May 5, 2007

Why Such A Short Time To Apply For ALJ Jobs?

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is now taking applications to become federal Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). Most of the ALJ hired as a result of this process will end up working for the Social Security Administration. OPM will only take applications for two weeks or until they have about 1,250 applications. The application itself is long. OPM must somehow grade the applications as if they were an examination. Applicants will receive numerical scores that will go a long way towards determining who becomes an ALJ. It is important that applicants do a good job on the OPM form. Those wanting to become ALJs want to spend time finely crafting their applications, yet they have at most two weeks. The time frame could easily be no more than a few days.

Why would OPM do this to someone wanting to become an ALJ? It seems so bizarre that one thinks there must be some bizarre explanation. However, let me suggest a simple explanation that fits the facts. OPM is under enormous pressure to grade those ALJ applications and produce a register of ALJ applicants by the beginning of the next fiscal year, October 1, 2007. Grading ALJ applications must be time consuming. No one knows how many people would file applications if OPM gave a more reasonable time to submit applications, such as three months, but it would probably be several times 1,250. More time given to submit ALJ applications also cuts into the time OPM has to grade applications before October 1. Thus, I suspect that the reason that OPM is making the application period so short and is only willing to accept about 1,250 applications is that OPM wants to make sure that it can finish grading all the applications by October 1. I think that OPM has a rational basis for what it is doing, even though I am sure I would be fuming if I wanted to become an ALJ. Of course, OPM should not have gotten itself into this situation, but that is another story.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The new exam has been ready for roll out since at least 2003 (if not earlier). It's just that OPM had its own reasons for wanting to continue to use the old register for awhile longer. Whatever the reasons were, you can be sure they related to OPM's self interests only--not the public's interest.

The new exam is nothing more than a scaled down and repackaged version of the old exam. The old exam was a sham in terms of identifying the best qualified ALJ candidates. This one is even more of a sham.

Anonymous said...

Amen

Omar Cruz said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

If it takes someone over two weeks to write up their job application, how long is it going to take them to make a decision on a case. Two weeks is plenty time.