TVA - What qualifies as 'local candidate' ?

[atomicairdale1]

  Recently I was told that although I am a veteran, and passed the screening and POSS test, I will not be invited to interview, as there were enough qualified 'local candidates'. Does anyone know what the criteria is for being a local candidate?

  Thanks,

  Bill

[Fermi2]

1: Be a resident of the Tennessee Valley.

2: Be a resident of within 50 miles of the site where you want the job.


Mike

[Fermi2]

It's pretty much something you can't get around. Financially it makes sense because within 50 miles you don't have to pay for a move.

Second: The top priority and in fact it's stated in the Act that Established TVA is for the TVA to improve the quality of life for the residents of, and bring prosperity to the Tennessee Valley. One of the ways is to hire as much as possible residents of the Valley. It's one of those complying with the law sort of things. There's no real way of getting around it.

If they get enough qualified candidates from within the Valley for interviews those are all the people they'll interview. Since for most positions TVA tries to interview about 3 people for every open position it's not like they're hurting for qualified Valley residents if they're turning down non valley people. I know TVA is a stickler about the 3 to 1 ratio for interviews because I've heard it from a lot of HR people.

Just to give you a quick example of how many people probably applied for the job...

A few AUO classes ago I believe they hired something like 18 or 20 people, something like 1200 applied for the job. When we hired the last class (15) we had something like 300 or 400 applicants. After the EEI we had something like 100 left of which we interviewed 40.

Mike

[atomicairdale1]

   Thats insane. I would never have figured there were that many qualified people in that small of an area. My company (Evil Empire) has a devil of a time finding qualified candidates. They pay for people to come take the POSS test. When I hired in 6 yrs ago, my class of 18 didn't have one person from within 100 miles, and only 1 guy from the same state!
  As a matter of fact, 2 months ago, we were hiring a new class, and I gave my Ops Director a resume of a girl my wife works with, and she got a phone call the next day, to come take the test in 2 days!

[aturner]

Yep!  Looks like this one may have gotten me too. 



Hey Broad,
     Am I right that an applicant could actually have everything in line including the residency requirement and just happen to not get an interview because there were so many applicants and they just don't get to his application and resume??  Sounds like it could be a crap shoot as to whether or not you get picked.  I hope its not alphabetical by last name??  Although first name would be good.  (Adam Turner)

   All jokes aside, it's gonna take more than this to keep me from trying.  There have got to be other ways to get noticed and get a foot in the door.  I'm gonna check out this site for any 'backdoors' into Ops.

Thanks for the info. guys!!

Adam

[Fermi2]

Ok I don't work at BFN so I can't really say outside of being a Valley resident what other criteria they used. I do know it's generally the same, Within 50 miles of the plant has priority, then living within the valley then whatever criteria are applied. For instance, being a member of the Union gets you an interview provided you meet all other entrance criteria. That's standard at all plants. Also for a turners benefit, If you passed the EEI your resume would have been screened by the plant but not until then. When TVA Posts a bid literally hundreds of people apply for it. When the bid closes and all EEI testing is complete HR sends out what is called a Sourcing Report. Everyone who passed the EEI will be on it, along with their resumes. They don't screen until they get the desired amount of interviewees. They screen ALL resumes sent, THEN select the candidates from that. There are certain requirements that are more or less graded, for instance Naval Experience gets one so many points and on and on. Degrees(Provided it's a technical degree, and associates counts) count for a certain amount but usually at the NLO Position Naval Experience is equivalent to a degree. Having a degree and Naval experience usually won't put you ahead of someone who has only one or the other since they are considered equivalent. In fact find the ANSI Standard and you'll find the requirements.

After you are selected for an Interview NONE OF YOUR BACKGROUND MATTERS at least for the NLO position, how you do in the interview determines whether you get the job. In other words how you got the interview is seperate from how you do in the interview.

