N.J.A.C. 4A:4 Selection and Appointment

Three routes into the career service, and they differ by how much testing stands in the way.

A senior executive service appointment may be made to any position the Civil Service Commission has allocated to the senior executive service.

Forty four words, and the second sentence is the one that matters: the permanent appointment rights of Title 11A do not apply to unclassified appointments.

A holding pattern for appointments that might have to be undone.

A provisional appointment can only be made in the competitive division, and only when three things are all true at once.

When somebody is away but still holds the job, whoever fills it is an interim appointee.

Short work, formally bounded.

Thirty seven words covering the shortest appointment in the code.

The safety net for anybody who already had permanent status and then took something else on.

Nothing is final until the Commission approves it.

Open competitive announcements go up daily on the Civil Service Commission web site, and that site is also where the applications come from.

An examination here is not necessarily a written test.

Promotion is the default.

Local service only; State service has its own scope rule at 4A:4-2.5.

State service, and the rule starts by sorting every title into one of three categories by the education it requires.

One year of continuous permanent service, aggregating to a year immediately before the announced closing date, in a title the examination is open to.

A promotion can happen without anybody sitting the examination.

Arrive late and whether you get in depends on what kind of test it is.

Two different lists of acceptable reasons, and which one applies depends on the examination.

Bringing a cellphone into the building is a prohibited action, not merely into the test room, and work-issued phones count, as does any type of electronic recording or imaging device.

Two residency requirements can be running at once: the New Jersey principal residence requirement under P.L.

Work experience can stand in for education, year for year, but only where the examination has been designated for it.

Accommodation is asked for on the application itself, by indicating the request there; Commission staff then make reasonable accommodation where appropriate and tell the candidate the arrangements.

Performance rating credit is a State service matter.

Some of it is public.

Twenty-five dollars per application, open competitive and promotional alike, reduced to 15 dollars for veterans.

Five kinds of list, and which one you are on decides a great deal afterwards.

Rank order is not simply score order.

Three years from the date of establishment for open competitive and promotional lists, unless the Chairperson or designee decides a shorter period fits the circumstances.

An expired list is not necessarily finished with.

When two successive examinations for the same title produce two lists, the Chairperson or designee may merge them by one or more of three methods: placing the first name on the later list after the last name on the prior list, supplementing an incomplete list with an eligible list for an appropriate title, or combining names of eligibles by scores.

Names can be added to a list at any point during its life, but only for five reasons: a make-up examination was given and the candidate passed, an error by the Civil Service Commission needs correcting, an appeal decision needs implementing, a third party such as a college or the Veterans Administration has submitted documents correcting an administrative error, or placement is required under 4A:4-4.6A for certain persons returning from military service.

Where more than one current list exists for a title, the order is fixed, and special reemployment appears in it twice.

Civil Service Commission staff may correct an error at any time during the life of an eligible list, and a correction can change where somebody ranks.

A hiring route that runs outside the eligible lists, and it is local.

Getting on the list is on you.

Nothing moves until the appointing authority asks.

Three names for the first job, one more name for each additional job.

An empty or short list is not the end of the process.

Pass-overs get counted, and the count is three.

A certification can be limited to eligibles of a particular sex, religion or national origin, but only where that characteristic is a bona fide occupational qualification essential to successful job performance and to the normal operation of the appointing authority.

Military leave does not cost you your place on the list.

Twelve months from the expiration of the old list.

Eleven reasons a name comes off an eligible list, and the list is the answer to why yours did.

The rule of three lives here.

An eligible cannot be appointed and begin work after the eligible list has expired, and the three exceptions to that are narrow.

Accepting the job is not quite the last step.

The working test period is formally part of the examination, not a separate probation bolted onto the end of hiring.

How long it lasts, and when the clock starts.

You are entitled to see how it is going before it ends.

Forty two words that answer the question everybody in a working test period is asking, and then send them somewhere else for the part that matters.

Losing a working test period does not have to mean losing the list.

Nine grounds on which a person may be denied examination eligibility or appointment, and the ninth is a catch-all for other sufficient reasons.

One finding, seven possible consequences, and they land at very different points in a career.

Which appeal you are filing decides which rule governs it, and this section does the routing.

One deadline in this section expires the same day the examination does: a challenge to the manner in which an examination was administered must be filed in writing at the examination site, on the day of the examination.

This is the one examination appeal where the appointing authority carries the burden of proof rather than the candidate.

Twenty days from notice of the action, decision or situation being appealed.

What counts as a transfer depends on which service you are in, because it depends on what an organizational unit is.

Two different things carry this name.

A reassignment moves you inside your organizational unit and inside your title: a new job function, a different shift, a different location or a different supervisor.

State service only, and subject to available appropriations.

What follows you when you move, and what does not.

Being in a working test period closes off transfers almost entirely.

Whether a sideways move costs you permanent status turns on one test: are the nature of the work and the education and experience requirements of the two titles substantially similar, measured by the same standard layoffs use in 4A:8-2.1.

Two sentences, and the second one is the sting.

The definition splits by service.

Taking a job elsewhere in your own jurisdiction off an open competitive list is treated as a resignation from the title you held permanently.

A door back in, but it opens from the employer side.

When one Title 11A employer absorbs the functions of another, the employees can come across with them.

Coming back from a disability retirement starts with a determination from the Division of Pensions that the retiree is no longer disabled.