If you've ever written a KSA, I Know Your Pain

I just spent the whole afternoon/evening writing up an application for a new federal job. I'm currently rather happily employed with the feds but in a random scan of USAjobs I found a couple jobs that look like fun and would be a promotion so I thought I'd toss in my hat.

However, I forgot how painful the process is! I already had my resume relatively up to date so I didn't think applying would be too much work but I forgot about the KSAs! The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities essays. Each federal job posting is harboring 4 or 5 evil little essay topics that require you to rip-out out of your brain some coherent arrangement of words which show off your highly-qualified-uniqueness in a way that will get you the highest score and beat out the throngs of other federal wanna-bes. But usually the KSAs are all about communication skills or some other lame-o rather ubiquitous skill that is hard to show off in any concise way and leaves you wondering what they are really looking for and if you just wasted your afternoon rattling on about your leadership skills.

I don't think I could have made it through the evening if I hadn't taken a solid hit of Will Ferrell: I went and saw Blades of Glory. I recommend going in with low expectations and then you will be pleasantly surprised!