May (Q3) 2023

[doodii]

I actually like the new rules. Almost 100% of the possible movements were made. With the amount of time that people have been waiting at this point I’m happy that they will staff up to 100% projected. If we could un-fuck the centers I think we’d have a pretty “solid transfer system”, but I won’t hold my breath.

Edit: maybe slightly more laxed rules for center controllers trying to go to the hard to staff up/downs and TRACONs that don’t get academy grads? 🤔

Then NCEPT should be every two months, not quarterly.

Also, can someone mention hardships due to NCEPT? I want to see more drama and rustled jimmies.

 

[Move78]

Then NCEPT should be every two months, not quarterly.

The Agency would never go for that.

 

[doodii]

The Agency would never go for that.

Sadly, I concur.

 

[Phanatical]

They actually used to have panels more frequently than quarterly, but the national projected % tanked. Converting that many CPCs to trainees isn’t ideal unfortunately.

 

[Move78]

Alright, I'll admit I didn't communicate what I meant very well but yes, I understand you have to operate within the confines of the NRP and I was trying to say the tracons would be round 1, big towers in round 2, 8s and 9s in a round 3, and everyone else afterwards. When I say they get their top 5 or top 3, I meant a cap on selections in which a place like SCT only gets 5 (likely their top 5 since they always draft pretty high) and then the next place gets their "top 5 available." I mentioned somewhere else in this thread that I think a reasonable cap would be however many selections it takes to make a facilities projected staffing go up by 2% in a given panel. To get A80 and NCT's projected staffing to go up by 2%, they need 5 inbounds each in a given panel so make that the cap. SCT needs 7. Make the minimum amount of selections 2 so red towers with a target of 30 don't just pick up one person and they're done.

This is really just the old way with a change to the draft order plus selection caps.

Not saying F11 doesn't need help given I've heard they are on 6 day weeks as well but they were projected at 89% and got 3 bodies while A80 was 69% and NCT was 76%, yet got 1 body each. If F11 was able to get their 3 after A80 and NCT and made got all their possible moves (which is likely given it seems SFB controllers were very selective), that would be fine. But because of the way the rules were designed this panel, there was no chance A80 or NCT were ever going to get more than 2 being that there ranking lists were only 5 or 6 people long in the first place. That is an oversight by the committee and I would argue that A80, NCT, and every other big tracon that only selected 1 person were red facilities that got shittier after selecting inbounds because the amount of attrition from all sources between quarterly panels far outpaces the 1 selection they made, meaning projected staffing will be lower by the next panel than it was on this panel.

F11 only got pick 2 and 3 after A80 and NCT ran out of applicants.
It was a decision they made not an oversight.

And once again, I've said that I'm all for making the maximum possible moves in a given panel. But if you want to go to a level 7 and below that receives AGs, you should be the bottom priority. Fill all those moves at the end of the panel if they still exist.

They won’t exist. There’s years worth of examples of them not existing.

 

[Phanatical]

Alright, I'll admit I didn't communicate what I meant very well but yes, I understand you have to operate within the confines of the NRP and I was trying to say the tracons would be round 1, big towers in round 2, 8s and 9s in a round 3, and everyone else afterwards. When I say they get their top 5 or top 3, I meant a cap on selections in which a place like SCT only gets 5 (likely their top 5 since they always draft pretty high) and then the next place gets their "top 5 available." I mentioned somewhere else in this thread that I think a reasonable cap would be however many selections it takes to make a facilities projected staffing go up by 2% in a given panel. To get A80 and NCT's projected staffing to go up by 2%, they need 5 inbounds each in a given panel so make that the cap. SCT needs 7. Make the minimum amount of selections 2 so red towers with a target of 30 don't just pick up one person and they're done.

Not saying F11 doesn't need help given I've heard they are on 6 day weeks as well but they were projected at 89% and got 3 bodies while A80 was 69% and NCT was 76%, yet got 1 body each. If F11 was able to get their 3 after A80 and NCT and made got all their possible moves (which is likely given it seems SFB controllers were very selective), that would be fine. But because of the way the rules were designed this panel, there was no chance A80 or NCT were ever going to get more than 2 being that there ranking lists were only 5 or 6 people long in the first place. That is an oversight by the committee and I would argue that A80, NCT, and every other big tracon that only selected 1 person were red facilities that got shittier after selecting inbounds because the amount of attrition from all sources between quarterly panels far outpaces the 1 selection they made, meaning projected staffing will be lower by the next panel than it was on this panel.

