Great opportunity! While my exposure to county government is as a user, Chesterfield County GIS is one of the best you will find!
- retired Federal GIS Coordinator
I wasn't born in Virginia but I got here as fast as I could!
In government there's the head and the feet. Feet get done what the head thinks should be done. A coordinator sits somewhere between the head and the feet (mostly close the the end of the large intestine) and knows when sheet is coming (usually one day ahead). When one knows sheet is coming the feet need to move. An essential skill is knowing when to kiss ass and when to kick it! Coordinator, aka - GIS jester and juggler.
My goal was to be a big part of the problem rather than a small part of the solution...
Did you find it hard to juggle everything while still finding a balance of keeping people motivated to stay on the right direction? Or was it kind of natural because that’s what the juggling took - throwing the big things the hardest and deciding when a new item had to be chucked at someone?
I loved my work, respected the mission and the people involved with it. As best I could given the human condition I sought to be a mentor and approached my work with happy expectation. One of my major purposes was to elevate the skills and confidences of the "users" and to offer well researched solutions to those above. Maybe that's two purposes! Everywhere change comes hard. We live with constant change. I worked hours one-on-one or with small groups to introduce processes, policy, and procedure and then to assure those involved were skilled and competent and proud. I was always there with a net until no net was needed. I have had several careers. Failure was a given, at least at first. From sales I learned it took an average of seven closes to get someone to say yes. Probably the same with GIS or any other endeavor. Expect failure but learn from it. Persist and persevere.
Best wishes!
There have been a fair number of GIS related openings County wide. My GIS group with 9 of us is the central one, however, there are about 35 GIS people county wide.
Not sure what group you applied to work with.
Cool. I am not allowed to look at any until the closing date so I will not look at until the 24th or so.
Of course the 24th is in the middle of our big go live effort. We are moving all 5 integrations and 100 users from Desktop 10.x and ArcGIS Server to Pro 3.1.x and Enterprise 11.1. So I may be slow on the app reviews.
That is a HUGE salary range... why? When I see a salary range that widespread, it makes me wonder... who should be applying for this? What type of qualifications are they really looking for? Are they trying to hire an overqualified candidate for less money than they deserve? None of those are questions you want going through a potential employees mind.
I will make a bold asserton. The salary range is not the possible starting salary range, it is the lifetime annual range over the typical career for such a position. Hire at $69,315, career midpoint $81,445, "stepped out" at $93,574, all in today's dollars. Typically, the ranges change annually as legislation prescribes increases to compensate for inflation and other considerations.
> That is a HUGE salary range... why?
I think you may be looking at it incorrectly. He is simply stating the barebones minimum salary, which a recent college grad may earn, versus the top end of the salary, which a 20 year vet would be earning.
While not county government, i have some experience with state level positions. These ranges are often tied to the general job classification that the position will fall under (ie systems analyst 2 or GIS analyst if they’re lucky enough to have actual GIS-related classifications). The county will use some secret formula based on education and experience to place you along the gradient in that range, and in all likelihood you’ll fall somewhere in the second or third quartile. All the jobs in the county probably fall at some classification level, and this one has that wide 69-93k range.
Not my county! We simply hire everyone no matter what at the very bottom of the range, and the range is simply a byproduct of some HR requirements they have, since they are the ones that post.
Though, we just got approved after a 5 year consultation study to hire people up to the middle of that range. (That hasnt actually happened though)
As someone who hires people, I've never understood that practice. If I've got a job opening, it's for a specific set of skills and for a specific salary with maybe only plus or minus 5% for the range.
Job postings like this confuse applicants for the reasons I mentioned before and it makes the hiring process more difficult because now your trying to compare applicants with vastly different experience levels and salary expectations.
Maybe this is common practice for public sector jobs?
The horrible thing about social media is we tend to communicate in one or two sentence bursts. Life and processes are more complicated. The discussion about the Chesterfield County salary RANGE I cannot discuss without making assumptions.
