2014 PMF: Application Cycle Open Thread

Well, it's that time of year again.  The 2014 PMF Program will start accepting applications tomorrow.

Something new for this year: there are two tracks, a regular PMF track and a PMF STEM track for those of you who have degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

More info on the PMF Program is here: http://www.pmf.gov/opportunity/index.aspx

The PMF STEM track here: http://www.pmf.gov/the-opportunity/pmf-stem.aspx

And you can stay connected via PMF's official Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/PMFProgram?hc_location=stream

[Update 10/7/2013] Finally, don't forget about GovLoop's Path to PMF guide: http://pathtopmf.com/download/

As always, this is the place you hang out if you want to talk semi-anonymously about your experiences.  Good luck!

2013 PMF: Virtual Job Fair Open Thread

[Update 4/30/2013: The PMF Program Office has updated its Job Fair page with new information, including preparation details for the Virtual Job Fair: http://www.pmf.gov/become-a-pmf/find-a-job/job-fair.aspx]

Because this year's PMF job fair is virtual, I hadn't felt any urgency in posting about it. Given some of the confusion surrounding it, though, perhaps it's time for some discussion.

I was going to refer you to the PMF Program Office's Job Fair page, but as of this posting, it contains mostly information for the 2012 class. This is not relevant to you, obviously, but I can understand how it might cause some confusion.

Unfortunately, I don't see any good documentation on what to expect from the job fair this year. All we know is that it's virtual and that additional details are forthcoming. The following from the page does pertain to you:

NOTE: The content on this webpage will be updated once additional details become available for the 2013 Job Fair event. All Class of 2013 Finalists will receive an email containing login properties for this event within the next few days.

The PMF Program hosts a Job Fair event for all current class Finalists and participating agencies. This event is by invitation only to 2013 Finalists and participating agencies. Most PMF appointments are a result of the Job Fair.

I am sure the rest of this community would be interested to know when this page changes. If you notice new information before I do, please point it out in the comments.

In the mean time, feel free to discuss your hopes and plans for the virtual job fair.

Interested in State and/or USAID?

The PMF Advisory Council at the State Department and USAID is hosting a Google+ Hangout for 2013 PMF finalists on Monday, Apr 29, from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM EST.

You can see the event listing and RSVP here: http://bit.ly/2013PMFGoogleHangout

From the G+ event listing:

Calling all 2013 PMF Finalists interested in State and USAID!

The Presidential Management Fellows Advisory Council (PMFAC) at State and USAID will host a Google+ Hangout for Class of 2013 PMF Finalists interested in learning more about State and USAID. This "virtual panel" will include a diverse group of past and present State/USAID PMFs to provide Finalists with perspectives on common questions about getting a job at State, life as a PMF at State, etc.

Submit any questions you have for panelists and vote for other questions by 12 PM EST on April 29, 2013 here: http://goo.gl/mod/vTlK

View the panel live Path to PMF (www.PathtoPMF.org) or PMF Info (pmfellow.blogspot.com). The session will not be recorded.

Disclaimer: Current and former PMFs participating in the Google+ Hangout are speaking in their personal capacity and not on behalf of the Department of State or USAID or the PMF Programs at State and USAID. We are not hiring managers and cannot make job offers to PMFs. Participation in this Google+ Hangout session is an opportunity offered by PMFs for PMFs for information only, and has no bearing on your ability to secure a job offer from the State Department.

I think this is a fantastic idea. If you have even a slight interest in these agencies, you should attend.

I plan to embed the hangout in a new post so you can see it here, but GovLoop will also have it, and of course you can always go to the original event page. (Note: Since the hangout is not being recorded, there will not be an archived video after the event is over. If you have any interest whatsoever in State or USAID, please attend this! Doing so will encourage other agencies to do similar things in the future.)

Agencies: If you have specific events similar in nature to this, I'm sure the community here would love to hear about them.

PMFs (finalists, current, former): If you are aware of other such events, pass the word along.

Exploring 2013 PMF Finalist Data

Just for fun, I've been playing with the finalist data. Here are some ways of visualizing it, using Google Fusion Tables, which seems to have gained some features and lost others since I began playing with it a couple years ago.

