[Social-sciences-list] Schedule A hiring Authority

Gabias, Paul paul.gabias at ubc.ca
Tue Aug 6 19:12:26 UTC 2013


Hi Vincent,

I had to pretend I was forwarding this to somebody, to find out who you
are.  Indeed, networking is very important.  I got my third job at the
University of Southern Colorado, through Alan Gardner, the sign language
in chimpanzees guy, whose former student Rick Gardner, (no relation) was
head of the department.  The other jobs came through good letters of
recommendation, excellent preparation, and simply a goodly amount of
circumstantial luck.
In terms of your comments of establishing an independent list, I suppose
that's OK for those who want to do it.  We live in free countries.  
This, of course, is an NFB list.  That means that, at least
organizationally, we believe in certain things about blindness.  
So, when Dr. Maurer said, in a convention banquet speech one year, "We
are not broken sighted people" I had to think about that.  And then, I
said to myself: "Yes, that's right! as a blind person, I am a whole
blind person, not a broken person who should be sighted."
Those of us who feel this way, understand the power behind it all.  I
would dare say, that most of the researchers and academics and
clinicians who are sighted, do not understand this point of view.
Nothing in their training prepares them for it.  We, or most of us, in
the NFB, understand and internalize this point of view, and it is put
into good effect, at our training centers.  
Now, a veteran who is injured in a war, will necessarily feel that he or
she is a broken person, and a person who should not have been broken.
If the injury has caused blindness, it would be very helpful for that
person to interact and have good companionship with people who have
never felt that blindness is a kind of brokenness, or people who have
changed their point of view, in that direction.  Perhaps we can offer
that person hope, so that he or she too, can some day feel that he or
she has not been broken by the war.

This, I believe, is the strength that we have to offer in the NFB.

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: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 8:44 AM
To: 'Blind Social Scientists List'
Subject: Re: [Social-sciences-list] Schedule A hiring Authority

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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