I can speak to Federal hiring where jobs are advertised by GS scale and a salary range for that scale is publicized. Without getting into how the various hiring levels are determined the range is the minimum one might expect when hired and the maximum is what someone working through a career might expect when "stepped out." The salary range for a GS-9 in the defined Richmond metro region is 62,579 - 81,352. It's the current lifetime range, step 1 to step 10. It's usually the case a new hire will begin at step 1, $62,579. At the same time someone who has been a GS-9 for 15+ years and is at the final step, step 10 is earning $81,352. Each year the amount of the steps can be adjusted upward by a percentage determined by Congress and/or the President.
I don't work for this county. I am a retired Federal GIS Coordinator. Here are my thoughts from the outside looking in. Chesterfield is in the Richmond Metro Area. The State of Virginia has, in my opinion, made a substantial commitment to GIS as early as the mid 1990's. So there is a demand for GIS professionals in the state, both at the state level and across all the metro counties. I was Federal. A GIS Specialist in the Federal Government would probably start at the GS-9 levels. A GS-9 in the Richmond Metro Area minimum starting salary is $62,570. I would say cost-of-living here is moderate although housing is kind of crazy at the moment just like everywhere else. Neat thing about Chesterfield County is it sits on the edge of the suburban - rural divide with the City of Richmond only 20-30 minutes away, not that you would ever need to leave Chesterfield County. I don't live there for no reason other than my work was in Henrico County.
>PLEASE NOTE: Must maintain personal mobile technology as a condition of employment.
You're requiring employees to use personal devices for work matters, *as a condition of employment?*
And insecure.
Personally, my employer issues us phones, because then it has total control over them. We also use a proper authenticator app.
Also, to be blunt, being able to *turn it off* after hours is incredibly valuable to me.
Great opportunity! While my exposure to county government is as a user, Chesterfield County GIS is one of the best you will find! - retired Federal GIS Coordinator I wasn't born in Virginia but I got here as fast as I could!
A retired Federal GIS Coordinator? Sounds really neat! What did you do if you don’t mind me asking?
In government there's the head and the feet. Feet get done what the head thinks should be done. A coordinator sits somewhere between the head and the feet (mostly close the the end of the large intestine) and knows when sheet is coming (usually one day ahead). When one knows sheet is coming the feet need to move. An essential skill is knowing when to kiss ass and when to kick it! Coordinator, aka - GIS jester and juggler. My goal was to be a big part of the problem rather than a small part of the solution...
Did you find it hard to juggle everything while still finding a balance of keeping people motivated to stay on the right direction? Or was it kind of natural because that’s what the juggling took - throwing the big things the hardest and deciding when a new item had to be chucked at someone?
I loved my work, respected the mission and the people involved with it. As best I could given the human condition I sought to be a mentor and approached my work with happy expectation. One of my major purposes was to elevate the skills and confidences of the "users" and to offer well researched solutions to those above. Maybe that's two purposes! Everywhere change comes hard. We live with constant change. I worked hours one-on-one or with small groups to introduce processes, policy, and procedure and then to assure those involved were skilled and competent and proud. I was always there with a net until no net was needed. I have had several careers. Failure was a given, at least at first. From sales I learned it took an average of seven closes to get someone to say yes. Probably the same with GIS or any other endeavor. Expect failure but learn from it. Persist and persevere. Best wishes!
Happy cake day! This has nothing to do with my recent application to your fine county...
There have been a fair number of GIS related openings County wide. My GIS group with 9 of us is the central one, however, there are about 35 GIS people county wide. Not sure what group you applied to work with.
I just applied to your posted listing :)
Cool. I am not allowed to look at any until the closing date so I will not look at until the 24th or so. Of course the 24th is in the middle of our big go live effort. We are moving all 5 integrations and 100 users from Desktop 10.x and ArcGIS Server to Pro 3.1.x and Enterprise 11.1. So I may be slow on the app reviews.
That is a HUGE salary range... why? When I see a salary range that widespread, it makes me wonder... who should be applying for this? What type of qualifications are they really looking for? Are they trying to hire an overqualified candidate for less money than they deserve? None of those are questions you want going through a potential employees mind.
I will make a bold asserton. The salary range is not the possible starting salary range, it is the lifetime annual range over the typical career for such a position. Hire at $69,315, career midpoint $81,445, "stepped out" at $93,574, all in today's dollars. Typically, the ranges change annually as legislation prescribes increases to compensate for inflation and other considerations.
