What Michael Sinnock's Federal Rejection Letter Reveals About a System That Cannot See Past a Grade Number 

AUTHOR: Michael Sinnock

Michael Sinnock's daily work at the EEOC already matches the Secretary position he was rejected for, duty for duty, skill for skill — and the screening system that blocked him never checked. I want to write this clearly and without bitterness, because the issue here is structural rather than personal. The people who administered this process followed the rules they were given. No one acted in bad faith. What I am documenting is what those rules systematically fail to see, and who pays the cost of that failure.

I am an Office Automation Assistant with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Memphis District Office, where I have worked since January 2022 with Outstanding performance ratings across every critical element of every review cycle. I hold a GS-5, Step 10 classification. Step 10 is the ceiling of the grade. There is no further movement possible within it. The grade has given me everything it can give, and I have taken everything it offered.

A Secretary position at the GS-8 level opened in my office, supporting the Regional Attorney and the Legal Unit. I read the job announcement carefully. I applied. The rejection came back before anyone looked at my application. The reason: the position required one year of specialized experience at the GS-7 grade level in the federal service. I hold GS-5. The automated screening system compared those two numbers and produced an ineligibility determination. The process ended there.

What the Position Actually Requires and What I Actually Do

The job announcement listed the duties of the Secretary position in specific terms. I want to place them next to what my current position requires, because the comparison is direct and the documentation is on record. 

The announcement required maintaining litigation and administrative dockets electronically, logging incoming documents, assigning them appropriately, and independently tracking case statuses. My current role requires processing and tracking 50 to 125 charge and case files weekly through the Advanced Record Center, verifying jurisdiction, assigning files, and independently maintaining accurate case status across enforcement and intake functions. 

The announcement required receiving, screening, and responding to a wide range of inquiries, and managing calendars, appointments, meetings, and videoconferencing for the Regional Attorney and Legal Unit. My current role requires serving as the primary point of contact for charging parties, respondent attorneys, and the public, responding within one business day, and coordinating calendars and scheduling for supervisors and management. 

The announcement required drafting and finalizing correspondence and legal-related documents using correct legal formatting and creating spreadsheets to track budgets and litigation activity with minimal oversight. My current role requires drafting and finalizing signature-ready correspondence, memoranda, and administrative reports for senior-graded staff and management, with work regularly selected as a model for other staff. 

The announcement required contacting and communicating with members of the public, charging parties, opposing counsel, courts, litigants, and witnesses. My current role requires serving as primary contact for charging parties and respondent attorneys while safeguarding highly confidential case information. 

The announcement required monitoring litigation and travel budgets, coordinating with vendors, and managing confidential filing systems. My current role has included 18-plus months as backup District Resources Manager Assistant, managing procurement accounts, the controlled supply room, and GSA fleet coordination. 

The announcement also assessed candidates on specific competencies: Accountability, Attention to Detail, Customer Service, Decision Making, Flexibility, Integrity and Honesty, Interpersonal Skills, Learning, Reading Comprehension, Reasoning, Self-Management, Stress Tolerance, and Teamwork. 

Those are the competencies my Outstanding performance ratings evaluate. Every cycle. Every element. The screening system never reached any of this, because it was built to check one eligibility condition, and that condition was not met on paper.

What the Grade History Misses and What My Career Actually Contains

Michael Shane Sinnock did not arrive at federal service through a conventional pathway. Let me document what the GS-5 grade designation does not capture. I served in the United States Navy from 1994 to 1997 as a Boatswain's Mate Petty Officer 3rd Class aboard USS Tarawa (LHA-1), operating through the WESTPAC deployment across nine named operations in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. I was honorably discharged and hold the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon. I am a 30% or More Disabled Veteran, Schedule A eligible, and VEOA eligible under federal hiring authority. From 1998 to 2011, I served with the Memphis Police Department as a patrol officer, crisis intervention officer, and Field Training Officer. For ten of those years I evaluated and mentored incoming officers through structured field training programs, drafted detailed incident reports, maintained chain of custody documentation for evidence, and provided factual testimony in judicial proceedings. I managed crisis intervention and de-escalation with diverse communities under sustained pressure.

