Monday, March 26, 2012

2012 PMF Survey Development

Based on a suggestion in the previous comments thread, I am looking for questions to put on a survey for this year's job fair. If we can collect good, honest data about your experiences and how you approached the job fair and whether it met your expectations or not, I think we can present future applicants an accurate picture that can help them determine whether the job fair was worthwhile or not. I do have last year's survey, which was generating responses pretty regularly through September of 2011, with the last response in February of 2012. As soon as I get a chance, I will see what the data says.

Here are last year's questions:

  • What is your name (first and last or pseudonym)?
  • What school did/will you graduate from?
  • Do you have a veteran's preference?
  • Did you attend the job fair?
  • How many interviews did you have BEFORE the job fair?
  • How many interviews did you have DURING the job fair?
  • How many interviews did you have AFTER the job fair?
  • Have you received an offer?
  • How many offers have you received?
  • What agencies made you offers?
  • Did you accept an offer?
  • If you accepted an offer, what agency, location, and position did you accept?
  • If you accepted an offer, was this offer a result of the job fair?
  • What is your area of study?
  • Notes/Comments

These are a start, but I think we can do better. The first thing that's apparent is that we will want to handle returning responders.  I didn't have adequate provision for that in the original form, but will be able to work that into the next iteration of it.  Beyond that, at a minimum, I think we want to know:

  • Are you a new or returning visitor to this survey?  (Yes/No)  (Conditional branch)
  • What is your name (first and last or pseudonym)?  (Free Text)
  • Did you attend the job fair?  (Yes/No)  (Conditional Branch?)
  • If not, why not?  (Free text)
  • How many interviews did you have before the job fair?  (Number 0+)
  • How many interviews did you have during the job fair?  (Number 0+)
  • How many interviews have you had since the job fair?  (Number 0+)
  • Have you received any offers?  (Yes/No)
  • If so, how many?  (Number 0+ or N/A?)
  • Did you accept any offers?  (Yes/No)
  • Do you feel that these offers were a result of the job fair?  (Yes/No)
  • What is your area of graduate study?  (Free Text)
  • What is your area of undergraduate study?  (Free Text)

Are there other questions we should ask?  It might be worthwhile to develop the conditional branches a bit more so that we can capture a wider range of responses, but I don't currently have any questions in mind.  I'll take your suggestions.

13 comments:

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  2. How about a question or two related to the dates the offer(s) were extended and when we accepted, so can gauge a general understanding of the hiring time frame of various offices?

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  3. I thought about that too. I'll see if I can add it to my current working version of the survey form. With luck I can have something published soon.

    As an aside, I am thinking of running the form from 1 April 2012 to 1 April 2013. Is that sufficient time for the 2012 class to report back? I want to give myself time to compile the results to inform the next year's class (in this case 2014; soon I should be able to do something with the 2011 class).

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  4. I'm interested to see how many folks were using the spreadsheet, if you want to throw a question about that on there :)

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  5. also, if you get a survey set up, I'll direct folks from the spreadsheet to your site, and I'll also put up a note on Facebook doing the same thing. You'll get responses in no time, I'm sure.

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  6. Thanks, MSB, I've published what I think is a more comprehensive survey than the last one. With luck I can get some good statistics.

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  7. Thanks pmfellow, for the spreadsheet add. I just took the survey. Did I miss the Vet's preference question though on the survey, or perhaps I just glossed over it...I know that's good info to have.

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  8. How in the world did I miss that? I fixed it, and the fortunate thing is that you can go back and add it in as a returning visitor. Hopefully it won't mess up my numbers too much :)

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  9. Awesome! I just posted the links, so I don't think too many people have added their stuff yet. Can you tell how many have already filled it out?

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  10. @MSB: Thanks for everything you're doing. I think many of your fellow finalists appreciate it. As of yesterday, when I made the change, there were 14 total responses. Today there are 33. That's a pretty good response rate so far, though it looks like there are a few who had to return to indicate veterans preference.

    On another (somewhat related) note, for some reason this blog is still getting significant traffic, on the order of about 1,000 page views a day. With luck that means a good number of your future colleagues are still engaged, even though there's not been a lot of comment activity.

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  11. Well, that's great. I'm an information science person...nothing better than compiling data and getting actionable results. I think this survey that you're conducting will be great for future PMFs looking for information. I'm glad we can all work together to contribute!

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  12. PMFellow maybe you can help me. I'm getting a dual degree from a top 3 law school and a top 3 Policy school. I already have a Masters degree from a flagship state school in Human relations. I also graduated Summa from my undergrad as well as being an active duty Army vet. I'm thinking about applying for the PMF next year and I was wondering what are my chances of getting a gs-12 job? I scoured the net for some info regarding the percentage of PMF's that get GS-12 jobs and what are their qualifications but I can't find anything. Do you think it would be better for me to go to a D.C. law firm? I'm interning at a top D.C. firm this summer, can I work their for a few year and then try to transition to Government work as a 12 or 13. I don't want to do traditional law and would much rather do policy stuff dealing with law but I also don't want to take a gs-9 type pay cut. If there isn't a realistic shot of me getting a GS-12 without a PhD then I might not apply. Any assistance from you or anybody else would be much appreciated.

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