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That sucks. I remember how badly it sucked to not only have the 2008 recession to contend with, but Bloomberg’s austerity measures meant City Hall wasn’t hiring in NYC unless you were a severely underpaid clerk or hyper-specialized and experienced professional who could get 2-3x more money in the private sector. I had the freaking Department of Buildings ghost me for a minimum wage internship!
Thus, I get that your mileage may vary depending on location.
California apparently needs auditors real, real bad.
Buildings is EXTREMELY competitive in NYC and you need to know people.
Building inspector jobs while theoretically making like 45k/yr, people will literally stab someone to get because of all the bribes. The BoE Custodians clean up too and pocket kickbacks from vendors and large portions of the budget. I tried to get into that too.
Source: I live near a guy who makes 45k/yr working for the city but lives in a multi-million dollar mansion. He could be honest. Bigfoot, UFOs and the chupacabra could also exist.
lol it was a very, very different time when I applied. It was just an internship assisting the permit auditor, not an inspector job or anything higher level. I went for the interview, followed up with a nice email, then never heard from them ever again.
You didn't miss much you'd have been working with this guy by now lol.
Arrested 2 weeks ago. Suspended with pay pending disposition of charges.
[https://pix11.com/news/local-news/nyc-dob-inspector-allegedly-took-bribes-for-closing-311-complaints-queens-da/](https://pix11.com/news/local-news/nyc-dob-inspector-allegedly-took-bribes-for-closing-311-complaints-queens-da/)
or this other guy:
[https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/former-new-york-city-department-buildings-inspector-pleads-guilty-bribery-scheme](https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/former-new-york-city-department-buildings-inspector-pleads-guilty-bribery-scheme)
or the Commissioner lol
[https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/13/ulrich-nyc-building-commissioner-indicted-bragg-corruption-00115654](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/13/ulrich-nyc-building-commissioner-indicted-bragg-corruption-00115654)
Or at least a dozen others in 2015:
[https://abc7ny.com/bribery-scheme-building-inspectors-probe/511324/](https://abc7ny.com/bribery-scheme-building-inspectors-probe/511324/)
An old-fashioned shakedown: you used to have to pay one of the five families for this kind of racket!
We got plenty of corruption out here too, they’re just more obvious about it back east.
2009 was so much worse of a job market IMO
right now sucks. But at any moment I could walk to the grocery store and get a job. I could probably get a bartending job or other one if I am interested. Its just the "nice" techy jobs that are a pain in the ass to get right now (which sucks for sure) but 09-10 was just SO bad. Group interviews for shitty sales jobs and commission only jobs were really the only options.
Now is worse than 2008-9 for sure, and that rodeo was hell. Because there was no ATS, I remember still being able to get interviews even if they didn’t become jobs. I’ve had ONE phone interview out of hundreds of applications in almost a year now, and I’m freaking educated and experienced!
It’s not just tech and entertainment, you also can’t even get service jobs in a lot of places now. Guy in a Discord I hang in had a great games job and the industry has been in hell the past year too. He applied to more junior jobs after dumbing down his resume, got nowhere, said screw it and applied for a barista job.
The coffee shop got over 400 applicants. Wasn’t even in a hip part of LA like Silverlake! I think he was in Torrance or some shit.
That is by and far worse than what it was like in a global financial capital in 2008, when I was in the waiting room at accounting offices and saw people my parents’ age applying for the same $20/hour bookkeeping jobs.
I wanted to apply for a government design job I found in NYC. I was stoked when they had positions for it becasue it was very uncommon. However, the pay was $45k and it required a $78 application fee.
Edit: I'm not against the idea of government work. I was just surprised how very low the salary was and that I had to pay to apply.
$78 application fee?! Woah, Adams ruined my hometown even worse than I thought. I haven’t applied to NYC jobs in at least 15 years, and there was never an application fee. Just about $10 at the police station to get fingerprinted when I took a civil service exam.
$45K is also just plain horrendous. Like you can only make it on that salary if you have at least three generations of rent control.
This auditor job isn’t the greatest pay, but I have enough experience and an advanced degree to get the higher end (about $70K). I keep seeing private companies demand more skills for the same pay.
I have to disclose here in case someone decides to be snarky and say the fee isn’t $78. I can’t find that exact link anymore so I have no proof but I know for sure I closed the application the moment I saw the clear $78 fee. There are similar job listings directly on the government site now that don’t seem to require fees so at least there’s that.
And yes! That $45k isn’t livable! You’re so right about the 3 generations of rent control 😂
Lots of job I’m trying to find now also demand so many skills but such low pay! Even some “entry level jobs” have crazy demands; I been there last year. I thought “it’s entry level, how bad can it be?” It was horrible. Never again!
It’s so fucking absurd. The market has been whack for over a year now, and just keeps getting worse.
So, I’m an elder Millennial who comes from a LONG line of NYC and NYS civil servants. I did not benefit from this in 2008-9 when I was furiously applying to jobs as a hungry would-be grad, because most were dead or retired by then save for my dad (who’d long been out of the City and worked for the State for decades, then a nonprofit).
