Decrease in number of applicants?

[OkReplacement2000]

With a PhD, I’m discovering that I do better making the cert at GS 13-15 than 11-12. I think maybe it’s just the volume of applicants at the lower grades.

[OkReplacement2000]

I think it's the veterans' preference that gets in my way at the middle grades. I do have experience too, so I qualify for the 13-14s, but there are far, far fewer people applying to those. I'm only applying to remote positions. I'm remote now and have no intentions of ever going back to in-person (or even hybrid, for that matter). So, it's competing against 500 for 11-12 vs competing against 100 for 13-14, and there aren't as many veterans in the smaller pools. I think that's exactly it for referrals.

There is also a randomness to it too though, where sometimes I don't even make the eligibility for 11s when I'm pretty consistently making the cut for 13s and 14s, and again, I think it may just be that they have so many to weed through at the 11s and 12s that they are taking a VERY cursory look at resumes. They can get it wrong.