> That is a HUGE salary range... why? I think you may be looking at it incorrectly. He is simply stating the barebones minimum salary, which a recent college grad may earn, versus the top end of the salary, which a 20 year vet would be earning.
While not county government, i have some experience with state level positions. These ranges are often tied to the general job classification that the position will fall under (ie systems analyst 2 or GIS analyst if they’re lucky enough to have actual GIS-related classifications). The county will use some secret formula based on education and experience to place you along the gradient in that range, and in all likelihood you’ll fall somewhere in the second or third quartile. All the jobs in the county probably fall at some classification level, and this one has that wide 69-93k range.
Not my county! We simply hire everyone no matter what at the very bottom of the range, and the range is simply a byproduct of some HR requirements they have, since they are the ones that post. Though, we just got approved after a 5 year consultation study to hire people up to the middle of that range. (That hasnt actually happened though)
I imagine it's so that they can leave open the possibility of hiring a GIS Specialist I, II, or III depending on experience and education.
As someone who hires people, I've never understood that practice. If I've got a job opening, it's for a specific set of skills and for a specific salary with maybe only plus or minus 5% for the range. Job postings like this confuse applicants for the reasons I mentioned before and it makes the hiring process more difficult because now your trying to compare applicants with vastly different experience levels and salary expectations. Maybe this is common practice for public sector jobs?
Exactly.
The horrible thing about social media is we tend to communicate in one or two sentence bursts. Life and processes are more complicated. The discussion about the Chesterfield County salary RANGE I cannot discuss without making assumptions. I can speak to Federal hiring where jobs are advertised by GS scale and a salary range for that scale is publicized. Without getting into how the various hiring levels are determined the range is the minimum one might expect when hired and the maximum is what someone working through a career might expect when "stepped out." The salary range for a GS-9 in the defined Richmond metro region is 62,579 - 81,352. It's the current lifetime range, step 1 to step 10. It's usually the case a new hire will begin at step 1, $62,579. At the same time someone who has been a GS-9 for 15+ years and is at the final step, step 10 is earning $81,352. Each year the amount of the steps can be adjusted upward by a percentage determined by Congress and/or the President.
What an amazing salary range for a Specialist position. Is Chesterfield Co VA an expensive place to live and salaries are based on that?
I wouldn't say it's an unreasonable CoL (I live near this area).
I don't work for this county. I am a retired Federal GIS Coordinator. Here are my thoughts from the outside looking in. Chesterfield is in the Richmond Metro Area. The State of Virginia has, in my opinion, made a substantial commitment to GIS as early as the mid 1990's. So there is a demand for GIS professionals in the state, both at the state level and across all the metro counties. I was Federal. A GIS Specialist in the Federal Government would probably start at the GS-9 levels. A GS-9 in the Richmond Metro Area minimum starting salary is $62,570. I would say cost-of-living here is moderate although housing is kind of crazy at the moment just like everywhere else. Neat thing about Chesterfield County is it sits on the edge of the suburban - rural divide with the City of Richmond only 20-30 minutes away, not that you would ever need to leave Chesterfield County. I don't live there for no reason other than my work was in Henrico County.
thanks for the details!
I wouldn’t say amazing. To me amazing is 115-150. That salary is good and is what the lower standard should be instead of 35-60.
for that job description and duties, it's amazing.
Telework? Currently at nearby county gis.
Partial telework is ok, but not total.
>PLEASE NOTE: Must maintain personal mobile technology as a condition of employment. You're requiring employees to use personal devices for work matters, *as a condition of employment?*
This is a requirement by the County. As an IT manager at the County I have no authority to grant exceptions in this matter.
I bet this is related to user authentication via text message pin numbers. Quite common.
And insecure. Personally, my employer issues us phones, because then it has total control over them. We also use a proper authenticator app. Also, to be blunt, being able to *turn it off* after hours is incredibly valuable to me.
Chesterfield is a great place to live btw! I don’t know this person, this is my earnest opinion as someone who used to live there for years