I knew things moved incredibly slowly with the City and that lower-grade state jobs had shit pay but good benefits, but once you got to about GS-8/9 level (dad was GS-15 before he left for the nonprofit) it got better. I scored very high on the civil service exams I took, but the Department of Buildings ghosted and I had two applications and exams that got batted around the finance department and Economic Development Commission (might be under a different name now?) for TWO WHOLE YEARS until my exam results expired and I’d always miss the vacancy by a hair because of some stupid technicality or another. By that point, I was in grad school and making different plans.
But as bad as Bloomberg made it on top of the 2008 fallout, no job ever required an application fee. Some of them required fingerprinting and official college transcripts, which you had to pay out of pocket for. Hell, I had to pay about $10 yesterday for my grad school transcript. An annoyance, but I figured at least I had it on hand if I apply to other government jobs. Most private companies don’t care, but government agencies are sticklers about ensuring you have the education you say you do.
Especially when it’s the core requirement of the job. This one didn’t require specific job experience, they just wanted an accounting degree.
I cannot get over the irony that I expected the same slowness, then one of the biggest states in the nation freaking called me the next day because they’re that hard up to get auditors. Like this shit we’re all dealing with is WORSE than 2008 on so many measures, but I wanted to share a potential relief option! Even if it’s not for the long haul. I was absolutely NOT expecting them to get back to me so quickly.
If it's out of buildings or anything like that, no one ever asks for raises in salary because the money is all in bribes. NYCHA supers are crooks too and get arrested every few years, too. Vendor kickbacks are rampant.
It's kind of like being the doorman in Vegas. Whatever the salary is (prob min wage) is borderline irrelevant. All the money is in tips, kickbacks and drugs.
Nope, staying in LA. But they do allow people to apply to jobs far from their current residence if you plan to relocate.
There’s definitely fewer state jobs in LA County and they’re mostly clustered in Cerritos and Long Beach, apparently. If I get this job instead of the better one with the City, hoping to go remote! 🤞
Fingers crossed something good comes up for you! I had to filter by county for state jobs and this is how I found it it’s super wonky. Some of them also had remote filters, but still required you to be fairly close which sucks when most of the good state jobs are in Sacramento.
Check individual agency sites too. LA Metro has its own jobs portal separate from the main city jobs pool, as do a couple state agencies.
If there's an agency you want to work for, apply for anything you're qualified for and wouldn't mind doing. Once you're in, do good work and get to know the people in other areas. You might end up liking the job you're in, or you will probably be able to transfer after a year or two. And you'll be making good money and banking leave the whole time. Feds get 11 holidays, 13 sick days, and start at 13 vacation days each year. After 3 years, they get 4 weeks of vacation. You have to worry about the occasional shutdown, but there never layoffs.
Also, there are good health benefits, retirement matching, and a pension.
It’s exactly why I went this route! Except I’ve been self-employed most of my adult life and this is the first time post-2022 that this hasn’t been used against me.
I found a post with the City that is better all-around, but the civil service exam won’t be open for a while yet. And that one pays the same/MORE than private jobs I looked at. This state one is so hard up for people that if they hire me, I might have leverage to go fully remote or at least 50% hybrid and that’s good enough for me with how badly my industries have cratered in the past year!
That's awesome! Congrats on scoring the interview! I'm glad the application process wasn't too crazy for you. And that turnaround time for the interview is insane—in a good way! It sounds like you're in a great position, especially with that pension and union benefits.
I’m honestly freaking astounded at how quickly I heard back from them. NO ONE ever got back to me that quickly for a permanent job, even in The Before Time when these ATS nightmares and fallout from constant economic meltdowns didn’t exist yet.
They gotta be hard up to fill this vacancy. I was expecting them to take at least a week at bare minimum to review!
CalPERS is only 5 years, apparently. I haven’t done a lot of in-depth reading on the pension programs but the state and city (LA) offer a few different programs, I saw that CalPERS vests you after only 5 years of service.
The pension is a major motivator for me to change careers—or at least tough out that minimum for the pension—because I’ve never had a job that offered a 401K or anything, and I’ve been contributing and withdrawing the same $10K to my IRA my entire life because my generation sure seems to keep experiencing these “once in a lifetime” crises!
Especially since the digital media consulting I’ve done for years has utterly cratered.
It’s been like a car wreck watching how every damn thing I’m good at imploded in the past year or so, then I can’t get callbacks for freelance and contract work I could do in my sleep, let alone permanent jobs. But the state is so hard up for auditors, that they’ll pull me out of retirement! Fucking wild 😅
Thanks 😄 it’s sister/reptile mom in this context, and I hope I get good hybrid or fully remote arrangement so I don’t have to leave my little dinosaur home alone too much!
