[Social-sciences-list] Schedule A hiring Authority

[Vincent Martin]

Paul,
I wrote it.  Getting an education and becoming competent enough to do your
job is just the first part of going to work.  The rest of it involves so
much more that is not normally conveyed in the rehabilitation process.  I
was just talking to a member of the Association for Computing Machinery and
the data now is showing that in Computing, a full forty percent of jobs are
not even advertised to the general public.  Many companies are now relying
on the network of their internal employee structure to vet potential hires.

In the past twenty years, I have seen the Schedule A hiring authority and
other methodologies be used to the benefit of people with disabilities, but
only when all parties are apprised that it does exist and know how to
implement it.  I have a mentee who just graduated from Emory University with
a Master's degree in Public Health.  She also has an undergraduate degree in
International Affairs.  She is in the Presidential Fellows program and is
currently interviewing for various positions with the Centers for Disease
Control.  Since she has Lupus, she has Schedule A hiring Authority on her
side, but she is running into the Veteran's preference trumping it.  We, in
this country, are putting so much emphasis on hiring Veterans in the Federal
Government that we are quite good at hiring people that are not that
qualified.  She is losing out in certain situations to Veterans that now
have attained their Master's in Public Health from the University of
Phoenix!  In the business world, The University of Phoenix is a bigger joke
than it is to the general public.  I am helping her "back door" the hiring
process by using her Schedule A hiring authority and that is done by using
the network of people that I know that r in the position to hire her.  The
goal is to have a position "created" that she can become a temporary hire
for.  The can hire her non-competitively for that and then she can become a
permanent hire after a year.  
There are three members on this list that I have been in contact with over
the past four years in some capacity.  It is this type of network that is
almost a necessity to obtain the edge in any chosen profession.  When I
started to lose my vision to Retinitis Pigmentosa, Monsanto rescinded their
job offer, because the ADA did not exist then.  I told my father at
graduation that there was a great job for me somewhere, the conduit between
it and I just did not exist.  I went about the process of making sure that
this conduit was created and that it now thrives.  I even had it working for
me before I even knew it existed.
I have the distinction of having only applied to one college for
undergraduate, Masters, and now my Ph.D.  That sounds reckless and
irrational, but I was not remotely hesitant to approach it in that manner.
I originally attended Georgia Tech as an undergraduate in 1982, but had been
accepted the previous year under early enrollment for qualified state
residents.  Since I had wanted to attend the school since my childhood, and
was being actively recruited to play football, I did not even consider any
other school.  I returned twenty-eight years after my initial enrollment for
graduate school and had only applied to one school again.  I even had my
application get caught up in the process and was not evaluated with the
rest.  I finally found out after the school visits were over that this snafu
had occurred.  I had a friend sitting next to me when I read the e-mail
about the problem and he inquired what I was going to do then.  My response
was that I wasn't going to do anything!  The academic advisor for the school
of Psychology went into action and called my advisor about the problem.
Since he was a personal friend, a tenured professor, and a person that we
had collaborated with when I was a researcher at the VA, I was quite
relaxed.  Two weeks later, I received a message saying that I had been
accepted into the school of Interactive computing!  In early April of this
year, I received my letter telling me that I had been officially denied
acceptance into the Ph.D. program in Human Centered Computing.  They
normally bring in three to four new students a year.  My advisor told me to
disregard that crap.  Three weeks later, he told me that I had been accepted
and that the school was not funding my GRA.  Mine is being paid directly by
the National Science Foundation and it covers me for the full twelve month
of the year.  He wants me to finish as soon as possible and this can get me
out in three years.  I literally have only two classes left to take the
qualifiers anyway, I just have to add the seminar classes and get a few more
experiments completed before next spring.  
The most interesting that the occurred in the overall process is finding out
in 2010 that the networking had started for me when I was sixteen years of
age.  I was reading on the Wikipedia page about the Rambling Wreck mascot
car of Georgia Tech and read about how the restoration of it was spearheaded
by a Georgia Tech graduate that was the plant manager of the Ford Motor
Company Hapeville Assembly plant.  In a few seconds, clarity came over me
that had me laughing hysterically.  My wife thought I had lost my mind.  My
father was one of the men that restored the car!  He was a thirty year
employee of this plant and worked as a metal finisher.  He also was a
carpenter and owned his own remodeling business on the side.  I was working
for him in high school when we were roofing a house that belonged to the
plant manager of the company.  When we were talking to him, he inquired as
to where I wanted to go to college.  When my dad told him that I was a
Yellowjacket and wanted to be an engineer, Pete George told him that if I
had any problems getting, then to give him a call.  At that time, he had no
idea that I was a straight A student, was a highly regarded four sport
athlete, and had just been already accepted to start there after my senior
year was completed.  We also had no idea that he was a Georgia Tech graduate
and that is why Ford Motor Company had supplied the labor as its donation to
the school!