If you don't see anything below, it might be your browser. Based on what I've seen in my Google Analytics stats for the site, though, most of you should be fine.

First let's look at top 10 degrees:



Second, top 10 Universities:



One of the newer features is one where we can explore the links between data elements. This one is for the link between University and Degree:



Next up, we can map out the locations of the schools, in case anyone wants to explore that way.



And last, but not least, your breakdown of Veterans' Preference.



Anything else you'd like to see?

2013 PMF: Congratulations

663 of you were selected as finalists.  Congratulations, and good luck securing an appointment!

About 1/3 of you have veterans' preference, which is higher than I've seen in the past.  While it's not a guarantee of a job, it does give you an advantage.

In the past, some of your enterprising fellow PMFs have started and maintained a community spreadsheet for listing positions and such.  If you happen to do the same, let me know and I will make sure it's linked somewhere.

Also in the past, I had operated some polls to get a sense of the usefulness of the job fair.  In light of this year's virtual job fair, I'd be interested to compare with other years.  I'm also especially interested in how the sequester and ongoing budget issues affect you all, so I will take suggestions on how best to conduct that survey as well, if all of you are interested.

Finally, I have to say I am incredibly pleased about the way the PMF site is displaying the 2013 finalists list.  I was able to copy it and paste it into a spreadsheet, which means I don't have to spend gobs of time cleaning up the data.  However, I don't have the applicant and semifinalist data in the same state.  Would anyone like to do this?  For now, I don't care about normalizing the school names (for instance, Harvard University versus Harvard Law School; both are Harvard), just getting them into my database.  In fact, I probably have data from other years that I just haven't had the time to clean up, if anyone is interested.

2012 PMF Survey

Here is the promised survey for the 2012 PMF class.  I want to stress that I am not associated with the program, it is unlikely that anyone from the program will even ask for this, and I have no plans to reveal any information except through aggregation.  It is intended to benefit future classes.  Please respond as thoroughly as you are comfortable.  If you have any concerns, you can email me at pmfellow AT gmail DOT com or reply in the comments.

I will keep this form open from now until around April 1, 2013, so please feel free to provide updates whenever you have them.  If you are a returning visitor to the form (i.e., you've already submitted answers once), choose the Returning Visitor option and make sure to put in the same name you used initially.

The direct link to the form is here.

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.

2012 PMF Job Fair Recap + Updates

Today is the last day of the 2012 PMF job fair. I see on the PMF site that at least a few of the 2012 class have secured appointments. How are the rest of you doing? Any promising leads as a result of the job fair? Exciting experiences? Anyone get appointments without going to the job fair?

I don't have any new updates beyond this. There hasn't been a great deal of newsworthy information. One thing that I saw earlier this month, and which probably won't go anywhere, is a letter from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [PDF] to OPM director John Berry regarding communications issues with finalists. While the commenters on the original WaPo article reporting on this were quick to suggest that the Committee is wasting its time over some email glitches, I'm not sure it's quite that simple. I guess we'll see if anything comes of it.

I am still planning to do some data analysis on this year's applicants and finalists. Due to work constraints, though, I haven't really had the time. (I might not even have all of the data; once I find out I can follow up with another post) If someone is interested in doing this and has free time and ability, let me know and I can help you get started.

2012 PMF Finalist Results Day

[Update 1: There seems to be a notification issue again this year. I'm hearing reports of rejection letters followed by congratulation letters. If you received both of these, be sure to let us know. Original text is also appreciated. I would like to note that in cases where this happens, you might just have to wait until the list is received to be sure.]

[Update 2: I'm sure many of you know by now, having seen the Facebook page, that the earlier incidents with emails were the result of some kind of system problem. The real results should go out sometime later, I guess.]

[Update 3: The 2012 finalist list has now been released (PDF), and the notifications are still trickling out. If you haven't heard anything yet, check the official list for your name. This year there were 628 finalists, which is considerably lower than previous years. A permanently archived version of the list is here.]

According to the official information channels, the 2012 PMF finalist results are supposed to be out "on or around" January 24th. Unofficial word on the street is that they're going out now. In the past, these notifications have taken a while to process, so if you haven't heard anything yet, be patient.