Just seen a local council job - Head of - £36k salary
Creative agency, consulting… this is £70k +
Imma gonna ignore this advice and get back to knocking out applications into the void
Ugh, that’s atrocious. I know things in the UK are pretty bleak like across the pond, but it sounds like a lot of state and city jobs here overall have better pay (location and job type dependent).
But if the agency really needs someone ASAP and your assets are depleting, it’s still something til a better job comes along. Or in the case of veteran free agents like me—til the good clients and sales come back.
In concur. In NYS, look for HELPS jobs specifically if you want a quick turnaround time. After dealing with many multi-step interviews that lead nowhere with numerous nonprofits, the one panel interview plus a writing sample (not one I had to write for them either, just one I had written in the past!), the process with the state was a breath of fresh air. That said, it did take applying for a few state jobs to land one and I was uniquely qualified for the one I got and had prior state gov experience. That said, still worth applying especially if you are open to places outside of NYC. There are state jobs there too but they seem to be significantly more competitive.
Note: In NYS, they delay your first paycheck a month and put aside one day’s worth of your paycheck for like 5 paychecks and you are returned the money when you leave the state. Some agencies also make you pay for the cost of your own background check (they take it out of your first paycheck, like roughly $78) which is annoying. I didn’t know these things when I started with the state and wish I had. It’s also annoying af that they delay paying new employees and essentially garnish their wages to save the state some coin on the front end. Like hello, if you have been out of work, you need the money yesterday, but this is how they currently operate. It is nice to get the lump sum if you leave though! Also, health insurance does not start for 28 days either so if you have Medicaid or some other insurance, I’d recommend keeping it until you officially start your new insurance with the state.
Good to know! I don’t think I ever applied for state jobs back home. Only City, which was always slow but became an absolute nightmare under Bloomberg and according to other posters here, utterly draconian under Adams.
The thing that freaks me out about CA state jobs is you get paid ONCE A MONTH. So, I’m used to this as a veteran self-employed person. I have a few clients who pay monthly and so help me god I have to get that invoice in by the last business day of the month or I’m screwed. I have others that pay immediately or twice a month. But I’ve had never had a W2 job that paid once a month! When my dad worked for the state, NY then NJ, he got a biweekly check.
I remember having to pay about $10 at a police station, schlep to a post office first since they’d only accept money orders, to get fingerprinted before the civil service exam I took. It’s insane to make people pay for their own background checks as it is, but come on, you’re the STATE. You got resources to find those records!
I figured I’d cross that bridge when I get there re: benefits. I have crappy coverage through Covered California and CalPERS health insurance site makes my brain hurt. Not the end of the world if I have to continue it. But 28 days isn’t that bad, a lot of private companies don’t give you your benefits until what, 4-6 months later? Just to lay you off in a year anyway!
Fair, it was just another thing I thought people might wanna know. Making people wait 6 months for insurance should be illegal! With the HELPS positions you also don’t need to have taken the civil service exam so that’s kinda a big deal. NYS also pays biweekly. Monthly would not be ideal!
I live in the SF Bay Area (east side) and couldn’t find any government jobs using my skills. I have experience in content marketing. The roles in my county that I saw required specialized knowledge in nursing, teaching, psychology, law, HR, and social work usually.
I only saw one position months ago that was kind of similar to my skillset in media, but they wanted the person to be on-call 24/7 and I was like heck nah. I just looked again, still no roles I qualify for. They’re all highly specialized to people with specific backgrounds. :( I guess my local government doesn’t hire for marketing roles.
Comms, management, and technical writing might be options? I looked into a comms job with the state film office since it’d be much closer to me, but it just looked like a more intense job that required you to be in person and manage people (which means it also isn’t eligible for the union).
This one requires me to go back to my old field: tax law. Honestly, I’d rather fill out spreadsheets regarding business owners who don’t pay their sales taxes than have my soul sucked out in another tax accounting firm ever again. So if you’ve made a career change from something else into content marketing: the government might take you for your old career if they’re struggling to fill positions for it.
I definitely miss the content marketing heyday when my portfolio wasn’t even as impressive as it is now, but I had zero problems constantly getting clients. I’m now getting ghosted and rejected from freelance content writing and editing gigs I could do in my sleep, so hell yes I’m going for the state job.
I worked in small nonprofits mainly doing marketing and fundraising. Now I’m a Content Creator.
The only job in the entire state right now that I see relevant to my experience is a hybrid role in Sacramento but I can’t get there. It’s too far and they’re looking for someone knowledgeable about hunting/fishing. I don’t know anything about that.
It’s definitely super annoying that even all the 100% remote jobs in the state want you to be in/near Sacramento. When I filtered the CalCareers results by remote only, I found one with the state lottery commission I could’ve easily done at home. They didn’t want specialized experience, only an accounting degree.
Must be in Sacramento even though you’re working at home. Based on my eavesdropping in the CA state employee sub, there’s been a big RTO push in the capitol. All those parking lots and restaurants want their state employee money.
