being a civil servant and I have the higher salary for being a contractor (I make about 20% more than civil service peers). I make about 20-50% less than my peers in the private sector, but then I have a significantly better work-life balance than they do. They pay for those salaries by being on demand for many more hours of work and needing to be available for emergencies anytime during normal work hours and many off hours. Not worth it for me which is why I've stayed in federal contracting for so long.

Feds always like to talk about how they work fewer hours. They act like all of us in the private sector work crazy hours. Of course, that isn’t true.

I work a straight 40 hours, and make $50K more than I was making as a fed. Same thing with my friend, who also had about 10 years as a fed (like I did). My leave package is comparable to what I had as a GS-13 fed.

Hey, if you are happy, I am happy for you. I must say though, I am not sure why you are trying to prove one is better than the other to total strangers. you do you bud

Well if I was GS 13 I would be in despair as a professional

I left a 14 to be a 13 at a financial regulator. The top pay at a 13 is higher than most SES were making at my previous agency. So, I don’t know that grade is the indication of happiness or success. Also, many people stay a 13 at one of my previous agencies because they prefer the hands-on work to managing projects and strategy. People actually have different preferences for how they work. I know, it is hard to believe it.

So you left Fed work and make more than $50k over that SES Scale? So like $300k? So you are in finance or law.

And if you list a pay scale, the default is GS; regularities are FR or something like that so please include that to be useful.

No. Your reading comprehension is terrible.

Where did you get $50K? I just said more than most SES at my previous agency, not more than every SES in the Federal Government. I do not make the top of my pay scale at the moment. I left for an initial $7K bump and a better benefits package and a higher earning potential to work at an agency with a good mission and a good reputation. I didn’t leave being a Fed because I work for a Federal agency.

My scale goes up to $180K at a 13. The SES at my old agency make around $175K.

I work in IT.

You aren’t 13:02? You responded to my post about that.

SES making less than GS15? How is that possible in Fed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really like mine, but I'm non supervisory 15 equivalent for a financial agency.

As far as I know, only the SEC hands those out with any regularity, and even then it's not a given. Congratulations on your golden egg. Your luck has served you well.

No, there are several others, not just SEC. I'm not lucky, I'm a CFA with a decade of experience on Wall Street and a MS from MIT. I lost 2/3 of my income but for me it was totally worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our household, I am a federal contractor and my spouse is a Civil Servant. Spouse has been a CS for about 35 years and is due to retire in about 5 years. They are a GS-14T/9. I have been with my agency for 30 years. Here are some of the differences to note:

Leave:
My spouse has 26 days of AL plus 11 days of sick leave. Rarely uses sick leave and just uses AL as needed. In order to keep annual rollover of AL maxed, will sometimes work credit hours on weekends or evening before we go on vacation and use the credit hours to ensure that even with Use-or-Lose at the end of the year, they keep to about the cap on rollover.

The problem with being a federal contractor, is that when a contract turns over, you have a choice to leave your job and find another one by your current contractor, or to stay with the job and switch to the new contractor. Over the years, I've had 7 employers and 7 jobs within the agency, not overlapping. I've had times I've stayed with the job and had to get a new employer. I've also had times that I've stayed with the employer and found a new job on a different contract. The issue is that each time you switch employers, they pay out your vacation time in cash and you start out again at zero with the new company. More importantly, every employer has different benefits plans. I've had some employers where I could negotiate additional leave to match what I had at the last employer, but there are some employers who have strict leave policies based on seniority within the company. My current employer is one of those (I've been with this contractor for just over 5 years now). I had 5 weeks of PTO leave at the last employer, but this employer strictly ties leave to the years you've worked and I had to move back to three weeks of leave. While negotiating, the recruiter understood and she negotiated adding salary dollars slightly over one week of pay (one week of pay, rounded up to the nearest $5K mark) to my offer since she couldn't get me the additional PTO. She said this way, if I needed, i could take LWOP for the time off and still break even. But most employers are not this good when they can't meet your time off requests during negotiation. After passing the 5 year mark, I am up to 4 weeks of leave, but it was still hard making do with less PTO, especially with kids.

Pension:
In my case, with the 401K and company matching, my retirement benefits are close to what I would get with FERS, although still not quite as good. Mostly a break even, but not quite. My spouse on the other hand has been with the federal government long enough, that they are on CSRS-offset (the brief transition plan offered at the change from CSRS to FERS for about 2 years worth of hires). The CSRS-offset is signficantly better than my retirement. But that's no longer available.