But if you have heard anything...

Let us know if you made it or not.

If so, congratulations. Now it's time to find a position :) Let us know if you have any particular agencies or job fields in mind. Also, are you going to attend the job fair?

If not, just remember that the process was competitive, and lots of otherwise good, well-qualified semifinalists are also being sent away. Finally, given the recent structural changes to the program, I think applying again next year is in your best interest, so go for it! Be sure and let us know whether you plan to try again next year.

Once the finalist list is published, I will make a new post linking to it.

2012 PMF Semifinalists: Open Thread

[Update 3 November: The actual number this year was around 1200. I guess we can thank the political and fiscal climate for that number. If the percentages from previous years apply (so, uh, beware the following conclusions), then we're looking at a finalist pool of perhaps 600. Whether that improves your chances of getting a job or not is anyone's guess.

Also, I think it's worth noting that the PMF Program Office hasn't provided links to the lists of nominees or semifinalists as they've done in previous years. This makes it impossible for me to analyze the data and ask some potentially tough questions about it. If anyone has seen such lists, I would be interested in seeing them. Otherwise, I find this move to be the antithesis of a transparent process. It's baffling.]

Notifications for semifinalist selection were supposed to begin rolling out sometime yesterday, and I've seen some comments that indicate they have, at least for some of you. Given the sheer volume of you (over 9000), the process can take a while, so if you haven't heard anything, I would recommend patience. I will provide an update here once the PMF Program Office posts something, but we can already anticipate the number will be around 1500.

I'll also remind you that the PMF Program Office is responding to some inquiries via their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PMFProgram

Whether you've heard anything (good or bad) or not, let us know.

2012 PMF Online Assessment: Open Thread

According to the PMF Program Office, more than 9000 people applied for the PMF program this year. I haven't seen any official word on how many nominations resulted, nor have I seen any official list (if you've got a link to one, we would all be most appreciative).

Anyway, that presumably means some 9000 of you are or will be taking the online assessment. This is your thread to talk about the assessment, but keep in mind that, since it runs through October 10, 2011, it is probably unwise to reveal any substantive details about what you've found on the test. Once the testing window closes, please feel free to say as much as you want about the contents. They tend to change every year anyway. In the mean time, we would all be very interested to hear if you have taken the test, if you've had particular technical issues, what your thoughts are on the efficacy of the test, and any other assessment chatter you'd care to share.

As a side note: I have never seen the (entire) modern incarnation of this assessment, nor was the assessment offered online when I did take a version of it in 2009, so if you have specific technical or administrative questions, you'll have to rely on each other for answers.

PMF 2012: Application Begins Today

Yes, it's that time again. The Presidential Management Fellows application process is officially open for the 2012 application year. Here's a very quick rundown of how to determine if you are eligible and what to expect. At the end of this article are the other great resources available on the web. I will be happy to answer any questions you have about the application process, assuming I know the answers, but otherwise, just let us all know whether you are going to apply or not.

The application window for this year is today, September 15, 2011 to September 25, 2011. School nominations have to be in by September 30, 2011.

Eligibility

To be eligible, you MUST be enrolled in a graduate program of some sort and be scheduled to complete your degree requirements between September 1, 2011 and August 31, 2012. Seems easy enough, right?

The Process

First, and I can't stress this enough, you have to find out who at your school handles PMF nominations. It's usually the dean of your particular program. You don't get invited to take the test unless your school nominates you. Make sure your nominating official has all the information he/she needs to complete the nomination. All of the materials you need can be found on the PMF website.

Second, go over to the job listing on USAJOBS and apply for the program. You can find it here: http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?JobID=102311164

Third, make sure all of your documents are saved all the way through on Application Manager. You can provide corrected documents if you need to, but sometimes they require processing time. In that case, it's better to get your application in early.

And fourth, let us know here or on GovLoop that you've applied. We like to have conversations here about the experience and what everyone else is going through. And since I have been through the process myself, there are things I can probably help you with. Good luck, everyone!