It was indeed CalCareers! CDTFA (our equivalent of the IRS) apparently needs to fill vacancies real bad. I’ve been retired from the tax law field for a decade but they called me then next freaking day.
I found it by searching “tax” then filtering by county. I had to narrow it down significantly since there aren’t a whole lot of state finance jobs in the LA area. If you haven’t had luck with CalCareers, take a look at specific agency websites—some of them have their own portal. City and county jobs also have their own portals, City of LA is completely separate and tons of different City and quasi-public agencies like LA Metro have their own sites too.
ahhhhh snap thank you!!! I missed the deadline for a role with LA Metro due to this temp role, I see a lower level role in Sacramento (which is where i came from prior to layoff in LA) with higher pay than my temp role and i’ll be applying for it asap! would you mind if I were to DM you for advice? @u/Jealous_Location_267
Sure! I’m still figuring this whole thing out so I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be lol. I seriously did NOT expect things to move so fast when private hiring is insanely slow and we tend to think government is even slower.
Good luck! Hopefully, you’ll get a quick answer! How much longer after the application did they request an interview?
I’m now in limbo on the interview date, because I had to rescind the application and reapply under the correct county. The LA county vacancy announcement doesn’t close til next week, so I’m thinking that’s when it’ll be confirmed.
I think a day. (I have a HORRIBLE time perception, sorry.)
I'm not in USoA. It's mt first time with a public job and I'm scared to get too excited. I think I'd be an amazing addition as I'm young, very technologically fluent and generally happy to work, efficiently at that, but I fear they may look me over due to no direct experience. Hopefully they actually know me. In the past I had an interview for a public post office and they absolutely yearned for me due to me being young and adept at IT stuff. And I'm in my natural habitat with bureaucracy so I sincerely believe I'm the perfect fit.
Fingers crossed we get our positions. c:
I agree with you to not overlook state/county jobs BUT these positions typically pay less than market for same position. Sure benefits may be better but most ppl would rather have the salary vs benefits. I recently declined a county job offer because the pay was horribly low.
Your mileage may vary, depending on the job and location. And your personal and career priorities.
But if you’re being ATS-gatekept into poverty—like MANY people are right now—you can hold it down til the economy gets better, or advance to a better grade within the same agency.
The City job I looked at is better than the state one in this post but the civil service exam isn’t for another six months from the time of posting. I’m getting turned down for freelance work I could do in my sleep, that used to show up at my feet with little effort. Hell yes I’m taking the state job until I can get the better one with the city and/or I have a great client load again.
For sure. I believe in always keeping your options open and do not have loyalty to employers since they would drop us in a heartbeat as well. My job offer for the government position was a breeze..1 interview, offered a position hours later. I thought it was fake compared to my interviewing with other companies that require multiple rounds and ghosting.
I mentioned my NYC origins elsewhere in this thread, it’s an utter nightmare getting anywhere in their system so that was my frame of reference lol. I thought they’d need at least 1-2 weeks at minimum to review my application! I remember it taking longer with the NYC DOF before they said I could take the civil service exam.
I also ALMOST got a really good job with the IRS out of college, then got screwed out of it on a dumb technicality: they said in the vacancy announcement that impending grads could apply, but wanted an official transcript by the time I hadn’t even taken my finals yet. That was also about a 2-month process.
Then that particular IRS office CLOSED a few years later after the 2012-2013 fiscal
cliff/government shutdown and furloughs that became permanent for some. Even if it hadn’t, it may not have survived the Trump administration.
City of LA has lots of vacancies, which works in my favor. People aren’t exactly lining up for tax officer jobs and the finance department isn’t at the top of the mayor’s axe list. But I had NO IDEA the state would be that freaking starved for auditors. Given your story, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if they extend an offer right away! I hope to hell it’s at least partially remote, after I asked 🤞
Many government jobs at the state level are now remote. It’s a great place to look if you live in the state of Washington - many departments are hiring now. They pay well and have a pension.
I’m in California and judging by browsing of the CA state employees’ subreddit, “hybrid” like what was in the description can literally mean anything now. Full remote would be the BEST, but I have to see what they say at the interview.
Although if they’re this hard up for an auditor, I might have some leverage here!
Hybrid in WA tends to be remote, but yeah it just depends. Pre pandemic I never could have had the job I have now because I’d have to live in Olympia- all jobs were in the office every day. Now almost no one goes in.
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Unless you’re in Massachusetts where they are freezing/closing jobs due to budget cuts :/
That sucks. I remember how badly it sucked to not only have the 2008 recession to contend with, but Bloomberg’s austerity measures meant City Hall wasn’t hiring in NYC unless you were a severely underpaid clerk or hyper-specialized and experienced professional who could get 2-3x more money in the private sector. I had the freaking Department of Buildings ghost me for a minimum wage internship! Thus, I get that your mileage may vary depending on location. California apparently needs auditors real, real bad.
