Hell yes, man!! LFG! You’re gonna dunk this and we’ll be neighbors by August.
Appreciate the love my friend. I do not mean to sound negative or anything, I just know not every opportunity is going to work out and there’s always going to be a lot of difficult applicant pools in the law, and it’s not personal. But…interesting thing, it’s for a position with the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Have 2 degrees from a university in Appalachia on my wall and I have seen firsthand a tremendous amount of the poverty and hopelessness many of its citizens experience. I believe that would make me a damn good advocate and candidate, so here’s to hoping.
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Absolutely, man. I’ve been through the USAjobs circuit before and it can be really disheartening. ARC sounds like a phenomenal opportunity, and just getting the interview is a big step in the right direction. Whenever it ends up happening for you, you’ll have a place to crash in DC when you come look for somewhere to move.
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I loathe USAJobs like nothing else. It has to be the worst and most disheartening place to look for jobs.
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I’ve been through a lot of USAJobs nonsense too. I’d suggest checking each agency’s website in addition to checking USAJobs.
Oh yeah, absolutely. This is actually how I found this particular opening. USAjobs was glitching pretty hard this week and turning up literally 4 or 5 results when searching for attorney roles in DC, when usually (at least during the pandemic) you get about 140 results. Of course, many of them are other professions the search brought up, or rolling applications, stuff like that, but just goes to show how messed up it was. But I am glad, otherwise I wouldn’t have thought to look around at specific sites.
USAjobs is definitely one of the more difficult job hunting sites I’ve used. I’ve been hitting it pretty hard, because a) I can work for the government practicing law right now with my West Virginia license while waiting for the DC transfer and b) I would like to work for the government, I think.
But there’s such a “yelling into the void” feeling at times. Never mind all the hoops and hurdles, perhaps more so than any other job hunting site, sometimes it just feels like nobody is seeing your stuff. And that makes it hard to not feel defeated or discouraged. But that’s one of the hardest parts of job hunting, much less when you’re moving to a new city you haven’t lived in before.
Gotta keep trucking though.
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That’s the worst with USAJobs. And then I talked to a friend who hires people for his government organization and he says if you don’t have the right keywords in your resume, a human will never actually see it. He told me to literally copy the keywords out of the job posting and put them in my resume in hopes of getting my resume past the initial stage.
Yes, I’ve received that exact advice as well. Basically, even if your resume says you’ve done the same things the job announcement says, you could be out of luck if it’s not in the exact same wording.
I’ve gotten referred for plenty of the jobs I’ve been applying to, but that’s it so far unfortunately. A lot of things have understandably been a bit odd due to the pandemic, and a few things I’ve gotten referred to appeared to get cancelled once working from home started. But still. It’s frustrating to not be getting much traction there.
I have a very close family friend who has some big time job at Housing and Urban Development, albeit in Manhattan, not DC, and not in the legal department like I’d be. In any event, she’s familiar with the federal government and their processes. She seems to think that the Veterans’ Preference is a big factor in many of these, as well. She apparently does interview and hire people in her role, and mentioned how she does appreciate more succinct resumes. Not to say this woman I know who has worked for HUD for 25-30 years doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but at the same time, she only receives resumes that made it through the initial screening. That’s what makes it tough for me. I get she might like them to be shorter, but what good is it if you don’t even make it to her? Frustrating.
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I think the referred email is the first step. From what I was told that is just the automated “are you even remotely qualified” check. But I think there is still one more automated check before it gets to an actual human. It’s so frustrating that if you don’t know someone on the inside that can flag your application you have to basically customize your resume to get past the computer scans but still be what you want the hiring manager to see.
welcome! I moved to DC from NYC in the last couple years and really enjoy it here.
The DC municipals get crowded. If you don’t snag an early tee time, pace of play isn’t great, however, they are soooo convenient and you can’t beat the price. I have met a handful of fellow Refugees on those courses, which is an added benefit. Plus, things are really looking up for the city courses over the next couple years as the National Links Trust takes over management and starts restoring/renovating all three munis (East Potomac, Langston and Rock Creek).