Health insurance:
One of the big perks with being a fed is that when you retire, if your spouse and children have been on your health insurance for at least 5 years, they are guaranteed insurance for life (children to age 26 if they are full time students, 22 otherwise) even if you predecease them. This was big for us. So a few years ago, we switched all of us to my spouse's BCBS plan for the guarantee. My spouse was qualified to retire about 4 years ago, but will continue working to maximize the pension payouts. But we are set so that at any time if they choose to retire, they can. It was close in 2017 when the administration changed; things got very difficult at work and my spouse considered retiring, but stuck it out and things got tolerable. Spouse may again consider in 2025 at the change of administration if things get difficult again, especially since they'll be within 2 years of maxing out retirement benefits.

But, I have the best of both worlds. I have the health insurance and the pension benefits of my spouse being a civil servant and I have the higher salary for being a contractor (I make about 20% more than civil service peers). I make about 20-50% less than my peers in the private sector, but then I have a significantly better work-life balance than they do. They pay for those salaries by being on demand for many more hours of work and needing to be available for emergencies anytime during normal work hours and many off hours. Not worth it for me which is why I've stayed in federal contracting for so long.

Feds always like to talk about how they work fewer hours. They act like all of us in the private sector work crazy hours. Of course, that isn’t true.

I work a straight 40 hours, and make $50K more than I was making as a fed. Same thing with my friend, who also had about 10 years as a fed (like I did). My leave package is comparable to what I had as a GS-13 fed.

Hey, if you are happy, I am happy for you. I must say though, I am not sure why you are trying to prove one is better than the other to total strangers. you do you bud

Well if I was GS 13 I would be in despair as a professional

I left a 14 to be a 13 at a financial regulator. The top pay at a 13 is higher than most SES were making at my previous agency. So, I don’t know that grade is the indication of happiness or success. Also, many people stay a 13 at one of my previous agencies because they prefer the hands-on work to managing projects and strategy. People actually have different preferences for how they work. I know, it is hard to believe it.

So you left Fed work and make more than $50k over that SES Scale? So like $300k? So you are in finance or law.

And if you list a pay scale, the default is GS; regularities are FR or something like that so please include that to be useful.

No. Your reading comprehension is terrible.

Where did you get $50K? I just said more than most SES at my previous agency, not more than every SES in the Federal Government. I do not make the top of my pay scale at the moment. I left for an initial $7K bump and a better benefits package and a higher earning potential to work at an agency with a good mission and a good reputation. I didn’t leave being a Fed because I work for a Federal agency.

My scale goes up to $180K at a 13. The SES at my old agency make around $175K.

I work in IT.

You aren’t 13:02? You responded to my post about that.

SES making less than GS15? How is that possible in Fed?

No, I'm 13:02 and this is the first time I've been back since I posted. I did not write any of the responses to you.

[Anonymous]

I know in DCUM land $100k isn't that great, but do you realize how much more $100k is than your median house hold income? Many federal jobs pay well over $100k, have stable benefits, a pension, and stability that will almost never go away if the economy has a downturn.

I mean yeah, we all wanna make $300k, but the number of people who make that much is extraordinarily low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our household, I am a federal contractor and my spouse is a Civil Servant. Spouse has been a CS for about 35 years and is due to retire in about 5 years. They are a GS-14T/9. I have been with my agency for 30 years. Here are some of the differences to note:

Leave:
My spouse has 26 days of AL plus 11 days of sick leave. Rarely uses sick leave and just uses AL as needed. In order to keep annual rollover of AL maxed, will sometimes work credit hours on weekends or evening before we go on vacation and use the credit hours to ensure that even with Use-or-Lose at the end of the year, they keep to about the cap on rollover.

The problem with being a federal contractor, is that when a contract turns over, you have a choice to leave your job and find another one by your current contractor, or to stay with the job and switch to the new contractor. Over the years, I've had 7 employers and 7 jobs within the agency, not overlapping. I've had times I've stayed with the job and had to get a new employer. I've also had times that I've stayed with the employer and found a new job on a different contract. The issue is that each time you switch employers, they pay out your vacation time in cash and you start out again at zero with the new company. More importantly, every employer has different benefits plans. I've had some employers where I could negotiate additional leave to match what I had at the last employer, but there are some employers who have strict leave policies based on seniority within the company. My current employer is one of those (I've been with this contractor for just over 5 years now). I had 5 weeks of PTO leave at the last employer, but this employer strictly ties leave to the years you've worked and I had to move back to three weeks of leave. While negotiating, the recruiter understood and she negotiated adding salary dollars slightly over one week of pay (one week of pay, rounded up to the nearest $5K mark) to my offer since she couldn't get me the additional PTO. She said this way, if I needed, i could take LWOP for the time off and still break even. But most employers are not this good when they can't meet your time off requests during negotiation. After passing the 5 year mark, I am up to 4 weeks of leave, but it was still hard making do with less PTO, especially with kids.

