lowendnewbie

sorry for bringing up an old thread.

For anyone who has worked in both private and government, can you compare the stress level of the 2 jobs?

ken285

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being very stressful, I'd rate gov't jobs at a 2 or 3. Private sector jobs can be as high as a 10 at times, but on average, I'd say 7 or 8.

The first thing I learned at my gov't job was to always cover your ass. You're not encouraged to take risks, think outside the box, etc. It's pretty difficult to get fired so don't give them any ammunition to do so. Just stay the course and you'll have a job for life.

The next job I had was with a traffic engineering consultant. People work 40+ hours on a regular basis, as opposed to my gov't job where people work 40 hours and not a second more. We did whatever we needed to get the job done, and that included one all-nighter for one particular project. Why did we do that? Because our client was throwing A LOT of money at us to get the job done. That would never happen in a government office no matter how much money was involved.

JoeJoe05

I have never heard this rumor. Actually I would think the opposite. I think your government work would be viewed as respectable among private industries.

If you can prove your past experience gave you useful knowledge then it doesn't matter where you worked. The fact will be, you know your stuff, you have past experience to prove it, they won't look down upon your experience because its for government.

That's just my viewpoint though.

aibarr

It depends upon where you work.

If you're working for a state department of transportation, that's one thing, and more along the lines of what Ken's talking about.
If you're working for Sandia or a FFRDC, that's something entirely different, and more what JoeJoe is talking about.

ken285

I should have noted my response was based on my personal experiences with a state DOT and interactions with municipal agencies.

lowendnewbie

Hey Aibarr,

The places I've worked for are more similar to places like the deparment of transportation than Sandia. Would this experience be looked down upon by private companies? I heard that once you have a few government work terms no private companies will go near you. I was even considering not putting one of my work terms on my resume.

aibarr

It's not looked down upon, particularly if you're young. They know that jobs are tough to get when you have no experience, and your experience in government will help you know what to expect when you deal with government agencies later. Companies understand that, and they like people who are a little savvy to what they're going to deal with when they work with a DOT or something.

That, plus it's about the same amount of experience you'd get if you had an internship somewhere else, just a different kind of experience. You'll be fine.