Feds Take USAjobs.gov Back From Monster, Performance Tanks 175
dcblogs writes "Complaints about the performance of USAjobs.gov, the government's central website for job applicants, are piling up after the U.S. took control this month of the site from Monster.com. The government's official Facebook page has seen nothing but negative comments from users about lag time, search engine failures, and other problems since the U.S. Office of Personnel Management built a new site. The government employs more than 2.6 million people. Linda Rix, the co-CEO of Avue Technologies Corp., a federal contractor who has tested the site, said this about the federal effort: 'They are a personnel management agency, they are not a technology company, and this clearly demonstrates that they don't have the technology skills to be able to do this.'" They're working on it, though — one of their recent Facebook updates says, "Quick update: The three new blade servers have increased our capacity and the system is running smoothly."
USAJobs filter (Score:4, Interesting)
Their job filter sucks. I know someone that was a government contractor and the people he worked for wanted to hire him as a federal employee. So they set up a listing that was well defined to fit his skills. He submitted his application but couldn't make it through the filter so he couldn't be hired.
I saw an opening for a job and I knew the people that put the request in. I just copied and pasted the entire job requirement and description under other information and I sailed past the filter. When I was interviewed they thought it was a computer errror that caused the ad to print at the end of my application. I told them the truth and they laughed and I got the job.
Sour Grapes - The GRAVY TRAIN IS OVER for Monster. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like Monster was butt-hurt when Uncle Sam ditched them, so they had a stooge write a sob story for Computer World.
Yes indeed. And, the Monster site was a serious piece of shit itself.
Here's the thing: Uncle Sam *just recently* took it back, we should EXPECT some bumps in the process. This is to be expected.
Most people here, not being gov employees probably haven't experienced what USA Jobs replaced. Essentially, each arm of the government had their own site for job seekers.
I can only tell you about about the Air Force site that Monster's USA Jobs replaced... The Air Force site was easy to navigate and easy to apply for jobs. Tracking your progress in the process was very straight forward.
Before I accepted my current Air Force position, I applied for perhaps a dozen different jobs, was called back for telephone interviews on perhaps half, and was able to track my progress with all - such as the reason for being passed over (important information for a job seeker).
The Monster experience was beyond convoluted to the point that I simply gave up trying to find and apply for jobs. Out of the 30 or 40 I applied for, I never got any call-backs, and it was impossible to track progress or determine reasons for for being passed over. It was just a huge waste of time.
Seriously folks, we all KNOW how Monster works. This "story" is just sour grapes from Monster for losing a fucking GRAVY TRAIN of a contract.
DISCLAIMER: I am a career Civil Servant with the Department of Defense.
Re:Government takes control of something (Score:4, Interesting)
Just so we're clear:
1) If Government 'outsources' its IT costs to a cloud service they're idiots wasting money who got conned into an unreliable and insecure buzzword.
2) If the Government brings tech back in house and doesn't use a cloud service they're slow, unresponsive and stupid.
I'm sorry, is there a third option that we're thinking they should adopt?