Pension:
In my case, with the 401K and company matching, my retirement benefits are close to what I would get with FERS, although still not quite as good. Mostly a break even, but not quite. My spouse on the other hand has been with the federal government long enough, that they are on CSRS-offset (the brief transition plan offered at the change from CSRS to FERS for about 2 years worth of hires). The CSRS-offset is signficantly better than my retirement. But that's no longer available.

Health insurance:
One of the big perks with being a fed is that when you retire, if your spouse and children have been on your health insurance for at least 5 years, they are guaranteed insurance for life (children to age 26 if they are full time students, 22 otherwise) even if you predecease them. This was big for us. So a few years ago, we switched all of us to my spouse's BCBS plan for the guarantee. My spouse was qualified to retire about 4 years ago, but will continue working to maximize the pension payouts. But we are set so that at any time if they choose to retire, they can. It was close in 2017 when the administration changed; things got very difficult at work and my spouse considered retiring, but stuck it out and things got tolerable. Spouse may again consider in 2025 at the change of administration if things get difficult again, especially since they'll be within 2 years of maxing out retirement benefits.

But, I have the best of both worlds. I have the health insurance and the pension benefits of my spouse being a civil servant and I have the higher salary for being a contractor (I make about 20% more than civil service peers). I make about 20-50% less than my peers in the private sector, but then I have a significantly better work-life balance than they do. They pay for those salaries by being on demand for many more hours of work and needing to be available for emergencies anytime during normal work hours and many off hours. Not worth it for me which is why I've stayed in federal contracting for so long.

Feds always like to talk about how they work fewer hours. They act like all of us in the private sector work crazy hours. Of course, that isn’t true.

I work a straight 40 hours, and make $50K more than I was making as a fed. Same thing with my friend, who also had about 10 years as a fed (like I did). My leave package is comparable to what I had as a GS-13 fed.

Hey, if you are happy, I am happy for you. I must say though, I am not sure why you are trying to prove one is better than the other to total strangers. you do you bud

Well if I was GS 13 I would be in despair as a professional

I left a 14 to be a 13 at a financial regulator. The top pay at a 13 is higher than most SES were making at my previous agency. So, I don’t know that grade is the indication of happiness or success. Also, many people stay a 13 at one of my previous agencies because they prefer the hands-on work to managing projects and strategy. People actually have different preferences for how they work. I know, it is hard to believe it.

So you left Fed work and make more than $50k over that SES Scale? So like $300k? So you are in finance or law.

And if you list a pay scale, the default is GS; regularities are FR or something like that so please include that to be useful.

No. Your reading comprehension is terrible.

Where did you get $50K? I just said more than most SES at my previous agency, not more than every SES in the Federal Government. I do not make the top of my pay scale at the moment. I left for an initial $7K bump and a better benefits package and a higher earning potential to work at an agency with a good mission and a good reputation. I didn’t leave being a Fed because I work for a Federal agency.

My scale goes up to $180K at a 13. The SES at my old agency make around $175K.

I work in IT.

You aren’t 13:02? You responded to my post about that.

SES making less than GS15? How is that possible in Fed?

I am the one that you responded to, so sorry. I realized later that you likely were thinking the same person wrote more than one of the posts.

Agencies like SEC, FDIC, OCC, NCUA, CFPB, and the Fed (I think a few others also) have a totally different pay scale because they don’t work on appropriated funds. So, if I am never promoted again as a 13, I’ll make more than I’d have ever made as a 14 or 15 at my old agency. It’s called a “quasi-government” agency, but it’s a Competitive Service appointment. They also pay a higher share of benefits and match more of retirement contribution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know in DCUM land $100k isn't that great, but do you realize how much more $100k is than your median house hold income? Many federal jobs pay well over $100k, have stable benefits, a pension, and stability that will almost never go away if the economy has a downturn.

I mean yeah, we all wanna make $300k, but the number of people who make that much is extraordinarily low.

Whatever helps you justify it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know in DCUM land $100k isn't that great, but do you realize how much more $100k is than your median house hold income? Many federal jobs pay well over $100k, have stable benefits, a pension, and stability that will almost never go away if the economy has a downturn.

I mean yeah, we all wanna make $300k, but the number of people who make that much is extraordinarily low.

Whatever helps you justify it.

Justify what? A personal decision regarding one’s own career path and income?

