New Federal Employee

 

If you are fresh out of college your best bet is to continue applying to fed jobs, but to make sure you get any kind of substantive work experience asap. This means also looking at private and nonprofit sector stuff. Even if you do get lucky and get an interview, etc, the process can be very long and you will find yourself wasting time/spinning your wheels if you're only applying for fed jobs while not working elsewhere.

 

Also, I'm of the opinion that your goal shouldn't just be to get a federal job, but to work with a specific agency/type of agency, or to work in a specific field. That way you can be actively working to create that career path and build up your resume en route to the fed job opportunity which will hopefully eventually come around.

 

Okay, but it was at one time.  What is it now?

 

Passing all of the IQ/Personality/Background/Medical tests successfully (most don't) and getting picked by the selection board is a different matter.  The people that make it this far 

If someone actually makes it through OCS and gets a Commission, the person would have to make it through 2-3 years of flight school.

 

Besides someone looking for the "easiest" federal job to get, doesn't have what it takes to be an Officer anyway.

 

The Army still turns people away, though.

It was roughly 63% for my class, about 62 started and 23 commissioned.  That number is strictly derived from the number that started in my class and the number that graduated with the class.  The 39 that didn't make it with the class includes DOR's/medical drops/rolls and performance rolls (some of the med rolls and performance rolls graduated with another class so they wouldn't be considered attrition in a big picture way).

 

I would be surprised if the attrition rate were currently as low as 10%.  As always, the devil is in the definition, so if they are utilizing the med/performance roll number to reach the attrition rate and ignoring the DOR's (the largest number) then 10% seems reasonable.

 

Additionally, OCS at least for the Navy (and i'd assume the other services) is the easiest place to turn the manpower spigot on or off.  If the manpower projections are saying you need more Officers 10 years from now,  you turn on the OCS spigot and let more try.  As an example, if you know that in ten years you'll have a shortfall of 200 O-4's and the retention rate is 50% for Officers that commission through OCS and OCS has a 50% attrition rate, it's pretty easy to figure out that you need 800 Officer candidates to walk through the doors at OCS and try to get a comission that year to produce 200 O-4's ten years from now.  (obviously this is a generalized and simplistic description of the process but it's fine for this discussion).

 

Tweaking the manpower requirements at the Academy or ROTC (scholarship) level is much more difficult and the government already has a higher sunk cost for production.

Apply to any job that you are willing to take (even better if your background actually meets the requirements);
Forget you applied because it may be months before you are contacted, if at all, and you'll go nuts waiting; and
Repeat because in many ways, its a numbers game.