Resources

• Check out GovLoop's application guide (full disclosure: I helped with this):
  
  Open publication - Free publishing - More fellows
• GovLoop also has an open comment thread for this year's application process.
• And finally, try exploring this blog, which is full of good resources.

PMF 2012: Tentative Calendar

It's almost that time of year again, folks. A couple of days ago, the PMF Program Office announced its anticipated application schedule for the 2012 cycle. Under current regulation, students must be completing a graduate degree between September 1, 2011, and August 31, 2012, to be eligible to apply. (This means, of course, that we won't see the effects of the recent changes they've proposed until at least the 2013 application cycle). Anyway, the application period should open on September 15, 2011, and close on September 25, 2011, with all nominations completed by the schools by September 30, 2011.

Additionally, there is a new tentative calendar available outlining the 2012 process. It is much more compressed than in years passed, as you'll notice.

Date	Description
Thursday, September 15, 2011	Application for the PMF Class of 2012 opens via a job opportunity announcement on USAJOBS; search for "Presidential Management Fellows"
Sunday, September 25, 2011	Application for the PMF Class of 2012 closes
Friday, September 30, 2011	Deadline for Nomination Officials to fax nominations Deadline for applicants to submit supporting documentation for any claims for Veterans' Preference.
October 1-10, 2011	Invited applicants participate in on-line assessment process
By November 1, 2011	Applicants notified on eligibility and nomination status Semi-finalists selected and notified Semi-finalists scheduled and notified for in-person assessments
November 14 - December 16, 2011	In-person assessments conducted for semi-finalists
January 24, 2012	On or around this date, semi-finalists notified of Finalist status via email
Late-February/Early- March 2012	PMF Class of 2012 Finalists Job Fair (Washington, DC, metro area)

This time around, finalist notifications are expected to go out in late January!

I'd be interested to see what you all think of this aggressive schedule. Also, it's worth pointing out that, given the possible new rules that could affect next year's application cycle, you may benefit from the ability to apply more than once. In fact, I can foresee a possibility that you could apply up to three times, given that the new rules would allow eligibility to be extended back two years for degree completion. So what I am saying is go for it this time, and if you don't make it through, try it again next year if you're still inclined.

Summer Update: PMF Program Changes Afoot

This is the slow season in the life of a blog like this, but occasionally things do happen that are worth noting. Before getting to the big stuff, though, I figure it's worth providing a quick update.

First, I should point out that there are 327 listed PMF hires to date. I have no idea how that compares to previous years, unfortunately, but considering the historical placement rates have fallen between 40 and 60 percent of finalists, we can expect something like 340 to 510 to be placed out of this class. Anecdotes from people who can't find a placement aside, 327 seems to be a good number at a point approximately 1/3 of the way through the placement cycle. More positions will undoubtedly appear, so if you haven't secured anything yet, just give it some time.

Second, it's almost time for the next class to apply. OPM plans to open up the 2012 program sometime in September. As I did last year, I will write a post about the program with updated statistics and description. It would be helpful if any of you who have already been placed would submit your experiences with the program so far, especially where the initial application is concerned.

And finally, OPM has submitted its proposed rule changes to the Federal Register to amend its Pathways Program, which includes the PMF program. The biggest change I see so far in my reading of the proposed regulation is the widening of the application window to two years. That is, anyone who completed a graduate degree within the last two years would be eligible to apply. There are other important changes, though, so for a more thorough highlighting, read below.



PMF Program Revisions Highlighted

1. No More Nominations - The proposed regulation removes the requirement for college or university staff to perform the nomination action. This step of course removes the burden from nominating officials who may be less connected to PMF aspirants in future classes, because up to two years may have passed since the last interaction between the PMF hopeful and the nominating official.


2. Apply Again - As long as someone falls within the two year window outlined by the regulation, there is nothing prohibiting people from applying again if they were unsuccessful the first time around. So those of you on the finalist list right now who haven't been placed yet might get another chance or two to apply. This is a pretty significant structural change, but I suspect most programs have to deal with repeat applicants. And who knows? Perhaps an extra year working will be the thing that gives you an edge over other finalists.