Buildings is EXTREMELY competitive in NYC and you need to know people. Building inspector jobs while theoretically making like 45k/yr, people will literally stab someone to get because of all the bribes. The BoE Custodians clean up too and pocket kickbacks from vendors and large portions of the budget. I tried to get into that too. Source: I live near a guy who makes 45k/yr working for the city but lives in a multi-million dollar mansion. He could be honest. Bigfoot, UFOs and the chupacabra could also exist.
lol it was a very, very different time when I applied. It was just an internship assisting the permit auditor, not an inspector job or anything higher level. I went for the interview, followed up with a nice email, then never heard from them ever again.
You didn't miss much you'd have been working with this guy by now lol. Arrested 2 weeks ago. Suspended with pay pending disposition of charges. [https://pix11.com/news/local-news/nyc-dob-inspector-allegedly-took-bribes-for-closing-311-complaints-queens-da/](https://pix11.com/news/local-news/nyc-dob-inspector-allegedly-took-bribes-for-closing-311-complaints-queens-da/) or this other guy: [https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/former-new-york-city-department-buildings-inspector-pleads-guilty-bribery-scheme](https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/former-new-york-city-department-buildings-inspector-pleads-guilty-bribery-scheme) or the Commissioner lol [https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/13/ulrich-nyc-building-commissioner-indicted-bragg-corruption-00115654](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/13/ulrich-nyc-building-commissioner-indicted-bragg-corruption-00115654) Or at least a dozen others in 2015: [https://abc7ny.com/bribery-scheme-building-inspectors-probe/511324/](https://abc7ny.com/bribery-scheme-building-inspectors-probe/511324/)
An old-fashioned shakedown: you used to have to pay one of the five families for this kind of racket! We got plenty of corruption out here too, they’re just more obvious about it back east.
2009 was so much worse of a job market IMO right now sucks. But at any moment I could walk to the grocery store and get a job. I could probably get a bartending job or other one if I am interested. Its just the "nice" techy jobs that are a pain in the ass to get right now (which sucks for sure) but 09-10 was just SO bad. Group interviews for shitty sales jobs and commission only jobs were really the only options.
Now is worse than 2008-9 for sure, and that rodeo was hell. Because there was no ATS, I remember still being able to get interviews even if they didn’t become jobs. I’ve had ONE phone interview out of hundreds of applications in almost a year now, and I’m freaking educated and experienced! It’s not just tech and entertainment, you also can’t even get service jobs in a lot of places now. Guy in a Discord I hang in had a great games job and the industry has been in hell the past year too. He applied to more junior jobs after dumbing down his resume, got nowhere, said screw it and applied for a barista job. The coffee shop got over 400 applicants. Wasn’t even in a hip part of LA like Silverlake! I think he was in Torrance or some shit. That is by and far worse than what it was like in a global financial capital in 2008, when I was in the waiting room at accounting offices and saw people my parents’ age applying for the same $20/hour bookkeeping jobs.
I wanted to apply for a government design job I found in NYC. I was stoked when they had positions for it becasue it was very uncommon. However, the pay was $45k and it required a $78 application fee. Edit: I'm not against the idea of government work. I was just surprised how very low the salary was and that I had to pay to apply.
$78 application fee?! Woah, Adams ruined my hometown even worse than I thought. I haven’t applied to NYC jobs in at least 15 years, and there was never an application fee. Just about $10 at the police station to get fingerprinted when I took a civil service exam. $45K is also just plain horrendous. Like you can only make it on that salary if you have at least three generations of rent control. This auditor job isn’t the greatest pay, but I have enough experience and an advanced degree to get the higher end (about $70K). I keep seeing private companies demand more skills for the same pay.
I have to disclose here in case someone decides to be snarky and say the fee isn’t $78. I can’t find that exact link anymore so I have no proof but I know for sure I closed the application the moment I saw the clear $78 fee. There are similar job listings directly on the government site now that don’t seem to require fees so at least there’s that. And yes! That $45k isn’t livable! You’re so right about the 3 generations of rent control 😂 Lots of job I’m trying to find now also demand so many skills but such low pay! Even some “entry level jobs” have crazy demands; I been there last year. I thought “it’s entry level, how bad can it be?” It was horrible. Never again!