Not sure there is any reason for justification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know in DCUM land $100k isn't that great, but do you realize how much more $100k is than your median house hold income? Many federal jobs pay well over $100k, have stable benefits, a pension, and stability that will almost never go away if the economy has a downturn.

I mean yeah, we all wanna make $300k, but the number of people who make that much is extraordinarily low.

Whatever helps you justify it.

Justify what? A personal decision regarding one’s own career path and income?

Not sure there is any reason for justification.

Yeah but if everyond lives by "you do you" mindset, there wouldn't be DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know in DCUM land $100k isn't that great, but do you realize how much more $100k is than your median house hold income? Many federal jobs pay well over $100k, have stable benefits, a pension, and stability that will almost never go away if the economy has a downturn.

I mean yeah, we all wanna make $300k, but the number of people who make that much is extraordinarily low.

Whatever helps you justify it.

Justify what? A personal decision regarding one’s own career path and income?

Not sure there is any reason for justification.

Yeah but if everyond lives by "you do you" mindset, there wouldn't be DCUM.

Good point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our household, I am a federal contractor and my spouse is a Civil Servant. Spouse has been a CS for about 35 years and is due to retire in about 5 years. They are a GS-14T/9. I have been with my agency for 30 years. Here are some of the differences to note:

Leave:
My spouse has 26 days of AL plus 11 days of sick leave. Rarely uses sick leave and just uses AL as needed. In order to keep annual rollover of AL maxed, will sometimes work credit hours on weekends or evening before we go on vacation and use the credit hours to ensure that even with Use-or-Lose at the end of the year, they keep to about the cap on rollover.

The problem with being a federal contractor, is that when a contract turns over, you have a choice to leave your job and find another one by your current contractor, or to stay with the job and switch to the new contractor. Over the years, I've had 7 employers and 7 jobs within the agency, not overlapping. I've had times I've stayed with the job and had to get a new employer. I've also had times that I've stayed with the employer and found a new job on a different contract. The issue is that each time you switch employers, they pay out your vacation time in cash and you start out again at zero with the new company. More importantly, every employer has different benefits plans. I've had some employers where I could negotiate additional leave to match what I had at the last employer, but there are some employers who have strict leave policies based on seniority within the company. My current employer is one of those (I've been with this contractor for just over 5 years now). I had 5 weeks of PTO leave at the last employer, but this employer strictly ties leave to the years you've worked and I had to move back to three weeks of leave. While negotiating, the recruiter understood and she negotiated adding salary dollars slightly over one week of pay (one week of pay, rounded up to the nearest $5K mark) to my offer since she couldn't get me the additional PTO. She said this way, if I needed, i could take LWOP for the time off and still break even. But most employers are not this good when they can't meet your time off requests during negotiation. After passing the 5 year mark, I am up to 4 weeks of leave, but it was still hard making do with less PTO, especially with kids.

Pension:
In my case, with the 401K and company matching, my retirement benefits are close to what I would get with FERS, although still not quite as good. Mostly a break even, but not quite. My spouse on the other hand has been with the federal government long enough, that they are on CSRS-offset (the brief transition plan offered at the change from CSRS to FERS for about 2 years worth of hires). The CSRS-offset is signficantly better than my retirement. But that's no longer available.

Health insurance:
One of the big perks with being a fed is that when you retire, if your spouse and children have been on your health insurance for at least 5 years, they are guaranteed insurance for life (children to age 26 if they are full time students, 22 otherwise) even if you predecease them. This was big for us. So a few years ago, we switched all of us to my spouse's BCBS plan for the guarantee. My spouse was qualified to retire about 4 years ago, but will continue working to maximize the pension payouts. But we are set so that at any time if they choose to retire, they can. It was close in 2017 when the administration changed; things got very difficult at work and my spouse considered retiring, but stuck it out and things got tolerable. Spouse may again consider in 2025 at the change of administration if things get difficult again, especially since they'll be within 2 years of maxing out retirement benefits.

But, I have the best of both worlds. I have the health insurance and the pension benefits of my spouse being a civil servant and I have the higher salary for being a contractor (I make about 20% more than civil service peers). I make about 20-50% less than my peers in the private sector, but then I have a significantly better work-life balance than they do. They pay for those salaries by being on demand for many more hours of work and needing to be available for emergencies anytime during normal work hours and many off hours. Not worth it for me which is why I've stayed in federal contracting for so long.

Feds always like to talk about how they work fewer hours. They act like all of us in the private sector work crazy hours. Of course, that isn’t true.

I work a straight 40 hours, and make $50K more than I was making as a fed. Same thing with my friend, who also had about 10 years as a fed (like I did). My leave package is comparable to what I had as a GS-13 fed.