3. "Interactive" instead of Classroom Training - OPM is clarifying the language surrounding the training to emphasize that delivery methods other than instructor-led classroom training can fulfill the annual training requirements. Frankly, this is long overdue. We're in an age where the most efficient delivery methods for focused training are internet-based, and while there is definitely value to be found in classroom training, it should be limited to situations that warrant it. This will probably go a long way toward making the program more palatable to agencies, since there is a great deal of decent-quality online training that was of dubious value to PMFs given the earlier requirement that they can now use.


4. SES Mentors - The new rules would require agencies that hire PMFs to match them up with a mentor at the Senior Executive Service level. Overall, this is probably a good thing. I learned a great deal from those SES with whom I have served.


5. Rotation Adjustments - The program still includes provisions for a 4-6 month developmental assignment, but OPM has included some intriguing language about the viability of agency-wide, Presidential or Administration initiatives for use as developmental activities. I can imagine some potential applications of this, but would be interested in what any of you think about it.

Those were the major points I found in the document after scanning through it. Give it a read and let us all know what else you find in it.

Question: Where Should the In-Person Assessments Have Occurred?

This is definitely something exploratory, and it's certainly not intended to be predictive. I am just musing here, partially to determine whether the in-person assessment locations were sound or not.

So the question is this: Based on what we know of the 2011 semifinalist pool, where would the most effective in-person assessment locations have been? Let's broaden that a bit to get at what we really might want to know. Which cities with a Federal presence would have made good cities in which to conduct PMF in-person assessments, based on what we know about where the semifinalists (those invited to the in-person assessments) presumably originated? I hope that's a clear question, but we can break this down into components so the criteria are better defined, and the follow-up questions are enumerated.

• Federal presence: This can mean one of a few things. First, and fundamentally, is there any Federal agency with an office in the city? For many cities, the answer is a qualified yes. Qualified, because even if a city has some Federal presence, this does not mean that the city is at all suited to hosting in-person assessments, either because it is located too far away from the bulk of semifinalists, or because it is simply too small to provide convenient transportation options. It turns out there is another way we can measure Federal presence in a city: The Federal Executive Boards (FEB). FEBs form a nationwide network of Federal branches providing communication and collaboration solutions to agencies outside the DC area. Given their wide geographic distribution, it seems clear that FEB cities might serve as a good starting point to analyze future in-person assessments. In the graphics below, I show a summary view of how many semifinalists were listed as closest to each of these cities.
• Semifinalists: I chose semifinalists from this year 1) because there were semifinalists for 2011, and 2) because semifinalists were the ones invited to take in-person assessments. It doesn't make much sense to me to choose nominees or finalists for this particular comparison, although choosing nominees would at least provide some information for future planning. What we know about semifinalists is the school they listed in their materials, and not much more. This is a limitation of the data set, of course, but it's all we have to work with. What we have to assume from it is that the schools in question were correctly identified for purposes of geolocation; that every semifinalists were correctly listed with their schools; and that the locations of the schools reflect the geographic origins of the semifinalists. That's a tall order, but again, what choice do we have? Some of these schools conduct extensive online programs that mean students could be widely dispersed beyond the brick-and-mortar campus. What we have, then, is close enough approximation of the truth for this analysis.

Now our question becomes this: Of the FEB cities, which are closely located around the most 2011 semifinalists? That is a question we can answer. I took the cities in which there are FEB offices and calculated the distance from that city to each of the 278 schools represented in the semifinalist data. Then I figured out, for each school, which was the closest FEB city. And finally, I aggregated the FEBs and summed up the semifinalists that were listed as closest to each FEB. That data is shown below:

One thing you'll notice, of course, is that Washington, DC, is listed here, even though it's not an FEB location. I trust you'll understand why this is the case. Regardless, what we see is that, outside Washington, DC, the top 5 FEB locations are Boston (161), Atlanta (118), New York City (110), Chicago (92), and San Francisco (76). If we were looking for validation of the 2011 in-person assessment location choices, this might suffice. What the top 5 FEB list doesn't really account for, though, is that there are significant numbers in other locations. The trick here would be to determine locations that are central to a region in some way. DC makes sense for most of the East Coast, especially given the ease of transportation between, for instance, Boston and DC. It is entirely fitting, then, to keep DC as an assessment location. Atlanta also makes sense for large portions of the South. The Midwest is well served by Chicago, and the West Coast is well served by San Francisco (although Los Angeles looks to be a good second choice). That just leaves areas like the North Plains and the Southwest less well served. But we can frame a different question that might help here. Let's eliminate all but one NE city (DC), one Southern city (Atlanta), one Midwest city (Chicago) and one Western city (San Francisco), leaving the others on the list to see what we can come up with. That leaves us with the following:

Based on this, I think we can recommend that either a city in Texas or Oklahoma City could serve as the only other location needed. I am choosing OKC because of its fairly central location compared to Denver and Albuquerque. If we do that, then the numbers look like this:

Even so, the payoff for adding OKC is much lower than other locations, and it may not ultimately be worth the effort to add the assessment location.

Next, let's see if we can determine whether there's a distance factor involved here. That is, if we take these five locations, is there an average distance we're looking for that might be ideal? The first table shows us a widely variable average distance between the school and the assessment center.

The largest average is for DC, but this can be partially explained by the large distribution of semifinalists (Boston to a point about halfway between Atlanta and DC) and the inclusion of overseas schools in this list, all of which are in excess of 2000 miles away. There aren't many, but they are enough to affect the result. Filtering those out will give us perhaps something more meaningful.

So there you have it. These are pretty good distances from what I can tell, but I am interested to know what you all think. As one final point of comparison, here are the average distances to the original in-person assessment locations. By omitting OKC, we raise the averages for Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta, but DC is unaffected.

Conclusion
So after examining the locations that might have made sense for the in-person assessment, what we found is that the original locations seemed to be about right. We could fragment the assessment centers a bit more by adding one in OKC, but doing much more than that seems to have a lower benefit. What do you all think? Were these distances doable for you? I know many of you would have preferred not to travel as far as you did, but consider the alternatives (such as all in-person assessments being held in DC). What locations do you think should be considered?

2011 PMF Appointments: Another Open Thread

The reason for this post is simple: I have Google set to turn on comment moderation on posts older than 30 days. If I don't post something today or tomorrow, those of you still conversing will have to wait for your comments to be published by me. Not only does this hamper your conversations, it is a bit burdensome to me as well, which is why I changed the site from moderating everything to what it is now (that was a while ago). Had I not done that, I would have had to approve all of the 2000+ comments you all have written over the past 3 months. As it is, I READ every comment, but I don't feel the need to moderate them all.

Anyway, please continue sharing your experiences as you go. I am planning some other exploratory and data analysis posts, but that process has gone a bit slower than I had desired. (This is *totally* not a call for some part-time help, no way, no how...OK, it is, if anyone wants to)

I'm not posting this one on GovLoop, because the threads over there are far from full. Ghost town is more like it.

Oh, and if there is a specific kind of post you would like me to write, let me know. I do take requests.

2011 PMF Survey: How did you do?

If you are a 2011 PMF finalist, please take the time to fill out this survey. I am collecting this information to get an idea of how effective the job fair was, and some information about the placement rates and geographic distribution of finalist appointments. If your information changes, go ahead and submit a new form. I will perform all the data cleanup this time next year or thereabout, once you all have had a chance to secure an appointment. Pass this link around to all of the 2011 PMFs you know or meet over the next year. If you want access to the information, email me at pmfellow@gmail.com and tell me your name, your school, and your degree so I can make sure you are who you say you are.

More PMF Finalist Data Visualizations

This is just a quick, fun update, an excuse to aggregate some data and display it in pretty charts for you. Good luck at the job fair, everyone! It looks like I will be at the GovLoop happy hour tomorrow after all, so look for a guy in a luchador mask ;)

The bar chart below is a Google Fusion Tables visualization of the absolute number of finalists year on year for the 10 top academic fields. That is, I took the ten academic fields that have produced the most PMF finalists in all the data years I have, then looked at each one in terms of how many finalists graduated with those degree fields in each year. It's obvious from this that the single largest group of finalists have law degrees, and other two of the top three fields are International Affairs/Administration/Studies and Public Administration/Policy. I don't think there's anything here that you didn't already know.