I came to the Department of Veterans Affairs at Memphis National Cemetery in 2019. I was promoted from Cemetery Caretaker at WG-6 to Gardener at WG-8 based on demonstrated technical skill, independent judgment, and reliability. At WG-8, I operated within an annual budget for equipment maintenance, chemical treatments, and irrigation across a 44-acre federal site, exercising independent authority over safety, scheduling, and environmental compliance. The WG and GS systems are separate federal classification frameworks. My WG-8 experience, my formal promotion within the federal wage system, and my decade of law enforcement documentation and training work do not convert to GS grade history in the way time-in-grade eligibility rules require. The automated screening system has no mechanism to evaluate what any of it represents, because it is comparing a GS number and finding a gap.

Here is what the General Schedule eligibility framework does well and where it consistently falls short, stated plainly:

What it does well: it creates pay equity and consistency across an enormous workforce; it establishes a defensible, documented basis for advancement decisions; it protects against arbitrary or politically motivated hiring; it provides accountability in promotion by requiring demonstrated time at intermediate levels. Where it consistently fails: it cannot measure capability built through federal systems other than the GS ladder; it treats grade history as a complete proxy for professional competency when the two regularly diverge; it produces automated ineligibility determinations that never engage with the person, their performance record, or their actual demonstrated duties; it offers no pathway for a capable employee at the top of a lower grade to demonstrate competency for a position two grades higher, even when that employee is already performing equivalent duties inside their current role; and it has no mechanism to see when a GS-5 classification contains the daily functional output of a GS-8 position.

What Federal Law Provides and What Every Eligible Employee Should Know

The job announcement I applied to listed specific noncompetitive appointment authorities and included Schedule A eligible individuals as a category who may apply. It referenced Special Hiring Authorities for Veterans under the noncompetitive pathways available. As a 30% or More Disabled Veteran and Schedule A eligible federal employee, I hold hiring authorities that exist specifically to create pathways outside normal grade-based progression. The time-in-grade requirement that applies to merit promotion applicants under 5 CFR 300, Subpart F does not apply to noncompetitive appointments made through these authorities. The structural barrier I encountered as a merit promotion applicant is not the only door in the building. This matters not as a correction to what already happened, but as actionable information for every federal employee reading this who holds similar authorities and may not fully understand what they provide. If you are a 30% or More Disabled Veteran, if you hold Schedule A eligibility, or if you qualify under VEOA as a preference eligible veteran, your options inside the federal hiring system are broader than the merit promotion track alone. Knowing which announcements are structured to accept your authority, and whether your documentation is current and complete, is the difference between a pathway and a closed door.

What This Means and What Comes Next 

I am not leaving. I am not allowing this experience to reduce my performance or my investment in the work I do every day at a civil rights enforcement agency in Memphis, Tennessee. The standard I operate at is Outstanding because that is the only standard I know. What I am doing is documenting this moment, publicly and precisely, because the experience it represents is not mine alone. There are federal employees across this country sitting at the ceiling of lower grades, producing Outstanding work, holding federal budget experience and law enforcement training records and years of demonstrated competency, who received ineligibility letters this year that never reached their qualifications. They deserve to know that the letter evaluated one administrative condition. It evaluated nothing else. The grade is a documentation requirement. It is not a professional assessment. It did not assess what I can do, what I have done across three decades of public service, or what the position I applied for actually requires. It compared two numbers and stopped there. What I am capable of has not changed. The paperwork is still catching up to it.

I write about public service and what it looks like from the inside every week at www.michaelsinnock.com. The full professional story is on the Project Page there.

AUTHOR BIO:

About Michael Sinnock: Michael Sinnock is a U.S. Navy veteran and Office Automation Assistant with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Memphis District Office. A Memphis professional whose career spans military service, federal employment, and logistics management, he writes about public service, resilience, the curiosity that keeps life interesting, and the long, worthwhile work of becoming someone you are proud of. Find his full archive at www.michaelsinnock.com.