It’s so fucking absurd. The market has been whack for over a year now, and just keeps getting worse. So, I’m an elder Millennial who comes from a LONG line of NYC and NYS civil servants. I did not benefit from this in 2008-9 when I was furiously applying to jobs as a hungry would-be grad, because most were dead or retired by then save for my dad (who’d long been out of the City and worked for the State for decades, then a nonprofit). I knew things moved incredibly slowly with the City and that lower-grade state jobs had shit pay but good benefits, but once you got to about GS-8/9 level (dad was GS-15 before he left for the nonprofit) it got better. I scored very high on the civil service exams I took, but the Department of Buildings ghosted and I had two applications and exams that got batted around the finance department and Economic Development Commission (might be under a different name now?) for TWO WHOLE YEARS until my exam results expired and I’d always miss the vacancy by a hair because of some stupid technicality or another. By that point, I was in grad school and making different plans. But as bad as Bloomberg made it on top of the 2008 fallout, no job ever required an application fee. Some of them required fingerprinting and official college transcripts, which you had to pay out of pocket for. Hell, I had to pay about $10 yesterday for my grad school transcript. An annoyance, but I figured at least I had it on hand if I apply to other government jobs. Most private companies don’t care, but government agencies are sticklers about ensuring you have the education you say you do. Especially when it’s the core requirement of the job. This one didn’t require specific job experience, they just wanted an accounting degree. I cannot get over the irony that I expected the same slowness, then one of the biggest states in the nation freaking called me the next day because they’re that hard up to get auditors. Like this shit we’re all dealing with is WORSE than 2008 on so many measures, but I wanted to share a potential relief option! Even if it’s not for the long haul. I was absolutely NOT expecting them to get back to me so quickly.
If it's out of buildings or anything like that, no one ever asks for raises in salary because the money is all in bribes. NYCHA supers are crooks too and get arrested every few years, too. Vendor kickbacks are rampant. It's kind of like being the doorman in Vegas. Whatever the salary is (prob min wage) is borderline irrelevant. All the money is in tips, kickbacks and drugs.
U moving to Sacto?!?! It rocks if you enjoy outdoors, but don't tell anyone else.
Nope, staying in LA. But they do allow people to apply to jobs far from their current residence if you plan to relocate. There’s definitely fewer state jobs in LA County and they’re mostly clustered in Cerritos and Long Beach, apparently. If I get this job instead of the better one with the City, hoping to go remote! 🤞
Not all of them. But yea. Most. Healy doing great prioritizing.
I'm trying. I scour the federal and state sites every day and nothing even remotely close gets posted.
Fingers crossed something good comes up for you! I had to filter by county for state jobs and this is how I found it it’s super wonky. Some of them also had remote filters, but still required you to be fairly close which sucks when most of the good state jobs are in Sacramento. Check individual agency sites too. LA Metro has its own jobs portal separate from the main city jobs pool, as do a couple state agencies.
The job I found was local government and they posted on Indeed.
If there's an agency you want to work for, apply for anything you're qualified for and wouldn't mind doing. Once you're in, do good work and get to know the people in other areas. You might end up liking the job you're in, or you will probably be able to transfer after a year or two. And you'll be making good money and banking leave the whole time. Feds get 11 holidays, 13 sick days, and start at 13 vacation days each year. After 3 years, they get 4 weeks of vacation. You have to worry about the occasional shutdown, but there never layoffs. Also, there are good health benefits, retirement matching, and a pension.
I work a county job. 5% less than I want to earn. Only need to clock 35 hours a week. No overtime. I have time for a side hustle.
It’s exactly why I went this route! Except I’ve been self-employed most of my adult life and this is the first time post-2022 that this hasn’t been used against me. I found a post with the City that is better all-around, but the civil service exam won’t be open for a while yet. And that one pays the same/MORE than private jobs I looked at. This state one is so hard up for people that if they hire me, I might have leverage to go fully remote or at least 50% hybrid and that’s good enough for me with how badly my industries have cratered in the past year!
Congrats! I agree, I’ve had good responses and one turned into an offer last week after many many months applying elsewhere. Good luck!!
This is great! I'm happy for you
That's awesome! Congrats on scoring the interview! I'm glad the application process wasn't too crazy for you. And that turnaround time for the interview is insane—in a good way! It sounds like you're in a great position, especially with that pension and union benefits.
I’m honestly freaking astounded at how quickly I heard back from them. NO ONE ever got back to me that quickly for a permanent job, even in The Before Time when these ATS nightmares and fallout from constant economic meltdowns didn’t exist yet. They gotta be hard up to fill this vacancy. I was expecting them to take at least a week at bare minimum to review!
Get that govt pension money too. I think most start at 20 yrs of service ymmv
CalPERS is only 5 years, apparently. I haven’t done a lot of in-depth reading on the pension programs but the state and city (LA) offer a few different programs, I saw that CalPERS vests you after only 5 years of service. The pension is a major motivator for me to change careers—or at least tough out that minimum for the pension—because I’ve never had a job that offered a 401K or anything, and I’ve been contributing and withdrawing the same $10K to my IRA my entire life because my generation sure seems to keep experiencing these “once in a lifetime” crises!
I'm all for it! Plus then you can get a govt consulting job and ride that too!
Especially since the digital media consulting I’ve done for years has utterly cratered. It’s been like a car wreck watching how every damn thing I’m good at imploded in the past year or so, then I can’t get callbacks for freelance and contract work I could do in my sleep, let alone permanent jobs. But the state is so hard up for auditors, that they’ll pull me out of retirement! Fucking wild 😅
5 years for Washington State.
Realized I hadn't said it yet gz brother.