Hey, if you are happy, I am happy for you. I must say though, I am not sure why you are trying to prove one is better than the other to total strangers. you do you bud

Well if I was GS 13 I would be in despair as a professional

I left a 14 to be a 13 at a financial regulator. The top pay at a 13 is higher than most SES were making at my previous agency. So, I don’t know that grade is the indication of happiness or success. Also, many people stay a 13 at one of my previous agencies because they prefer the hands-on work to managing projects and strategy. People actually have different preferences for how they work. I know, it is hard to believe it.

So you left Fed work and make more than $50k over that SES Scale? So like $300k? So you are in finance or law.

And if you list a pay scale, the default is GS; regularities are FR or something like that so please include that to be useful.

No. Your reading comprehension is terrible.

Where did you get $50K? I just said more than most SES at my previous agency, not more than every SES in the Federal Government. I do not make the top of my pay scale at the moment. I left for an initial $7K bump and a better benefits package and a higher earning potential to work at an agency with a good mission and a good reputation. I didn’t leave being a Fed because I work for a Federal agency.

My scale goes up to $180K at a 13. The SES at my old agency make around $175K.

I work in IT.

You aren’t 13:02? You responded to my post about that.

SES making less than GS15? How is that possible in Fed?

DP here, but you're incredibly hostile for someone with zero Google skills. Here's the SES pay scale. Note that Level V starts below higher step GS-15 pay.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/22Tables/exec/html/EX.aspx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really like mine, but I'm non supervisory 15 equivalent for a financial agency.

As far as I know, only the SEC hands those out with any regularity, and even then it's not a given. Congratulations on your golden egg. Your luck has served you well.

Wrong. All the financial regulators have non supervisory positions that pay at least as well as GS-15. Most of the banking agencies pay better than the SEC.

And the DOJ has tons of nonsupervisory GS15s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really like mine, but I'm non supervisory 15 equivalent for a financial agency.

As far as I know, only the SEC hands those out with any regularity, and even then it's not a given. Congratulations on your golden egg. Your luck has served you well.

Wrong. All the financial regulators have non supervisory positions that pay at least as well as GS-15. Most of the banking agencies pay better than the SEC.

And the DOJ has tons of nonsupervisory GS15s.

DCUM is OBSESSED with financial regulators. Brass ring. Pretty hard to snag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really like mine, but I'm non supervisory 15 equivalent for a financial agency.

As far as I know, only the SEC hands those out with any regularity, and even then it's not a given. Congratulations on your golden egg. Your luck has served you well.

Wrong. All the financial regulators have non supervisory positions that pay at least as well as GS-15. Most of the banking agencies pay better than the SEC.

And the DOJ has tons of nonsupervisory GS15s.

DCUM is OBSESSED with financial regulators. Brass ring. Pretty hard to snag.

I work at one and I'm in the field. However, they all have admin-like or support services that pay the same - HR, budget analyst, HR, admins, management analyst, IT support, security etc. and those might be easier to get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really like mine, but I'm non supervisory 15 equivalent for a financial agency.

As far as I know, only the SEC hands those out with any regularity, and even then it's not a given. Congratulations on your golden egg. Your luck has served you well.

Wrong. All the financial regulators have non supervisory positions that pay at least as well as GS-15. Most of the banking agencies pay better than the SEC.

And the DOJ has tons of nonsupervisory GS15s.

DCUM is OBSESSED with financial regulators. Brass ring. Pretty hard to snag.

I work at one and I'm in the field. However, they all have admin-like or support services that pay the same - HR, budget analyst, HR, admins, management analyst, IT support, security etc. and those might be easier to get.

I’m the previous poster that wrote that I am in IT at one. I just got the job and started at the end of January, but I had been applying since 2017, and this job was the first one for which I was even referred past HR. I still don’t know how I got in. That said, agencies tend to treat support personnel like 2nd class, except IT and Contracts and Budget and HR are so highly desirable with Federal experience that they’re the easiest to move around….particularly IT, which has a lot of private sector competition, and Contracts, which is easily hired out to a Contractor position (being yelled at by Staff for 10 years doesn’t make many people want to stick with it, either).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been working as an IT contractor for the past 18 years now. Never had an issue finding/securing a job. I was just offered a position with a federal agency, but I would have to take a 22k+ pay cut. Is it worth it? I've been at my current company for over 10 years now and they offer a great benefits package and lots of flexibility so I'm hesitant to leave. Everyone says being a fed is the holy grail but is it really?

No way! Fed jobs are like realtors. Kind of like the last option for people. Stay with your current company!