Posts By Erica Bakota

What Has Been Your Experience with USAJobs?

For those who aren’t familiar with USAJobs, usajobs.gov is a single, centralized site devoted to finding federal jobs. It is a cross-departmental and cross-agency platform, meaning that it lists jobs with the EPA, FDA, USDA, and many other departments and agencies. There’s a wide variety of criteria that you can use to search the database,… Read more »

The Perks of Being a Government Employee

Government employees have faced a number of “downers” in recent years: sequestration and budget cuts, furloughs, and pay freezes, just to name a few. Federal employees hired today are required to contribute a greater proportion of their salaries to their pensions than those hired just a few years ago. Travel budgets have been cut downRead… Read more »

Practice Makes Perfect: Improving Your Skills

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Practice makes perfect.” While many dismiss this idea as well-worn and antiquated, the concept of meaningful practice has been embraced by neuroscientists and life coaches alike in recent years. Author Daniel Coyle champions practice as the means to achieving excellent in his book The Talent Code. The idea is thatRead… Read more »

Questions You’d Ask Your Boss — Anonymously

I recently heard a segment on the radio in which listeners submitted questions that they would ask their spouse or significant other anonymously. The submissions ranged from, “What’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told your spouse?” to things much more scandalous. My first reaction was that if you have to ask your spouse anonymously, thenRead… Read more »