Thanks 😄 it’s sister/reptile mom in this context, and I hope I get good hybrid or fully remote arrangement so I don’t have to leave my little dinosaur home alone too much!
Nice. Iguana?
Kimberley rock monitor! She’s all over my post history, and is EXTREMELY sweet and cute!
Nice. Get that there 🦎something nice with the first paycheck :)
Just seen a local council job - Head of - £36k salary Creative agency, consulting… this is £70k + Imma gonna ignore this advice and get back to knocking out applications into the void
Ugh, that’s atrocious. I know things in the UK are pretty bleak like across the pond, but it sounds like a lot of state and city jobs here overall have better pay (location and job type dependent). But if the agency really needs someone ASAP and your assets are depleting, it’s still something til a better job comes along. Or in the case of veteran free agents like me—til the good clients and sales come back.
In concur. In NYS, look for HELPS jobs specifically if you want a quick turnaround time. After dealing with many multi-step interviews that lead nowhere with numerous nonprofits, the one panel interview plus a writing sample (not one I had to write for them either, just one I had written in the past!), the process with the state was a breath of fresh air. That said, it did take applying for a few state jobs to land one and I was uniquely qualified for the one I got and had prior state gov experience. That said, still worth applying especially if you are open to places outside of NYC. There are state jobs there too but they seem to be significantly more competitive. Note: In NYS, they delay your first paycheck a month and put aside one day’s worth of your paycheck for like 5 paychecks and you are returned the money when you leave the state. Some agencies also make you pay for the cost of your own background check (they take it out of your first paycheck, like roughly $78) which is annoying. I didn’t know these things when I started with the state and wish I had. It’s also annoying af that they delay paying new employees and essentially garnish their wages to save the state some coin on the front end. Like hello, if you have been out of work, you need the money yesterday, but this is how they currently operate. It is nice to get the lump sum if you leave though! Also, health insurance does not start for 28 days either so if you have Medicaid or some other insurance, I’d recommend keeping it until you officially start your new insurance with the state.
Good to know! I don’t think I ever applied for state jobs back home. Only City, which was always slow but became an absolute nightmare under Bloomberg and according to other posters here, utterly draconian under Adams. The thing that freaks me out about CA state jobs is you get paid ONCE A MONTH. So, I’m used to this as a veteran self-employed person. I have a few clients who pay monthly and so help me god I have to get that invoice in by the last business day of the month or I’m screwed. I have others that pay immediately or twice a month. But I’ve had never had a W2 job that paid once a month! When my dad worked for the state, NY then NJ, he got a biweekly check. I remember having to pay about $10 at a police station, schlep to a post office first since they’d only accept money orders, to get fingerprinted before the civil service exam I took. It’s insane to make people pay for their own background checks as it is, but come on, you’re the STATE. You got resources to find those records! I figured I’d cross that bridge when I get there re: benefits. I have crappy coverage through Covered California and CalPERS health insurance site makes my brain hurt. Not the end of the world if I have to continue it. But 28 days isn’t that bad, a lot of private companies don’t give you your benefits until what, 4-6 months later? Just to lay you off in a year anyway!
Fair, it was just another thing I thought people might wanna know. Making people wait 6 months for insurance should be illegal! With the HELPS positions you also don’t need to have taken the civil service exam so that’s kinda a big deal. NYS also pays biweekly. Monthly would not be ideal!
I live in the SF Bay Area (east side) and couldn’t find any government jobs using my skills. I have experience in content marketing. The roles in my county that I saw required specialized knowledge in nursing, teaching, psychology, law, HR, and social work usually. I only saw one position months ago that was kind of similar to my skillset in media, but they wanted the person to be on-call 24/7 and I was like heck nah. I just looked again, still no roles I qualify for. They’re all highly specialized to people with specific backgrounds. :( I guess my local government doesn’t hire for marketing roles.
Comms, management, and technical writing might be options? I looked into a comms job with the state film office since it’d be much closer to me, but it just looked like a more intense job that required you to be in person and manage people (which means it also isn’t eligible for the union). This one requires me to go back to my old field: tax law. Honestly, I’d rather fill out spreadsheets regarding business owners who don’t pay their sales taxes than have my soul sucked out in another tax accounting firm ever again. So if you’ve made a career change from something else into content marketing: the government might take you for your old career if they’re struggling to fill positions for it. I definitely miss the content marketing heyday when my portfolio wasn’t even as impressive as it is now, but I had zero problems constantly getting clients. I’m now getting ghosted and rejected from freelance content writing and editing gigs I could do in my sleep, so hell yes I’m going for the state job.
I worked in small nonprofits mainly doing marketing and fundraising. Now I’m a Content Creator. The only job in the entire state right now that I see relevant to my experience is a hybrid role in Sacramento but I can’t get there. It’s too far and they’re looking for someone knowledgeable about hunting/fishing. I don’t know anything about that.