And once again, I've said that I'm all for making the maximum possible moves in a given panel. But if you want to go to a level 7 and below that receives AGs, you should be the bottom priority. Fill all those moves at the end of the panel if they still exist.

So you don’t really have a fix for NCEPT other than changing the prioritization of facilities then, is what I’m getting?

 

[ATC123]

Alright, I'll admit I didn't communicate what I meant very well but yes, I understand you have to operate within the confines of the NRP and I was trying to say the tracons would be round 1, big towers in round 2, 8s and 9s in a round 3, and everyone else afterwards. When I say they get their top 5 or top 3, I meant a cap on selections in which a place like SCT only gets 5 (likely their top 5 since they always draft pretty high) and then the next place gets their "top 5 available." I mentioned somewhere else in this thread that I think a reasonable cap would be however many selections it takes to make a facilities projected staffing go up by 2% in a given panel. To get A80 and NCT's projected staffing to go up by 2%, they need 5 inbounds each in a given panel so make that the cap. SCT needs 7. Make the minimum amount of selections 2 so red towers with a target of 30 don't just pick up one person and they're done.

Not saying F11 doesn't need help given I've heard they are on 6 day weeks as well but they were projected at 89% and got 3 bodies while A80 was 69% and NCT was 76%, yet got 1 body each. If F11 was able to get their 3 after A80 and NCT and made got all their possible moves (which is likely given it seems SFB controllers were very selective), that would be fine. But because of the way the rules were designed this panel, there was no chance A80 or NCT were ever going to get more than 2 being that there ranking lists were only 5 or 6 people long in the first place. That is an oversight by the committee and I would argue that A80, NCT, and every other big tracon that only selected 1 person were red facilities that got shittier after selecting inbounds because the amount of attrition from all sources between quarterly panels far outpaces the 1 selection they made, meaning projected staffing will be lower by the next panel than it was on this panel.

And once again, I've said that I'm all for making the maximum possible moves in a given panel. But if you want to go to a level 7 and below that receives AGs, you should be the bottom priority. Fill all those moves at the end of the panel if they still exist.

Bold to imply it was an oversight. It was a decision, not an oversight. F11 had a list 3x as long as NCT and A80, and they 3x the selections...you can tweak the rules all you want but at the end of the day you can't force the demand to facilities people don't want to go to.

If you only ever let the big TRACONs pick to their fill (or cap) first, then other facilities, you basically remove any realistic possibility of leaving a new-hire 4-7 facility and going somewhere only than the big-leagues. 105 of the 4-7s (56%) have a target of 15 or below, most often if they can release, they can release 1, or *maybe* 2. If you are trying to go to a non-big league facility, you will always miss out to your co-worker who is #10 on the list at NCT/SCT/A80 even though you've been ranked #1 at CID and BIL for the last 5 panels...

 

[Acquired Taste]

Bold to imply it was an oversight. It was a decision, not an oversight. F11 had a list 3x as long as NCT and A80, and they 3x the selections...you can tweak the rules all you want but at the end of the day you can't force the demand to facilities people don't want to go to.

If you only ever let the big TRACONs pick to their fill (or cap) first, then other facilities, you basically remove any realistic possibility of leaving a new-hire 4-7 facility and going somewhere only than the big-leagues. 105 of the 4-7s (56%) have a target of 15 or below, most often if they can release, they can release 1, or *maybe* 2. If you are trying to go to a non-big league facility, you will always miss out to your co-worker who is #10 on the list at NCT/SCT/A80 even though you've been ranked #1 at CID and BIL for the last 5 panels...

Pretty easy to be ranked 1 at somewhere like CID when you're the only one on the list. I think the selection caps would be good to eliminate the issue where your coworker is ranked 14/14 but still gets selected because the place needs 30 bodies. It would give those big places at least a little discretion in who they get based on where they rank them. Under the previous rules, the tracons got everyone with a pulse even if they'd prefer to have no one over the person they got.

People haven't even started gaming the system yet because these rules came out after the numbers locked. I guarantee you we will see a surge in people putting in for the low level in their hometown next panel. If you say I can stay at GCN and hope to be ranked high enough at DFW or DAL to get picked or I can try to beat my coworkers out by putting in for FTW, AFW, ADS, etc... you're damn right I'd rather make level 6 pay in my hometown than continue to rot in the grand canyon.

I'll come up with an in depth set of rules when I have more time just for them to be completely laughed at and ignored by those who are much smarter than me on the ncept team. In the meantime, I hope they continue with this new style of rules. Let's see how it works out for a few years. Sure, every big tracon and undesirable big tower may have staffing on par ZNY and N90 but at least there won't be delays for staffing triggers going into ORL.