Getting back to Schedule A and the topic of getting hired, there are other
ways as well that work.  I can confidently say that every job I have had
since I was in high school was through some connection.  At one point, three
jobs in a row were created just for me.  One time, I even filed out the
application and supplied my resume after I had been hired.  Over the past
twenty years I have gotten to know a myriad of people with visual
disabilities and I see a pattern among the ones that are gainfully employed
and are advancing in their careers.  I have one friend that got his
undergraduate and Master's degrees from Princeton and Yale, but ended up
unemployed after graduation!  He told me that he learned everything in
school, except how to get a job!  He quickly acquired that skill and has
been gainfully employed for many years now.  
When Arielle first proposed this list, I gladly joined.  I first got some
information from her about how to use SPSS from the Syntax line back in
2009.  I had always used it with the menus, until they went JAVA crazy and
it started to become silent.  I think that we should produce our own group
on linked in or create our own autonomous one that we can use to network and
to also assist people just getting started with the job hunt process.  We
might even be able to provide the connection that will allow another member
to attain a position that they did not even know was available.  I know my
current job (thankfully ending this Friday) was secured through my
connections at the University of Washington.  I have been working with
Microsoft since March on a part-time basis and full-time all this summer.
The project that I am working on will not officially end for another month
and a half and they have decided to have me assist as much as I can possibly
can once school starts.  They were so surprised to find a totally blind
person with my background and skillset that they have compensated me
handsomely.  Most of all, I have helped to assist in changing the design
culture for one section of the company and have made Usability as high as a
priority as Accessibility has been.  
Anyone that wants to contact me about the process of getting employed or
anything else is free to do so.  I have benefited so much from the
assistance I have received from other people with visual disabilities, that
I just consider it as paying it forward and passing it on.  I pretty much
maintain an eighteen hour a day cycle that I work, so I might respond to you
at anytime.  I was up this morning at 3:30 am and worked until around 9:00
am.  I think I will log back on the network around 1:00 pm.  




-----Original Message-----
From: Social-sciences-list [mailto:social-sciences-list-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Gabias, Paul
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 7:01 AM
To: Blind Social Scientists List
Subject: Re: [Social-sciences-list] Schedule A hiring Authority

Who wrote this?  Very interesting!

All The Best

Paul Gabias

-----Original Message-----
From: Social-sciences-list
[mailto:social-sciences-list-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Vincent Martin
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2013 6:31 PM
To: 'Blind Social Scientists List'
Subject: [Social-sciences-list] Schedule A hiring Authority

Peter,
The Schedule A hiring authority is a very unique and tricky entity to use,
but can be the most powerful one for getting a person with a disability
hired.  Other than Veteran's preference and political appointments, the
hiring authority is extremely powerful.  What is the most powerful portion
of it is that it can be used to hire a person with a disability without
competitive consideration.  That means that if a job is not advertised
through the normal means, a hiring manager can hire a person with a
disability and not have to even interview anyone else!  During the normal
hiring process, if you let a hiring manager know that you are Schedule A
eligible, that puts you in another category.  It is then up to you to
impress the hiring authorities.  I was just at the US Census Bureau last
week making a presentation and had a long conversation with the Diversity
and Inclusion employee that is responsible for recruiting veterans and
people under the Schedule A hiring authority.  I had a very good personal
friend get recruited away from her job at the VA to go to work there and she
was hired using the Schedule A hiring authority.  They flew her up to D.C.
to interview and we don't think they even interviewed another person!  

When I was working for the VA as a research scientist, my supervisor used it
to hire several severely visually impaired and totally blind employees.  He
even used it to hire a Bio-medical engineer that had ADHD as well.  He was
so sick and tired of the hiring process and how long it took to get a person
hired that he thought it was more efficient to hire competent people with
disabilities and get the projects done.  The center is the center for
excellence for Visual and Neurological Rehabilitation now.  I will probably
go back to the facility when I finish my Ph.D. to continue the research that
he started about twenty years ago.  The primary focus is on wayfinding for
blinded veterans and that is extremely complex.  He, and the center head and
medical directors know that having competent researchers that also have the
disability can lead to an insight that they cannot get from focus groups or
by reading journal articles.  They are very discriminating in who they even
remotely recruit to work there and they rarely ever post a job.  Although I
am not officially on staff anymore (I got kicked out and pointed to graduate
school, (lol), a part of my duties is to still scour the country for bright
and intriguing students that they think will fit into the research goal for
the future.  The US Veterans are aging at a phenomenal rate and blindness is
one of the afflictions that affect many of them.  With the use of body armor
and better helmets, a huge number of Veterans have returned from Iraq and
Afghanistan with vision problems related to brain trauma and direct trauma
to the eyes.
Having competent researchers who are passionate about working with this
population and who realize that so many things are necessary to make their
lives comfortable is what the mission of the research facility is.
Over the past few years, they have extended inquiries to three people and
two have been members of this list.  So far, only one has come in to tour
the place and is seriously considering making it a career choice, but the
Schedule A hiring authority is there to be used when it is needed.  In the
area of rehabilitation research for the VA, there is also a Disability
research award available.  It can be used to pay the employee's salary for
the first three years as they transition into their research role and start
to write their own grants for their own projects.  

In conclusion, I would advise you and anyone else that is considering
Federal employment to "get" to know as many hiring managers as possible.
Be willing to look at every Federal agency and see who is the hiring manager
for the Agency or for the particular facility or building you are
considering working for.  If you get hired this way, you can have up to two
years of probationary period, instead of the normal six month period though.
You can also still become eligible to move to another job or agency after
one year of work.  You could start as an employee in the Forestry department
and get into the agency you actually want to work for in a year.  





>Does anyone know how the opm operates in the special hiring authority 
>with
section a in the U.s? I'm thorughly confused by the complex machinery of the
process cause of the application side of it.
For example, applying for a job but this Hr specialist in San Fran said that
"in addition" phrase that I could apply for certain job hiring authority for
persons with disabilities via a certain url page that he gave me. Not even
my VR coun selor nor any blind people till this date can fully understand
this process, so any insight would be great of you to share with me.


Thanks,
Peter


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