August 22, 2007
Still a Few More Hours of Citywide Job Fair
Sitting at your desk, bored, thinking it's high time to find a new job? Mayor Fenty is hosting a Citywide Job Fair at the Washington Convention Center today, and you've still got a few more hours to stop by before it closes up shop at 4 p.m. Head over with a stack of resumes, and apply for D.C. city government jobs like these:
>> Paralegal Specialist in the Office of the D.C. Attorney General
>> IT Specialist in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer
>> Criminal Investigator in the Office of the Inspector General
>> Grants Management worker in the Department of Health
>> Special Assistant to the Transition Team in the State Education Office
>> Investigator in the Department Youth Rehab Services
There are hundreds of other city government job vacancies to apply for, as well as openings with nonprofit organizations and for the first time, private-sector employers. As anyone who follows local D.C. news and politics on DCist knows, the city is in real need of qualified, good people to come on board and help improve the District. If you're the kind of person who complains about how D.C. is managed but never does anything about it, consider this an opportunity to put up or shut up.
The Citywide Job Fair runs until 4 p.m. in Hall D of the Washington Convention Center, or you can check out job listings and apply online.
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"If you're the kind of person who complains about how D.C. is managed but never does anything about it, consider this an opportunity to put up or shut up."
So I suspect a nice contigent of DCist staffers/contributors are printing off resumes as we speek. I can't wait till I follow your new career journey!
The biggest gripe I hear constantly from DC employers (both public and private sector) is that there aren't enough qualified DC residents. Hence why MD and VA residents fill lots of those jobs. So while folks like Marion Barry gripe about needing jobs for residents of East of the River, the simple fact is that few of them are really qualified for any vacant positions. I don't know of any short-term solutions to deal with this, but longer-term, better education levels, job training, and basic job hunting etiquette are some possible answers. It's very depressing to think that many residents in Wards 7 and 8 will be perpetually un- or under-employed because they don't have the basic skills needed for a significant number of well-paying and long-term jobs.
PFKC nailed it. Without usable skillsets (literacy, demeanor, math, etc), you can have all the job fairs you want and you won't make a dent in the DC unemployed population. And even if you have an eligible candidate that wants to work, DC still isn't dealing with all the other roadblocks to employment, like substance abuse, childcare, lack of transportation, etc. Essentially, we're paying the price of having a public education system that was a failure in the 1970s, but back then, all they were worried about was getting students out the door with a useless scrap of a diploma in their hands.
Unlike today.
OMG, I agree with Monkey. Stop the presses!
Breaking into DC city gov't seems to be like getting a union job at Port Newark, you gotta know someone. I applied for at least a dozen different jobs with DC gov't a couple of years ago, all of which I was very well qualified for, and I couldn't even get a call back much less an interview.
DC government doesn't really encourage the hiring of the most qualified candidates. A friend who once headed up an office under R. Bobb was criticised for recommending a superb candidate that he recruited and convinced to move pull up roots, sell here real estate, and become a DC resident in order to get the job. The academic and professional qualifications were stellar, but R.B. noted to my friend that he should be careful to paying attention to hiring a "more diverse workforce". We know what that means. Neither the hirer or hiree stayed around for very long.
Of course, the added irony here is striking.
They don't really mean 'a more diverse work force'. That would of course mean hiring people that aren't black. What they really mean is hiring only black people.
DC's population is now less than 60% black, and that includes a sizeable percentage of people that just don't have the appropriate job skills.
I'm betting the DC employee workforce is probably a bare minimum of 90% black.
If those hired are the most qualified and happen to be black, that's terrific. But in DC, knowing our recent history, I doubt qualifications actually really matter that much.
This sort of racism wouldn't be tolerated most places (at least in theory). But in DC, nobody bats an eye.
I totally agree. I temped for a few months in the DC Department of Health, and I applied for several DC government jobs that I was more than qualified for. Needless to say, I was neither contacted for an interview or sent a notice in the mail that they received my application package. Of course, I was white and working in a 90% plus black department. My superiors, and the admnistrative office I worked in, was blantantly racist. I was treated as a second class citizen, and held to a much higher standard then the blacks in my office. I couldn't take it, so I quit. F*ck DC government and its inability to function effectively and efficiently.
I actually attended the job fair. Something definitely did not seem right. I was qualified for multiple positions (good schools, good work experience) yet my interview lasted five minutes, and I was brushed aside.
AND - I am Asian, which basically means I am white apparently and subject to the same reverse racism. Just by the attitude and ignorance of the staff, it did not seem like a great place to work. It's really too bad because DC could be great if they let qualified staff inside.
Yeah, but I'm black and live in DC. According to what y'all are saying, I should have been given a no work job immediately.
Although I did fare slightly better than guest8, out of the 10-15 complete applications that I sent in I did receive a notice in the mail that two of them were received.
It is indeed a challenge to get a job in DC gov't without knowing someone on the inside. Isn't that very similar in the federal gov't? I've applied for fed gov't jobs and have been told that the only way to make my application get any notice is to have friends in that dept/agency who will push for my hiring with the hr people.
There definitely are a great deal of unqialified hacks in DC gov't employ. But unless you directly deal with the Barry view that a DC gov't job is an entitlement, there's no way to get rid of the system and to start hiring more qualified employees. It sort of goes back to my original post - why worry about needing to have sufficient job skills when you can tap your network and try to get a DC gov't patronage job?
Cranky nailed it. If you want a job, any job, you really need someone on the inside pulling for you. This is true for public as well as private sector. Every job I ever stayed at for more than a year was the result of a friend or relative or friend-of-a-friend on the inside feeding me leads or torquing my resume to fit exactly the position description or bumping my name to the top of the list. Otherwise, you're just a piece of paper on a pile. DC gov't is no different, it's just that they're not clever enough to cover their ineptitude. Or their racism.
Guest 9:
You silly optimist. Don't you know DC has it's one Asian employee now - the head of the schools?
After that one hire, they can quit trying. What's amazing to me is that when they hired an Asian school chief more than a few people felt they could actually say that DC school officials must be black. And no one thought this odd.
Reverse that - and let people say an official must be white. All hell would break loose.
The double standard in DC is striking.
CFO - Natwar Gandhi (Indian)
CTO - Vivek Kundra (Indian)
Chancellor - Rhee (Asian)
I agree that the double standard is striking, but I was hoping that these leaders would open up more opportunities for Asians throughout the ranks. Perhaps I am a silly optimist.