Side note: another thing that's retarded about allowing low level transfers is that the right hand doesn't talk to the left hand in the hiring process. Look at last panel. FPR was number 6 on the priority list taking 1 because their projected was a little low. In the meantime, HR is sending out prior experience lists with FPR on it and then offering it to multiple people because it's the best place the prior experience list by far and everyone ranked it high. They still select their one on ncept from AGS and before you know it, they're 120% projected while there's plenty of 7s and below are 80% or lower. Now PIE has someone on their books counting towards staffing when they don't get there for a year and they have to send a new hire to AGS to train for 2.6 years to replace them. Meanwhile they could've sent that AGS person to a place with actual need instead of extremely overstaffing FPR.

 

[CoffeeIV]

People haven't even started gaming the system yet because these rules came out after the numbers locked. I guarantee you we will see a surge in people putting in for the low level in their hometown next panel. If you say I can stay at GCN and hope to be ranked high enough at DFW or DAL to get picked or I can try to beat my coworkers out by putting in for FTW, AFW, ADS, etc... you're damn right I'd rather make level 6 pay in my hometown than continue to rot in the grand canyon.

Haven't people been doing this already? If you're desperate enough you'll apply to anywhere close to the place you want to be.

 

[Acquired Taste]

Haven't people been doing this already? If you're desperate enough you'll apply to anywhere close to the place you want to be.

Eh, we had a lot of people desperate to get out fighting for only 1 release at a time. Only 1 guy out of like 8 put in for anything less than a level 8 to get closer to home. Under the old rules, he wasn't selected. On this past panel if a release was available, it would've almost definitely have gone to him. But if I knew they were operating under these new rules in advance, I'd much rather be somewhere nice making no money than the shit hole I was at and I would've provided maximum competition. He put in for every facility in FL. But I would've put in for places like AVL, GSP, SGF, GSO, etc just to get somewhere more desirable than take a chance at being stuck for 5 more years.

They won’t exist. There’s years worth of examples of them not existing.

Forgot to rebuttal to this but there was a lot of movement that happened this panel because they staffed everywhere up to 100%. In the past, they would do round 2 where they only staffed 8s-9s to 100%. Either way, if you ensure maximum selections in round 1 or if you write the rules ensure max selections in a later round, then maximum selections will still be made. It will just affect the outcome of selections more favorably for those trying to advance their career to the higher levels and for those facilities that need staffing more than the low levels.

 

[ATC123]

People haven't even started gaming the system yet because these rules came out after the numbers locked. I guarantee you we will see a surge in people putting in for the low level in their hometown next panel. If you say I can stay at GCN and hope to be ranked high enough at DFW or DAL to get picked or I can try to beat my coworkers out by putting in for FTW, AFW, ADS, etc... you're damn right I'd rather make level 6 pay in my hometown than continue to rot in the grand canyon.

Are you saying this is a bad thing? You aren't sure if/when you can leave the town you have *zero* ties to, to get to the Big Leagues, but you can likely get to your home town in the next panel...sounds like a significant improvement for the membership, not a game.

Side note: another thing that's retarded about allowing low level transfers is that the right hand doesn't talk to the left hand in the hiring process. Look at last panel. FPR was number 6 on the priority list taking 1 because their projected was a little low. In the meantime, HR is sending out prior experience lists with FPR on it and then offering it to multiple people because it's the best place the prior experience list by far and everyone ranked it high. They still select their one on ncept from AGS and before you know it, they're 120% projected while there's plenty of 7s and below are 80% or lower. Now PIE has someone on their books counting towards staffing when they don't get there for a year and they have to send a new hire to AGS to train for 2.6 years to replace them. Meanwhile they could've sent that AGS person to a place with actual need instead of extremely overstaffing FPR.

FPR hasn't hired a Prior Experience since December 14, they are #279 on the Terminal Priority List, and their projected is 84.6% (with 72.7% On Board). None of that looks like "extremely overstaffing" to me.

I'll come up with an in depth set of rules when I have more time just for them to be completely laughed at and ignored by those who are much smarter than me on the ncept team. In the meantime, I hope they continue with this new style of rules. Let's see how it works out for a few years. Sure, every big tracon and undesirable big tower may have staffing on par ZNY and N90 but at least there won't be delays for staffing triggers going into ORL.

