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I've been keeping up with the situation with the federal employees here in the US who lost their jobs.
I feel really bad for them because my wife and I were are in the same boat with them in terms of looking for a job, and we know it's not easy in the slightest as this whole job system is broken.
I read today that many of them started looking for government jobs at the state and county level. It makes sense; they have experience with government jobs and one benefit is that you often only need to do a single interview before knowing if you got the job. This beats private sector jobs requiring dozens of interviews before rejecting you. I know quite a lot about this as my parents used to be government workers at both of these levels in multiple states over the years as well.
But what the former federal employees don't realise is that they're about to run into some massive issues getting those jobs.
Issue #1: Nepotism
Nepotism is bad in both the private and public sections, but it's especially bad when it comes to county and state jobs. I tried applying for these jobs as well as I obviously had an advantage with them. However, even that was not enough as the people above them were the ones who would put the adverts on the county websites and governmentjobs.com.
I tried applying for the jobs for years, and because I knew what was going on with them, I would find exactly who got hired and their relation to other employees. Let me tell you something, every single job that I applied for, and I applied for hundreds of them over the years, was given to either someone's best friend or one of their immediate family members. Even the one in a fairly remote location was given to some supervisor's son.
I've spent time in those offices, and it's filled with people who all went to high school with each other who also hired their family.
Issue #2: The Worst Wait Times
County and state government is run much more inefficiently than most people know. You can catch a glimpse of this through just applying for a job at those levels. After applying for a job, you'll be waiting 2-6 weeks just to hear back on if you were added to the candidate pool.
You'll usually get an update or two in-between getting an interview date, but I've found it takes between 4-8 months to even get an interview for the position you applied for. I've even received interview requests over a year after applying for the job, and at that point, I had already found a job. I think the worst one was a rejection I received 3 years after applying!
Issue #3: Hiring Freezes
County and state level jobs all individually have hiring freezes at random points for seemingly random reasons. Sometimes it's due to budget and other times because they feel they have enough workers, even if they don't.
Something about these hiring freezes is that unless you know someone in these positions in the specific county or state you're applying in, you won't always know about these hiring freezes. It's because they don't announce them anywhere and keep the information internal.
I remember back in 2016, my local county had about 3 internal hiring freezes that lasted a couple of months. It meant that instead of the job listings getting cancelled, you were left waiting and not hearing anything back. It was only until after the hiring freeze was lifted that they decided to cancel the jobs by sending every applicant the generic "we went with another candidate" rejection letter, despite the fact that they re-listed the same job the next week. Also, I knew they didn't go with a different candidate because of my parents.
As I said, even though we're in the same boat, I feel really bad not just for these federal workers, but everyone looking for a job right now because for the large majority of them, their only option is to find a job as many aren't sure how to become self-employed. Even if they could, I think it's common knowledge that becoming self-employed over here essentially screws you out of ever getting a job (asking me how I know).
I'm hearing about more self-employed people looking for regular jobs as well, so there's even more competition coming up. It's crazy to think that so many businesses and locations even around me are closing as well, and these people are going to need income from something to get by.
I feel really bad for them because my wife and I were are in the same boat with them in terms of looking for a job, and we know it's not easy in the slightest as this whole job system is broken.
I read today that many of them started looking for government jobs at the state and county level. It makes sense; they have experience with government jobs and one benefit is that you often only need to do a single interview before knowing if you got the job. This beats private sector jobs requiring dozens of interviews before rejecting you. I know quite a lot about this as my parents used to be government workers at both of these levels in multiple states over the years as well.
But what the former federal employees don't realise is that they're about to run into some massive issues getting those jobs.
The 3 Issues They'll Experience With County & State Jobs
Issue #1: Nepotism
Nepotism is bad in both the private and public sections, but it's especially bad when it comes to county and state jobs. I tried applying for these jobs as well as I obviously had an advantage with them. However, even that was not enough as the people above them were the ones who would put the adverts on the county websites and governmentjobs.com.
I tried applying for the jobs for years, and because I knew what was going on with them, I would find exactly who got hired and their relation to other employees. Let me tell you something, every single job that I applied for, and I applied for hundreds of them over the years, was given to either someone's best friend or one of their immediate family members. Even the one in a fairly remote location was given to some supervisor's son.
I've spent time in those offices, and it's filled with people who all went to high school with each other who also hired their family.
Issue #2: The Worst Wait Times
County and state government is run much more inefficiently than most people know. You can catch a glimpse of this through just applying for a job at those levels. After applying for a job, you'll be waiting 2-6 weeks just to hear back on if you were added to the candidate pool.
You'll usually get an update or two in-between getting an interview date, but I've found it takes between 4-8 months to even get an interview for the position you applied for. I've even received interview requests over a year after applying for the job, and at that point, I had already found a job. I think the worst one was a rejection I received 3 years after applying!
Issue #3: Hiring Freezes
County and state level jobs all individually have hiring freezes at random points for seemingly random reasons. Sometimes it's due to budget and other times because they feel they have enough workers, even if they don't.
Something about these hiring freezes is that unless you know someone in these positions in the specific county or state you're applying in, you won't always know about these hiring freezes. It's because they don't announce them anywhere and keep the information internal.
I remember back in 2016, my local county had about 3 internal hiring freezes that lasted a couple of months. It meant that instead of the job listings getting cancelled, you were left waiting and not hearing anything back. It was only until after the hiring freeze was lifted that they decided to cancel the jobs by sending every applicant the generic "we went with another candidate" rejection letter, despite the fact that they re-listed the same job the next week. Also, I knew they didn't go with a different candidate because of my parents.
Final Words
The job market is about to get a lot more flooded, especially those in the supply chain (e.g., truck drivers and port workers) and the college class of 2025 are about to also enter the the job market.As I said, even though we're in the same boat, I feel really bad not just for these federal workers, but everyone looking for a job right now because for the large majority of them, their only option is to find a job as many aren't sure how to become self-employed. Even if they could, I think it's common knowledge that becoming self-employed over here essentially screws you out of ever getting a job (asking me how I know).
I'm hearing about more self-employed people looking for regular jobs as well, so there's even more competition coming up. It's crazy to think that so many businesses and locations even around me are closing as well, and these people are going to need income from something to get by.
