The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Has anybody gotten their hiring exemption approved after the shutdown? I graduated back in August and started the hiring process. I was told prior to the shutdown starting that they were waiting on the hiring exemption. In October I was told the exemptions weren’t being processed during the shut shutdown and now everyone I talk to just says “we’re waiting on an exemption and we don’t know how long it’ll be.” IDK what to do at this point. I’ve gotten a couple of job opportunities that have come up, but if so get the job with my SF before my 6 months ends I’d rather take it (it’ll pay more than the other opportunities that have come along and the extra money right now would be nice).

I posted this a while ago, but the short answer is my SF is trying a work around.

Previous post:
My SF has had trouble onboarding one of our Phase 2 PhDs. SMART granted two 6mo extensions of the stipend to try to help (extremely generous). Now that the shutdown is over, the SF (still under a hiring freeze) is signing a memorandum of understanding with the Army Fellow Program (no hiring freeze) in order to hire this PhD. My SF will also now convert all following Phase 2 SMART scholars to Army Fellows before offering fulltime roles at the end of the fellowships. Has anyone else been through something like this?

That is interesting and I’d like to see how it turns out. I’ll try to see if there’s anything that can be done to sidestep things. I have an interview with a local community college in a week or so, but I’d rather have the job with my SF.