Once you get outside DC, you are traveling at least 30 minutes (and I feel like a lot in the 30-45 minute range are private), but there are some good public courses. One that I don’t think was mentioned yet is University of Maryland. It is a challenging but fun track, and is probably the closest public course outside of DC.
If you ever want to meet up for a round, let me know!
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I’m in too!
Do any of my DC refugee friends have any recommendations for apartment buildings in Pentagon City?
I think my girlfriend and I have decided we want to live there. Moving onto the second interview for the one government job I applied for and possibly looking at a second for a firm as well. So I’ve got a bit far to go before I get an offer, but I’m trying to do my research and be ready now!
So many of these places look so similar and have similar amenities. Were hoping to spend $2000-2400 monthly and have close to 1k sqft, as I was hoping to possibly have a 2nd bedroom for an office.
Two that caught my eye are Instrata and Post Pentagon Row, as well as maybe RiverHouse. But god damn there’s so many.
can’t speak on Pentagon City but Post Properties are very nice as far as amenities. I lived in a Post property in downtown DC and they kept good care of the whole place. good luck!
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Out of curiosity, why Pentagon City? I usually stay there a couple of times a year for different trips, but I always wondered why people lived there. You are close to a lot, but not really walking or biking distance to much. I don’t know what it would add to a potential commute, but I thought I’d always prefer Alexandria.
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Thanks for the wise words my friend.
I’ll obviously look at places to whatever extent I can before signing, but just wanted to see if I could learn more about places.
I’m hesitant to trust yelp or anything because I think perhaps even more so for apartments than restaurants etc, you’re going to see a lot of bad reviews and miss out on tons of would-be positive reviews from people who just didn’t write one. I mean, hell, I love my current landlord and the place I lived before this was great too, and I never even considered leaving them a good review.
That being said, I’ve seen almost unanimously good stuff from people who lived at a Post place.
Interesting. I mean, I guess I’m not totally locked in, but we both liked what we see. I think we both planned on walking to the metro station for work, and both liked being near shops and grocery stores and stuff. Not that this is exclusive to Pentagon City, but there are some nice fields there to take my dog out too.
Frankly, I’d like to consider DC proper, but I think that may be too big of a transition for my girlfriend who is currently living in the largest metro area of her life…Morgantown, West Virginia.
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My fiance and I just moved from Ballston to Vienna but I live in Clarendon/Ballston for the 9 years prior and she lived on Capital Hill for 7~ years. I haven’t been to Pentagon City much but I can speak to the other neighborhoods in Arlington well and also Capital Hill.
Pentagon City is going to see a whole ton of changes through the next ten years while Amazon HQ 2.0 is built and as a result, that whole area getting a much needed facelift. But what that means for you could be a lot of construction, road closures, etc. Just something to keep in mind!
If you want any information regarding other neighborhoods in Arlington, I am more than happy to provide some insight or Capital Hill too.
That’s right. I totally forgot about that. Those streets aren’t very big for a metro area so Pentagon City becomes absolute gridlock very quickly when they start closing down lanes. Definitely something to think about.
@coozapalooza looking at where you are looking in Pentagon City and I think that would be a cool spot. Pretty much everything you’d need would be right there. But that would be about it. I usually stay at the Double Tree or Embassy Suites (both are technically Crystal City, but it’s basically the same thing). We walk up to 23rd St. where most of the restaurants are at. But other than that, you have to drive or grab the Metro. If I was ever going to live in the city (never going to happen at this point in my life/career), I’d want to live in Georgetown, Alexandria, or Capital Hill. But honestly, I don’t know anything about rental prices, so that would completely change things.
Good luck and I’m not trying to be a Debby-downer on your plan. There is so much in DC and each area is so unique, everyone is going to find different positives in each area.
Yeah, there’s a lot that goes into decision making for the various Arlington neighborhoods. With your girlfriend looking at a big transition moving from WVA to Arlington, maybe a neighborhood in East Falls Church or Shirlington might be a better option, but then I think you’d lose out on (some) walkability and increase dependency on cars/metro/Uber.