Reply to Federal job--does resume have to include *every* job

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a grade 12 now and have made a 13 cert list before.  My resume is five and half pages.[/quote]

There’s such a variety of answers. Some managers say they don’t need it to be long while others say many pages are necessary.

Could you help me understand this better?

If the job post says you need one year at the GS-X level, do you need to show more than 10 years of work experience? As an outsider, I’m trying to understand this and would appreciate your thoughts.

OP[/quote]

OP - this depends on the agency and how the position is reviewed. Assuming this is not an excepted position, if the agency designates a SME to review applicants, that SME will see all applicants from every pool/roster allowed (by that, I mean that if a vet applies to the position, and answers the questions on the posting satisfactorily, their application will block all external candidate resumes from going to the SME). At that point, both the SME and the HR rep do the following: compare the answers to the screening questions to the resume ensure that experience is accurately reflected in the resume and ensure the specialized statement experience is reflected in the resume. Both the screening questions and specialized experience are matched up to actual duties, skilled and experience that are listed in the underlying position description. The specialized experience is the question that states you have one or more years experience working at X level, which is defined as Y. It is probably the most important question, and if you want to get the job, make sure that experience, including any specialized terms used, are reflected and easily identifiable in your resume. If there are discrepancies between the HR Rep and the SME over qualifying a candidate, they will work that out at the end of the review. After that, HR will turn over the roster of candidates to the hiring committee, who will decide who to interview.

Note: I see people state on here that they lie on the screening questions. I see this all the time myself. If you read the above, you will realize this does not benefit you. Your resume will not magically end up with the hiring official or committee by lying about your experience in those questions (unless you lie in your resume as well). If you think the questions are too specific, please note that they are designed in that manner because we know we can get the candidates we actually want.

I have seen candidates qualify based on specialized experience that is not reflected in their most recent position because they did not use the descriptor for that position. However, the hiring committee can use any qualifications they deem appropriate when deciding who to actually interview. So while it is easier to check the box and make the cert, please make sure the resume reflects recent experience listed in the posting. Also know that we are very, very used to people lying on their resumes to make the cert. We design interview questions to test that knowledge and weed out untruthful candidates.

If you can reflect all this experience in a single job that was held for more than 1 year, that is really all you need to make cert. But in reality, the hiring committee will want to see more relevant experience over the course of many years in order to offer you an interview. Also that past experience helps when negotiating steps or salary (depending on the agency). So my recommendation is to list all relevant jobs, and just keep the descriptions of the oldest jobs very short.

SMEs are allowed to review positions graded  11 or above. If the hiring official elects not to designate a SME or the position is below an 11, HR will do the same process outlined above without the SME.

I see a lot of people mention scoring for candidates based on the screening questions. Each of those questions has points assigned to them and the total point will determine who is qualified, and those come into play when determining what rosters an HR official or SME will review. If a vet scores high enough and makes the cert list, that is when the outside candidate rosters are blocked. It is basically impossible to disqualify a vet at that point, so if that happens, please note there was really nothing you could do to make the cert list. [/quote]

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