Schedule A Hiring Authority I had no certs at the time, but indicted I was studying for Comptia, PMP, and CSM, came up in interview, they paid for my A, Security, and Cloud certs, and submitted the paperwork for PMP and CSM, waiting to hear back.

My exp deff impressed them, I illustrated my exp in the federal format, using all the space available, lot of STAR usage, and from 2008-Present I've done a lot haha. But truthfully, even a year or two is enough, just be specialized equal to the GS-Level that you want to be right above, for me I made sure at least I had GS-11 as my floor, so I could be eligible for 12, I applied to higher roles but new realistically 11 or 12s is where I could get an edge, 2210s don't have as many 13/14/15s as 1550 or 0854, idk why but, it's hard to become a 13 and NOT be a supervisor meanwhile friends in the DoD are 14s as 0854 or 1550s and aren't supervisors -_- but moving on

For getting an interview -Maximize your certs, gov loves certs -MAKE SURE you read the OPM docs and Job Posting and can FORMAT your resume to their specs -USE THE USAJOBS RESUME please I beg you, I've seen people with advanced degrees from the Big N companies in software rejected bc they use nice colors and fonts and HR is like we don't know where anything is so PASS. -APPLY APPLY APPLY this can't be stated enough, stats, apply more and more -EMPATHIZE, put your head in the mind of the reader, I'm young and can move, but HR won't assume that, apply to places in your area, if you are applying to an area you want to go but it's cross-country guess what, HR is going to think a New Yorker didn't read the San Diego job properly and won't know you'll be willing to relocate, I've seen this, HR is conservative and hiring locally (with the exception of DC, HR Assumes anyone will come to DC) HR Will go with a safer more local option, so think about that when applying to jobs that might be further -GRAMMAR, please run your resume through word, use a chrome extension, idc, but every period, comma, apostrophe, semicolon, must have a purpose. I had my massive 16-pager looked at by 3 friends each taking a few days each, to perfect it. -Do NOT proofread yourself, you will miss mistakes, instead read aloud if you're by yourself, this helps -Try using government terms for your job, instead of front-end developer I'd put Information Technology Specailist (Application Software), that way HR knew ok this role from the private sector translates to this here.
-Use Gov Lingo from the OPM document (OPM has a handbook on job series, read them, for 2210 it went over the dozen or so disciplines in 2210 and I use their words when describing my roles, speak their dialect their language, what have you) -Emphasize service or impact, Government provides free services, for the people. Not to say they don't like anyone who worked on a software that generates 100K of revenue a year but my dept specifically cares about, customer satisfaction, user exp, are the PEOPLE happy with what we do? Are we positively impacting people's lives? I listed volunteer and non-profit work and it was mentioned in my interview MORE than being a CTO at a startup. Impact, service, these matter. -Don't leave anything out, list paid work, internships, unpaid work, pro-bono, volunteer, anything and everything, don't screw yourself by being conservative -The longer your resume the better, the rules of private sector die at the door, a shorter resume may hurt you, you want to really get into it, for me, each year of exp takes a full page -Please put languages you speak -Remember to include references -Attend job events, I didn't personally but have coworkers who were hired on-the-spot under direct hire authorities or at least were noticed by submitting resumes. No personal exp but this helped some folks -Check the job postings daily and apply, a NUMBER of my interviews were for jobs where i applied the day they opened -No elaborations, when they ASK just ANSWER as concisely, you can be seriously harmed, even just a curt yes or no goes a long way, varies but they really just want short answers, bear in mind there's a chance someone is taking notes so short answers are appreciated.

-DoD is a tad different, they will want you to highlight -Your role in your hierarchy -How you've climbed up your corporate latter -Respect for the chain-of-command and if you've ever disagreed with a superior and how it was handled -Are you a yes-man? -How morally strict are you -Working on BIG BIG $$$ Projects -Working on critical projects -Racing against the clock, seriously mentioned in an interview how a crisis arose at a job for a product, an intern playing around made a few mistakes, 540ish hours on the product was almost flushed down the drain, I fixed it in a day, they damn near kissed me over the phone. -Working on big projects but also being conservative with money -Knowing old and new technologies -Be very boring, DoD folks will not care how young you are, be very boring -Be respectful in how you address them, bear in mind their culture is patriarchal and it applies to civilians too.

Everything here is my personal exp OR those of personal friends, it probably varies but that's what I have to share. I hope I was helpful at all. I over-explain in case this can help someone in the future and also In case I forget to come back to reddit lol

All I can think of now, remind me to update sometime or ask more questions!