Presidential Management Fellows Program

Atlanta Region Presidential Management Fellows Program

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is one of the most recognized public and social service agencies in the world. SSA employees strive to provide a very noble service--to promote and guarantee the economic security of millions of disabled, retired, and dependent beneficiaries.

The Atlanta Region is the largest of 10 regions and encompasses eight southern states, including Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Georgia. Each month, we pay nearly 7 billion dollars in benefits to over 10 million beneficiaries. And as the largest region in the nation, we are responsible for performing 25% of all the nation's Social Security workload and are often involved in high profile national pilots, initiatives, conferences, meetings, and visits by high-level agency officials.


About the Atlanta Region's Presidential Management Fellows Program

In the Atlanta Region of the Social Security Administration (SSA), our Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program is structured so as to provide interns with maximum exposure to the administration's local, regional, and national issues, initiatives, and leadership as much as possible.

To facilitate this concept, we have designed the program so that our fellows will be perform their intensive two-year internship in the metropolitan Atlanta area. This allows the fellows easy access to the Atlanta Regional Office of SSA, where Executive Staff meetings, special conferences, training sessions and meetings with SSA leadership are held.


Basic Function as a Presidential Management Fellow

PMFs embark on a 2-year internship that includes developmental, rotational assignments and which provide experience in applying skills and previous academic background towards conversion into a permanent, target position with the agency.

Work assignments are individually tailored to prepare the GS-09 Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) to satisfactorily perform at the GS-12 target position level. Therefore, their assignments are designed to broaden their knowledge of programs administered and managed by SSA. Assignments are individually planned to ensure progressively more independence, responsibility and accountability. Work assignments also require increasingly greater initiative, completed staff work, and greater complexity in problem analysis.

Developmental work assignments are individually tailored to ensure PMFs achieve agency core and leadership competencies such as:

  • Accountability

  • Conflict Management

  • Continual Learning

  • Customer Service

  • Flexibility

  • Integrity and Honesty

  • Interpersonal Skills

  • Problem Solving

  • Public Service Motivation


About Training

PMFs will participate in selected orientation sessions, seminars and training programs as offered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and SSA, or as recommended by his or her selected mentor, supervisor, or PMF program coordinator. PMFs will find the training sessions beneficial for both learning and networking with PMFs all over the nation both at SSA and other federal agencies. Travel for any events outside the Metro Atlanta area is pending budget approval.


Supervisor Information

During the course of the internship, PMFs will have various assignment supervisors who will monitor their progress in a particular developmental assignment. For example, if a PMF performs a Claims Representative assignment in a field office (FO), the FO manager or Operations Supervisor is considered the assignment supervisor and will evaluate the PMF's progress in the assignment.


Potential Target PMF Positions in the Atlanta Region

The following GS-12 positions are generally the targets for most PMFs at the completion of program.

Operation Supervisor

Location:  SSA Field Office

Duties:

  • First line supervision of employees responsible for administering either the Title II or Title XVI program

  • Reviews, analyzes and provides freedback to the staff and the office Manager on employee and workload performance.

  • Examines current field office procedures and makes recommendations for improvement.

Assistant Module Manager

Location: Southeastern Program Service Center

Duties:

  • Assistant to the Module Manager who has overall responsibility for managing SSA benefits processing, making changes to the SSA records and providing direct service to the American public via the 800 number operation.

  • Assists in directing, coordinating and supervising the activities of process module employees.

  • Formulates and implements module goals.

  • Conducts work performance and conduct discussions. Serves as a leave approving officer.

Management/Program Analyst

Location: Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia

Duties:

  • Provides staff support and guidance on administrative and policy issues to executives, managers and regional employees.

  • Performs data analysis and participates in the planning and implementation of projects.

  • Works on projects and studies which involve researching and analyzing an issue or problem.

  • Prepares recommendations to resolve problems.


Contact Us

We welcome you to contact us. Please direct your inquiries to our PMF Coordinator, Michelle Hinson, at (404) 562-1218 or at Michelle.Hinson@ssa.gov.

For formal eligibility requirements for the PMF Program, please visit the Office of Personnel Management's web site at www.opm.gov.