Question for govt attorneys Forum

[Anonymous User]

Dumb question from a private sector lawyer for the fed attorneys on here. Why exactly does it take so long to go through the hiring process? Is it that there are other things going on and hiring gets put on the back burner, there’s paperwork, there’s layers of HR approval, there’s a wait to get final approval from a person or system… ?

[Anonymous User]

Lots of paperwork and HR and approvals. Pretty much all hiring has to go through an approval process with the center of power in DC and they have lots going on and your offer isn’t their priority.

(I don’t mean this to sound rude, but have you been hired outside the OCI process? I swear it gives people entirely unrealistic expectations of hiring timelines. But to be fair the feds are usually slow by everyone’s standards. I’ve gone through fairly quick processes where from application deadline to offer took about 6 weeks, but I know many people for whom it’s taken longer.)

[Anonymous User]

Lots of paperwork and HR and approvals. Pretty much all hiring has to go through an approval process with the center of power in DC and they have lots going on and your offer isn’t their priority.

(I don’t mean this to sound rude, but have you been hired outside the OCI process? I swear it gives people entirely unrealistic expectations of hiring timelines. But to be fair the feds are usually slow by everyone’s standards. I’ve gone through fairly quick processes where from application deadline to offer took about 6 weeks, but I know many people for whom it’s taken longer.)

I have, outside of law. The most confusing part to me is the wait between interview and further contact. (What is going on that can take a month or more?) I know the government is slow, it's just hard to understand the delay if candidates are interviewed around the same time! Totally understand delays from application to interview invites, for example, based on my pre-law school career.

[Anonymous User]

Lots of paperwork and HR and approvals. Pretty much all hiring has to go through an approval process with the center of power in DC and they have lots going on and your offer isn’t their priority.

(I don’t mean this to sound rude, but have you been hired outside the OCI process? I swear it gives people entirely unrealistic expectations of hiring timelines. But to be fair the feds are usually slow by everyone’s standards. I’ve gone through fairly quick processes where from application deadline to offer took about 6 weeks, but I know many people for whom it’s taken longer.)

I have, outside of law. The most confusing part to me is the wait between interview and further contact. (What is going on that can take a month or more?) I know the government is slow, it's just hard to understand the delay if candidates are interviewed around the same time! Totally understand delays from application to interview invites, for example, based on my pre-law school career.

Ah, got it. Things that can slow the process down: there may have been delays in getting all the interviews completed, due to candidates' schedules or interviewers' schedules. Like, say you were interviewed at the beginning of a 2 week period and the last person is interviewed 2 weeks later - that's not unusual if they're interviewing 7-10 people, and they're not going to make any decisions until all interviews are done. They may be checking references before moving forward - this is common and takes time. If there's going to be another round of interviews, they may need to allow time to make arrangements (keep in mind that not all candidates may be local, and even if they do virtual interviews for the first round, often the candidate may be required to travel for a final round interview, say with the head of the office). Any interview with the head of office (say a USA) is going to be at the mercy of a very busy person's schedule. So there can be multiple layers of things going on. And before they can make any offer, they have to get approval from DC, which takes a while.

(The other brutal truth is that you might be out of the running, they're moving on with other candidates, but they're not going to let you know until they have a candidate actually locked down.)

Honestly, I don't think a month or so from interview to further contact is that long, but that may just be a sign that I've been with the feds too long (it doesn't help that my career before the feds had an incredibly long hiring timeline too).

[Anonymous User]

It varies by agency, and within agencies, by how many layers of approval are needed for an offer, and who is in charge. I'm sure some are faster than others.

At my agency, it takes several weeks before we get applications from HR, then the stack needs to be narrowed to decide who gets an interview, which takes another couple of weeks; then we do two levels of interviews for laterals (one with line attorneys, i.e., the people who would be your co-workers; and one with their direct management, i.e., the people who would be your boss if you get hired), where the delay between round 1 and 2 is up to about 2 weeks; if they want to offer you a job, the offer needs sign-off from at least one, but at other times two layers of management. It's this last step (or steps, when there's more than one) that involves people who are very busy with running an agency, and it can take weeks before they get around to taking a look at the list of proposed hires that has been sent up to them for approval.

[Anonymous User]

It varies by agency, and within agencies, by how many layers of approval are needed for an offer, and who is in charge. I'm sure some are faster than others.

At my agency, it takes several weeks before we get applications from HR, then the stack needs to be narrowed to decide who gets an interview, which takes another couple of weeks; then we do two levels of interviews for laterals (one with line attorneys, i.e., the people who would be your co-workers; and one with their direct management, i.e., the people who would be your boss if you get hired), where the delay between round 1 and 2 is up to about 2 weeks; if they want to offer you a job, the offer needs sign-off from at least one, but at other times two layers of management. It's this last step (or steps, when there's more than one) that involves people who are very busy with running an agency, and it can take weeks before they get around to taking a look at the list of proposed hires that has been sent up to them for approval.

Not OP but wondering if this last part is also true for paid fed internship programs as a whole? All offers signed off on?

[Anonymous User]

Even a large firm that is very cautious can afford to take a lot of shortcuts in the hiring process. The firm is incentivized to do so financially, after all.

Well the government can't do that. HR guidelines, employment-related regulations and rules, etc., must be followed, full stop. No shortcuts. This is the basic reason why there is always a delay. A panel of interviewers has to interview freaking everyone who makes it into their bucket. If they weigh in, then HR gets to weigh in. Then the agency executives or some other committee has to weigh in. And if it's a federal position at, say, the DOJ, then you're adding on the national security investigation on top of that. On and on it goes. So yes, it takes time, because following the rules always takes time.