I also did this with the ten schools that have produced the most PMF finalists from 2009-2011. Again, we can see some pretty obvious things. First, four schools absolutely crush all of the others in terms of representation among finalists: George Washington, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard. Perhaps interestingly, the total number of finalists from these schools decrease in order of increasing distance from OPM (GW is right across the street from the OPM building, FYI).

These charts reinforce things we already know, or that we think we know. What about looking at the data a different way? After thinking about it, I tried sorting to see if there were any schools with finalists this year that didn't have any in 2009 or 2010. I came up with 57, and all but six of them fielded only 1 finalist this year. These are listed below.

I think there are some other ways I can explore this data, especially once it has all been completely loaded into my database for programmatic manipulation, aggregation, and such. As I get time and finish the imports, I will produce more of this.

Misc: Job Fair Guide, Happy Hour, and Collaboration Call

Since I didn't want to post three new (short) posts in succession, I figured I would lump these together. Anyway most of you are probably either in DC already or in various stages of arrival, so I want to keep this brief and to the point.

First, of course, there is the job fair. A number of folks working over at GovLoop have been kind and diligent enough to put together a pretty comprehensive guide to the PMF job fair. If you need some airplane reading, why not check it out? I haven't gone through all of it yet, but I concur with what I've read so far. It's at http://www.govloop.com/page/pmf-job-fair-guide

Second, also courtesy of GovLoop, a group of current and former PMFs will be meeting up for a happy hour on Wednesday, April 20 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at Old Dominion Brewery. More details and an RSVP form are at http://pmfgovup.eventbrite.com/

And finally, the collaboration call. So far, contentious though some of your banter has been, you have shown a great deal of willingness to collaborate, as evidenced by your shared Google Spreadsheet. Here is what I was hoping I could get you all to do. Using that same collaborative energy, let's try to collect as much tabular PMF information as we can. You can see the kind of information that is missing from the PMF site where it displays the finalist lists. Compare that with some of the requests you've made on the data visualization thread, and hopefully you can see where this is going. So we start with the data I already have in tabular format (I will be happy to make it available, names and all), and as you or finalists you know from this year's class accept PMF appointments, simply add into the spreadsheet which agency and the city and state where the appointee will be working. Is this something you all are interested in doing? With that data, we can, for probably the first time, gain an understanding of the geographic distribution of PMF placements, as opposed to the distribution of schools attended. Let me know in the comments what you would need to get this going, and I will provide my cleaned up data shared from my pmfellow@gmail.com account.

PMF Data 2009-2011

[Update 4/11/2011: As promised to those of you looking for CSV/Excel formatted data, here it is: http://pmfellow.kodingen.com/scripts/getcsv.php]

Here is another quick update to let you know that I have made available all of the finalists data from 2009-2011, in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format. If you ask nicely and want it, I can offer it in other formats as well.

The data can be retrieved here: http://pmfellow.kodingen.com/scripts/getjson.php

Available fields and descriptions are as follows:

• label: Either an MD5 hashed version of the original finalist name, or, because I didn't have the names available when I imported the data, something like "applicantX" where X is an incremental number.
• type: Currently only finalists are available, but when I get to it, other valid values, for which there are available rows, will be "semifinalists" and "nominees."
• year: The PMF class year. Not every record type is available for every year.
• rank: This is just the database unique record identifier; you don't really need it for anything.
• school: The corrected name of the school the individual PMF attended. By corrected, I mean the standardization I undertook as part of the record cleanup.
• field: Individual's academic field. No effort to standardize or clean these up occurred.
• latlng: The latitude and longitude of the school, as determined by a separate geocoding script. I expect some percentage of error to have occurred here, but see below for error reporting.

If you have questions about the data or spot any obvious errors, please let me know in the comments. As stated above, I have the greatest expectation of errors in the latitude and longitude data, but this can be fixed pretty easily if you just tell me which school is wrong, and what the correct lat/long should be.

Also, feel free to use the data however you see fit. If you have anything you're trying to put together, I would be happy to link to it. Similarly, I would be happy to help if you want data that's not currently there (assuming I have it).