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I'm pretty sure that I will prefer working for the federal government rather than a firm. But I'm also interested to try an SA and am going to be trying to get offers from firms as best I can.

Is it a huge problem for the bigfed job hunt if you do a 2L SA? What does the timeline look like in that case - do you try to get your offer and then start looking for fed jobs in 3L?

As long as you are able to paint a believable "why this Agency" picture afterwards, it shouldn't be a problem. At the same time, this is pretty dependent on which Fed Agency you're looking at right now.

Anecdotally, I worked at the same Fed Agency for both summers, got an Honors spot and then had the Agency rescind all offers. I think it's hard to say whether having an SA instead would have helped or hurt in this scenario. It would've been nice to have some firm work on my resume, but it might be a red flag to new firms at the same time.

As for the timeline, Honors Program hiring applications open in July-September, interviews go out October-November, and offers go out in January. All of your 3L year.

You make enough money as an SA that I doubt it would ever be worth it to turn one down just to avoid the possible risk of of FedGov viewing it negatively.

bigeast03 wrote:As long as you are able to paint a believable "why this Agency" picture afterwards, it shouldn't be a problem. At the same time, this is pretty dependent on which Fed Agency you're looking at right now.

Anecdotally, I worked at the same Fed Agency for both summers, got an Honors spot and then had the Agency rescind all offers. I think it's hard to say whether having an SA instead would have helped or hurt in this scenario. It would've been nice to have some firm work on my resume, but it might be a red flag to new firms at the same time.

As for the timeline, Honors Program hiring applications open in July-September, interviews go out October-November, and offers go out in January. All of your 3L year.

Was that Labor?

I have to disagree a little here. I think agencies like that you've worked with government if not with the specific agency already. All of my interviewers mentioned how important public service commitment was. Hard to make an argument for that if you have an SA which likely leads to post-grad offer.

There are also summer positions with BigFed that to my understanding, lead to offers. I think they are called pathways or something to that effect.

But as big east points out, sometimes you could be left out in the cold.

bigeast03 wrote:As long as you are able to paint a believable "why this Agency" picture afterwards, it shouldn't be a problem. At the same time, this is pretty dependent on which Fed Agency you're looking at right now.

Anecdotally, I worked at the same Fed Agency for both summers, got an Honors spot and then had the Agency rescind all offers. I think it's hard to say whether having an SA instead would have helped or hurt in this scenario. It would've been nice to have some firm work on my resume, but it might be a red flag to new firms at the same time.

As for the timeline, Honors Program hiring applications open in July-September, interviews go out October-November, and offers go out in January. All of your 3L year.

Geez when did they rescind all offers? hopefully not too late in the process

Alright, so in 3L I will have the opportunity to try my damnedest to get a BigFed job after I (hopefully) secure an offer for a firm.