Career

The Federal Coach: Learning to ‘check your ego and really listen’

In today’s column, Tom speaks with Ambassador Janice L. Jacobs, the Department of State’s assistant secretary for consular affairs. What do you believe are the most critical elements to success? Personal success, especially in jobs when you’re dealing with people, requires a lot of self-awareness, discipline, strong interpersonal skills, a good degree of resiliency, integrityRead… Read more »

Intro to the Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF) application process

So, anyone who’s interested in federal government careers and who is pursuing a graduate degree will eventually (hopefully) hear about the Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF, formerly known as PMI). If you are pursing a master’s or PhD and will graduate from Sept. 1, 2010 through Aug. 31, 2011, you should be aware of this mostRead… Read more »

Battle of Wits — Asking the right questions during an interview

You’ve done your resume, connected through networking, submitted the application, made it through the phone screening, through the security scan and are finally in the interview! In “Princess Bride” terms, you have crossed the ocean, climbed the really, really long rope up the cliff, bested the giant, overcome Inigo Montoya’s swordsmanship (and conversation!), and areRead… Read more »

Project of the Week: Challenge.gov

1. What is Challenge.gov and what was the impetus for the project?Challenge.gov is a platform which allows federal agencies to post challenges, and at the same time, allows the public to find challenges. The impetus: In a March 8, 2010 memorandum, OMB Deputy Director for Management Jeffrey Zients provided legal guidance on the use ofRead… Read more »

HR=Humans Represent: Mind, Body, and Soul

So far you’ve done everything right in your job search. You’ve been pretty busy and working hard at it trying out a few of my suggestions : · Tidying up loose ends (professional email address, using latest technology-basically doing your homework) · Social Networking to reach out to others · Remembering to include offline opportunitiesRead… Read more »

cool Open Gov event this week in San Fran

I was out in San Francisco this week and attended an event with that city’s CIO that highlighted how developers are using open government data to provide interesting and useful apps for residents– like “MomMaps” for to find clean city parks. We put together a short video with interviews with some of the presenters– definitelyRead… Read more »

Excited about Gov 2.0 conference

I could never figure out why some people dread going to conferences. It is always so fast paced, with a ton of people you want to meet, and happy hour every night. I just took over the government liaison/business development role at Marion Montgomery, Inc., so I am looking forward to attending the conference. MMIRead… Read more »

Weekly Round-up September 3, 2010

Here are the articles that caught our attention this week: Gadi Ben-Yehuda Of course, no one should miss my incredibly insightful and unfathomably well-written post “Meeting Half-way: Becoming Citizen 2.0.” But other people published material that you should read. Check out: Center for Democracy and Technology – Your Great Granddaddy Had Syphilis And Now EveryoneRead… Read more »