You said earlier in this thread you don't want to share your ideas with your NCEPT rep...if you are willing to work on a set of rules that you think work, or are an improvement, why. not send them an email? If I had something worthwhile I'd send it in, vs. just complain on here.

 

[Move78]

Eh, we had a lot of people desperate to get out fighting for only 1 release at a time. Only 1 guy out of like 8 put in for anything less than a level 8 to get closer to home. Under the old rules, he wasn't selected. On this past panel if a release was available, it would've almost definitely have gone to him. But if I knew they were operating under these new rules in advance, I'd much rather be somewhere nice making no money than the shit hole I was at and I would've provided maximum competition. He put in for every facility in FL. But I would've put in for places like AVL, GSP, SGF, GSO, etc just to get somewhere more desirable than take a chance at being stuck for 5 more years.

Forgot to rebuttal to this but there was a lot of movement that happened this panel because they staffed everywhere up to 100%. In the past, they would do round 2 where they only staffed 8s-9s to 100%. Either way, if you ensure maximum selections in round 1 or if you write the rules ensure max selections in a later round, then maximum selections will still be made. It will just affect the outcome of selections more favorably for those trying to advance their career to the higher levels and for those facilities that need staffing more than the low levels.

If you do max selections in round 1 there either won’t be anyone green after that or the facilities will have no applicants left. In years passed they were running panels with possible losses in the 3-500 range. The current context is 124. For this panel if you were green you sent somebody somewhere they wanted to go.

 

[Acquired Taste]

FPR hasn't hired a Prior Experience since December 14, they are #279 on the Terminal Priority List, and their projected is 84.6% (with 72.7% On Board). None of that looks like "extremely overstaffing" to me.

Damn, I'm retarded. I was looking at the numbers for PIE. They went from 78% projected in January to 120% by April. Disregard the FPR comment.

If you do max selections in round 1 there either won’t be anyone green after that or the facilities will have no applicants left. In years passed they were running panels with possible losses in the 3-500 range. The current context is 124. For this panel if you were green you sent somebody somewhere they wanted to go.

If you get max selections in round 1, that's still maximum movement utilizing the max possible losses which is good right? The reason no one was green in round 2 in the was because the rules were like you have to be at a 4-7 that's over 100% projected and actual after round 1 is done and you can only bid to level 8-9. Obviously that is very restrictive and would only allow very few, if any, releases to take place in round 2. But if you keep it where in round 2, everyone can still release until they fall below 85%/85%, and you staff everywhere including low levels to 100%, then you will have maximum movement while still prioritizing staffing large facilities who's only means of getting staffing is through ncept or hardships.

 

[allaboutthebussy]

🍿🍿🍿

 

[Dolan]

People haven't even started gaming the system yet because these rules came out after the numbers locked. I guarantee you we will see a surge in people putting in for the low level in their hometown next panel. If you say I can stay at GCN and hope to be ranked high enough at DFW or DAL to get picked or I can try to beat my coworkers out by putting in for FTW, AFW, ADS, etc... you're damn right I'd rather make level 6 pay in my hometown than continue to rot in the grand canyon.

People have been doing this since 2016. The smart ones resigned if they were stuck somewhere really bad. You'd get rehired either at home or somewhere you could stand to be indefinitely and have paperwork on file every panel for the dream spot.

 

[Bandit117]

At least the centers have a somewhat reliable influx of academy grads. There are some 8 and above terminal facilities that will be permanently understaffed because they aren’t desirable enough for ERRs and are too complex for prior experience hires and NEST placements.

That’s part of what the new rules will hopefully help I think. There’s mid level facilities that people want to go to, but those facilities aren’t so badly staffed that they are on 6 day work weeks but they aren’t well enough staffed to let anyone go. They will never get a priority in the staffing needs algorithm to get a high spot on ncept to pick up anyone. No academy grads, maybe the odd direct hire or hardship. It’s like a staffing purgatory. Round 2 was an attempt to get that fixed, but this is a more fair solution. No harm in trying it at least.

 

[Raz]

HR called and said I should get my TOL Tuesday.

 

[Spaceforce]

HR called and said I should get my TOL Tuesday.

Congrats! 🎉🍾🎊

 

[Pendingleave]

We need more of the SAV to CID if that person wants to be there long term. A core of people towards the top of the pay band stabilizing the staffing at some of the lower level facilities would be great. Everyone trying to transfer out at the same time is terrible.

 

[Golf delta]

How the hell are large tracons supposed to ever get our head above water if we keep keep getting 1-2 selections a quarter? We’re losing more than that to off our boards to sup bids alone.