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Federal Contract Specialist Case Study

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Contract Specialist In this paper I will discuss the various aspects of a Federal Contract Specialist position and what makes it different from many other government jobs. Some people think contracting is just shopping for a living, however, it requires great skill and attention to detail. Contract Specialists must be able to communicate effectively with their customers, vendors and other contracting personnel and they must be able to accurately interpret regulations and apply them appropriately. This position is a little bit customer service representative, a little bit personal shopper and a whole lot of legal assistant. TASKS. The Federal Contract Specialist position is responsible for a full range of contracting functions to include …show more content…

Twenty five years ago I was looking through the Help Wanted section of the paper and saw an ad for Federal Technician testing. I took the test and was hired without so much as an interview or a question except the inquiry as to whether I was still interested in the position. In foresight, the Federal test was incredibly simplistic. In hindsight it was highly specialized. There were groups of thirteen digit numbers needing to be identified by how many matched or how many did not. There were basic mathematical equations with ridiculously high numbers. There were, in my opinion, blatantly obvious grammatical questions in which the test taker picked the proper sentence out of a group. “I ain’t got none of that no how,” was an actual sentence. Surprisingly, I know people who have failed this …show more content…

The down side to the Federal Technician testing is that each employee was hired sight-unseen based on our test scores. While each and every one of us was excellent at the jobs we were hired for, there were some fairly serious personality and hygiene issues in the bunch. One of the hires weighed over 500 pounds and, though intelligent, required two plane tickets every time she traveled. Another had such repulsive personal hygiene issues that the entire office turned against her, customers wouldn’t work with her and she was ultimately asked to resign. An interview would have not only established the individual’s capabilities but would have identified those that would ultimately become a liability to the

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