I do assure atomicairedale we get more than enough qualified candidates within a 50 mile radius. The valley has quite a large population, especially within spitting distance of the power plants, and more are moving here everyday. When I said we had 100 EEI passees for our last AUO interviews I meant we had about 100 that passed and scored high based on their resumes AND lived in or near the valley. The plant can elect to interview anyone from anywhere, there's no problem with that, however if you have two candidates and you can only choose one you better have a heck of a good justification to hire the one from outside the valley or outside the 50 mile radius from the plant. It goes back to that TVA Mission thing. All hiring is ultimastely approved by the CNO for TVAN and if he sees someone from outside the valley he'll question it.  I was involved in the selection of the candidates and the interviewing, I can assure you they were plenty qualified, out of the ones we interviewed (around 40 or so) I would have hired about 35 if I could.

One of the reasons I'm glad I had an SRO License and was a Shift Manager is that more or less bypasses a lot of that stuff because the bid entailed some unique qualifications.

My best advice, on the TVA website if there's a job you think you might remotely be qualified for BID IT! Then if you get the job and want to bid into Operations you'll be a TVA employee which counts for a lot.

Mike

[atomicairdale1]

 Ditto,

  Thanks for the info. About the union, any IBEW, or just thier local?

  Bill

[atomicairdale1]

 Also,

  I wasn't trying to say anything negative about the people in the local area, and being suprised at the number of qualified individuals. Its just that we are with 50 miles of Chicago, and can't ever seem to get enough people. For this last class, it came down to the week before it started, before they had the 8 they needed. It probably doesn't hurt that there are 3 community colleges that have a POSS test prep course, though. Just a quick search of the net, and I came up with zero other places that offer this type of course.

  Bill

[aturner]

Thanks Mike!  That's good info to know there!


Adam

[Fermi2]

You are welcome.

So far as I know the Union Preference is only for the IBEW Local. I don't see why it would apply to people from other utilities.

I guess the big difference in the Chicago area and the Valley is a matter of perspective. In the Midwest, particularly near Chicago and the big cities and business within 50 miles is merely one of many big businesses that have relatively good wage and benefit packages. In the Valley it's THE TVA. It's in the paper nearly every other day and I don't mean on page six. Usually it's on page 1 or 2. In the last 7 weeks alone there have been full length feature articles about my plant. Most everyone here has either worked for TVA or has relatives who work or have worked here. It's very common to meet someone and have them tell you about how they know someone where I work. How TVA thinks and what they do has a tremendous impact here so the effect of posting jobs probably has at least an oder of magnitude difference here than where you are, in fact I've never seen anything quite like it.

Mike

[Fermi2]

I was asked an interesting question via PM. I'm not going to say who posted it but I figured it was a good enough question that it should be addressed publicly.

The question was "What keeps someone from joining the Union, getting the Union Recommendation, then dropping out of the Union after getting a job?" That's a legitimate question.

In general Utility Unions work like this: Say the Union is the IBEW and the Local is IBEW Local 1.

In general all the maintenance, I+C, and Operators will be in that union. At my old plant RP Techs and Chem Techs were in it too.

An Operator Bid gets posted: If three maintenance personnel bid it they get Union Recommendations simply because it's one Union. You always have to look in the union first. If they're total derelicts management can still turn them down, BUT if they're not you pretty much have to take them. Since the Operator job is in the same Union and Local the person who bid the job has no option but to stay in the Union. (Unless it's a right to work state). Now, assume you work for Utility # 2, you're in IBEW Local 2. You get no preference as you don't work for Company 1 and belong to their local.

In other words you can't claim Union Membership in order to get the job, then drop the membership at your convenience.

By the way, my old company just had a first, they just put a bid out for Reactor Operators from outside the company. If you need any info just ask Shayne or myself. DTE is a good company, going through some troubled times but has good people in it. If I was trying to get into the industry and meet the qualifications I'd go for it. Usually RO isn't an immediate ticket to another job either at the utility or outside it (in other words it's not a real bargaining chip in most cases) it's still a well paying job working with some decent people.

Mike

[coshaun]

Hey Mike,

Thanks for the info and advice.  It is nice to know how TVA thinks.

Thanks,

Jason

TVA thinks?  that's an oxymoron isn't?   My signicant other works at TVA WBN and I get to hear ALL the BS.

[Fermi2]

I haven't worked for an organization yet that people don't bitch about. Usually I take it with a grain of salt, then upon further investigation find out the bitcher is FOS.

Mike

[TVA]

60 miles and no the operators are not trying to get rid of it. They can't. Also we get plenty of great candidates within 60 miles.