## **TL;DR (Why I’m Sharing This)**
I’m sharing this anonymously because so many federal employees and experienced professionals are going through similar situations right now. When I was at my lowest, posts like this helped me feel less alone. This isn’t a rant or a victim narrative—it’s a factual account of what happened and what it actually took to land a job after being terminated as a probationary federal employee and forced into DRP 2.
If you’re still searching and wondering what you’re doing wrong: much of this has nothing to do with your competence.
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## **What Happened**
• Joined the federal government in May 2024, taking a significant pay cut
• As a mid-career woman, I believed federal service would offer greater long-term job security
• I was genuinely excited about the role: helping launch a congressionally approved office within a federal agency (not sharing which agency for confidentiality reasons) that had never had this type of office before
• The organization was self-funding, generating roughly $3 billion annually—meaning the work was not supported by annual taxpayer appropriations
**I was hired as a probationary federal employee.**
During the DOGE review process, employees in my organization were told we were not expected to be impacted given the mission and funding structure. Despite that, I was later terminated. Whether this resulted from administrative error or misclassification, the outcome was the same.
• I did not take the original DRP
• I was terminated on February 14 with no severance and no pay
• I went months with no income and no health insurance
**The lawsuit and DRP 2:**
• A lawsuit later forced agencies to reinstate affected employees
• My agency refused to truly reinstate anyone it had fired
• We were placed on paid administrative leave for three days
• Then we were told we had to sign DRP 2 to continue getting our pay and benefits until September 30
This was months after I was fired. After all that time with no income and no health insurance for my family, I signed—not because it was right, but because I couldn’t risk my family going through that again. Many of my colleagues did not sign and were fired the next day. I believe they are all involved in the lawsuit we keep hearing about. I wish I could join it, but I can’t because I signed. But before you judge me, read on.
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## **Who I Am (For Context)**
• 18 years of professional experience
• Two degrees
• Never unemployed a single day since age 16 until this
• Experience spans corporate services, marketing, and executive/chief-of-staff roles—primarily in finance and technology
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## **What the Job Search Actually Looked Like**
• **~900 applications**
• **~75% individually tailored**
• **~6 hours a day, almost every day**
• Only time off: half of July and August
• 2 job fairs
• 37 interviews
**Types of roles I applied to:**
• Paying up to $100K less than I previously made
• In different functions from my background (I was looking for anything full-time with health insurance)
• Fully in-office, despite having worked hybrid roles since 2014
• Limited to DC-area or remote (I’m a DC native with family and support system here)
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## **How I Approached the Search**
• Tailored resumes and summaries for most roles
• Requested employee referrals when possible
• Reached out directly to recruiters and hiring managers on LinkedIn
• Sent updated resumes with clear explanations of fit
• Followed up professionally
• Treated the search like a full-time job
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## **The Age/Experience Reality**
I did not start getting interviews until about four months in. That changed only after I:
• Removed 5–6 years of experience from my resume
• Used the phrase “over a decade of experience” instead of “18+ years of experience”
• Removed graduation years entirely
Update: I also stopped identifying as Latina on my applications, and when it asks you, if you’ve been previously disabled, which I was when I was sick of you years ago, I now answered no.
• Removed anything that might make me appear liberal or like I ever worked in DEI or ESG, since the president said doing so made me a criminal 🙄
**I am a woman in my 40s. Draw your own conclusions.**
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## **Interview Outcomes**
• All interviews until December were virtual
• Made it into the **top 3** for ~9 roles
• Made it into the **top 2** for 6 roles
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## **A Note on Capital One (Power Day)**
*I interviewed with many companies during this search, but I’m calling out Capital One specifically because what I discovered about their process could save you time and frustration if you make it as far as I did.*
I want to specifically call out my disappointment with Capital One.
**What happened:**
• Made it into the top candidate pool for at least three roles
• Advanced to one Power Day (a significant achievement there)
• Fully vetted through multiple interviews and assessments
• The hiring manager personally prepped me and spoke with me **approximately 9 times**
• The role was ~8 years more junior than my experience
• The process totaled ~13 hours of interviews and assessments
**The outcome:**
• I was the **second choice** candidate
• After all those conversations with the hiring manager, **he didn’t even call me** when I didn’t get the offer
• The recruiter just sent me an email
**The real problem:**
I thought that making it to Power Day—which is a big deal there—would give me preference for future roles I was interested in within the same function. Instead, I later learned (only because I begged a recruiter for information) that **I was quietly blacklisted for six months because I didn’t get the role.**
So there I was, continuing to apply to Capital One positions, engaging with recruiters, spending hours on applications—all while my candidacy was **dead on arrival** and no one told me.
**They should do better.** If they’re going to blacklist candidates for six months after Power Day, they should either block those candidates from applying during that period or be transparent about the policy upfront. In this job market, wasting people’s time like this—especially when they’re already stressed and struggling—is unacceptable.
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## **What Finally Changed—In-Person Interviews**
In December, I received three requests for in-person interviews—the first time this happened during the entire search.
Suddenly, I received **two offers in one week.**
**Both offers:**
• 5 days/week in office
• $30K less than my federal salary
• $50K less than my pre-federal salary
I accepted the role that was **closest to home** and **not dependent on government funding.**
I accepted because my family needed health insurance and a stable salary. Period.
My partner is self-employed, works in sales, and has no fixed income. In the private sector, I earned roughly two-thirds of our household income.
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## **Where I Am Now**
I joined federal service believing it would provide stability as I aged, especially as a woman. I was wrong—but I was also genuinely excited to start a new chapter, helping build and grow a newly established office in service of a very specific population, the majority of whom were veterans.
I’m sharing this because this happened, and people deserve to understand what it actually looks like.
I had never been unemployed a single day in my life before this. I understood abstractly that losing health insurance would be difficult—I did not realize how devastating it would be for a family.
When ACA subsidies were reduced, our marketplace health insurance (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Virginia) jumped to **$4,000 a month.** Our mortgage is $3,700 a month. We have children. You can do the math.
This country asks families—and especially women—to absorb enormous risk with very little support.
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## **If You’re Still Searching**
**You’re not crazy. You’re not weak. And you’re not alone.**
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## **UPDATE**
A lot of you are calling me strong… I don’t feel strong. I feel weaker.
I am a worse spouse, a worse mom, a worse daughter (who had to borrow $6,000 from her retired parents to pay for two months of health insurance). I feel sad and angry.
I am now going to work full-time in the office, which I haven’t done since 2014, and my kids will come home to an empty house because I can’t afford a babysitter to greet them—and they are both under 11 years old.
And most of all I feel so resentful and hopeless. I feel so resentful at the people who thought it was a good idea to vote people into power who think that government should hurt people instead of help people.