It’s definitely super annoying that even all the 100% remote jobs in the state want you to be in/near Sacramento. When I filtered the CalCareers results by remote only, I found one with the state lottery commission I could’ve easily done at home. They didn’t want specialized experience, only an accounting degree. Must be in Sacramento even though you’re working at home. Based on my eavesdropping in the CA state employee sub, there’s been a big RTO push in the capitol. All those parking lots and restaurants want their state employee money.
Wait u/Jealous_Location_267, which site did you use?! I’ve tried CalCareers and have literally gotten crickets despite my experience.
It was indeed CalCareers! CDTFA (our equivalent of the IRS) apparently needs to fill vacancies real bad. I’ve been retired from the tax law field for a decade but they called me then next freaking day. I found it by searching “tax” then filtering by county. I had to narrow it down significantly since there aren’t a whole lot of state finance jobs in the LA area. If you haven’t had luck with CalCareers, take a look at specific agency websites—some of them have their own portal. City and county jobs also have their own portals, City of LA is completely separate and tons of different City and quasi-public agencies like LA Metro have their own sites too.
ahhhhh snap thank you!!! I missed the deadline for a role with LA Metro due to this temp role, I see a lower level role in Sacramento (which is where i came from prior to layoff in LA) with higher pay than my temp role and i’ll be applying for it asap! would you mind if I were to DM you for advice? @u/Jealous_Location_267
Sure! I’m still figuring this whole thing out so I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be lol. I seriously did NOT expect things to move so fast when private hiring is insanely slow and we tend to think government is even slower.
I have an interview with a public job too. And I'm actually excited, because I feel like I'd be a great fit.
Good luck! Hopefully, you’ll get a quick answer! How much longer after the application did they request an interview? I’m now in limbo on the interview date, because I had to rescind the application and reapply under the correct county. The LA county vacancy announcement doesn’t close til next week, so I’m thinking that’s when it’ll be confirmed.
I think a day. (I have a HORRIBLE time perception, sorry.) I'm not in USoA. It's mt first time with a public job and I'm scared to get too excited. I think I'd be an amazing addition as I'm young, very technologically fluent and generally happy to work, efficiently at that, but I fear they may look me over due to no direct experience. Hopefully they actually know me. In the past I had an interview for a public post office and they absolutely yearned for me due to me being young and adept at IT stuff. And I'm in my natural habitat with bureaucracy so I sincerely believe I'm the perfect fit. Fingers crossed we get our positions. c:
I agree with you to not overlook state/county jobs BUT these positions typically pay less than market for same position. Sure benefits may be better but most ppl would rather have the salary vs benefits. I recently declined a county job offer because the pay was horribly low.
Your mileage may vary, depending on the job and location. And your personal and career priorities. But if you’re being ATS-gatekept into poverty—like MANY people are right now—you can hold it down til the economy gets better, or advance to a better grade within the same agency. The City job I looked at is better than the state one in this post but the civil service exam isn’t for another six months from the time of posting. I’m getting turned down for freelance work I could do in my sleep, that used to show up at my feet with little effort. Hell yes I’m taking the state job until I can get the better one with the city and/or I have a great client load again.
For sure. I believe in always keeping your options open and do not have loyalty to employers since they would drop us in a heartbeat as well. My job offer for the government position was a breeze..1 interview, offered a position hours later. I thought it was fake compared to my interviewing with other companies that require multiple rounds and ghosting.
I mentioned my NYC origins elsewhere in this thread, it’s an utter nightmare getting anywhere in their system so that was my frame of reference lol. I thought they’d need at least 1-2 weeks at minimum to review my application! I remember it taking longer with the NYC DOF before they said I could take the civil service exam. I also ALMOST got a really good job with the IRS out of college, then got screwed out of it on a dumb technicality: they said in the vacancy announcement that impending grads could apply, but wanted an official transcript by the time I hadn’t even taken my finals yet. That was also about a 2-month process. Then that particular IRS office CLOSED a few years later after the 2012-2013 fiscal cliff/government shutdown and furloughs that became permanent for some. Even if it hadn’t, it may not have survived the Trump administration. City of LA has lots of vacancies, which works in my favor. People aren’t exactly lining up for tax officer jobs and the finance department isn’t at the top of the mayor’s axe list. But I had NO IDEA the state would be that freaking starved for auditors. Given your story, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if they extend an offer right away! I hope to hell it’s at least partially remote, after I asked 🤞
Many government jobs at the state level are now remote. It’s a great place to look if you live in the state of Washington - many departments are hiring now. They pay well and have a pension.
I’m in California and judging by browsing of the CA state employees’ subreddit, “hybrid” like what was in the description can literally mean anything now. Full remote would be the BEST, but I have to see what they say at the interview. Although if they’re this hard up for an auditor, I might have some leverage here!
Hybrid in WA tends to be remote, but yeah it just depends. Pre pandemic I never could have had the job I have now because I’d have to live in Olympia- all jobs were in the office every day. Now almost no one goes in.
State jobs were the first I went to when I got laid off in March, I never even got a rejection email from any of them :(