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Early this year, the Partnership for Public Service, an organization devoted to the ideal of encouraging people to work in government, unveiled an initiative to convince baby boomers to consider "encore careers" with federal agencies.

The idea behind the effort was simple: to use one asset -- a group of people who have reached the heights of their private sector careers and have a gnawing desire to give back to their country -- to solve another problem: that the federal government apparently is about to have more senior-level openings than it can fill with civil servants currently working their way through the pipeline.

But actually implementing such a plan on a wide scale will be anything but simple. First, there's the problem of convincing private sector types that government is the place to go to make a difference. After all, the nonprofit sector is increasingly popular among those with a sense of civic duty, and volunteer work is always an option for those who already have earned a comfortable retirement.

Then there's the whole issue of getting agencies to be more receptive to hiring candidates from outside the federal ranks. As the Partnership for Public Service itself notes, at the midcareer level (GS-12 to 15), federal agencies fill only 15 percent of their vacancies with external candidates, and less than half the openings are even available to applicants from outside government.

It's easy to dismiss that as federal closed-mindedness borne of a desire to keep the civil service an exclusive club for lifelong bureaucrats. But there's another explanation: When it comes to developing and implementing federal programs, and making sure they actually work, government experience is a highly valuable commodity.

That's a lesson President Bush seems to have learned in his second term in office, particularly since his party's stinging defeat at the polls last November. His first major postelection decision was to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates, a career CIA officer who rose through the ranks to become director in the George H.W. Bush administration. Gates, in turn, asked retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, a highly experienced intelligence officer, to become undersecretary of Defense for intelligence.

And that was just the beginning. In early January, Bush shifted John Negroponte -- whose 40 years of experience in government had already earned him the post of Director of National Intelligence -- over to the No. 2 slot at the State Department. To replace Negroponte, Bush tapped retired Navy Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, a former director of the National Security Agency.

Then, after announcing his new Iraq policy, Bush named Ryan C. Crocker, a career Foreign Service officer since 1971, to serve as U.S. ambassador to the country. Crocker's career includes not only previous stints in Iraq, but service in Iran, Qatar and Egypt.

At the same time, Timothy Carney, a retired career Foreign Service officer, was asked to take over reconstruction efforts in the country. During his 32-year government career, Carney served as ambassador to Haiti and Sudan, held diplomatic posts in Vietnam and Cambodia, and served a stint in Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals after the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003.

Even before the elections, Bush had sought out leaders with extensive federal résumés to lead key agencies: David Paulison at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden at the CIA. And that was after naming highly experienced federal officials to head the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA earlier in his second term.

All of which begs the following question about the Partnership for Public Service initiative: Wouldn't it make more sense to try to convince senior federal employees to stay in their jobs until their agencies can develop the bench strength they need?

These managers and executives already have a public service ethic, and something else that's even more valuable -- the expertise and wisdom that comes with decades of working in government operations. As President Bush is learning, experience, it turns out, is worth something.

COMMENTS

• As long as we're telling war stories on this subject, here's one. I was recently reinstated as a Federal employee after a 25-year hiatus in the private sector. As a former Fed, with decades of directly pertinent and progressively responsible experience in the interim, I figured I would have a great competitive edge in seeking reemployment at an appropriate grade level. Wrong! I received several reject notices on higher-graded position apps, indicating I hadn't met the "12 months in the next lower grade" requirement or hadn't taken certain government-only courses, i.e., "hadn't paid my dues". (I guess valuable experience outside the Federal preserve was inconceivable to those involved in hiring.) Result: I ended up with the same grade I had when I originally left the government (having had only 11 months in said grade). With this level of ingenuity and intelligence in staffing, it is a wonder that even 15% of mid- to upper-level positions are filled from the outside. GovExec.com reader Posted February 7, 2007 12:02 PM
• I remember when I first started in the civil service. I was trying to get promoted from GS-4 to GS-5 as a secretary when I had been there less than a year. I had worked 12 years in private industry beforehand. Personnel, in their infinite wisdom, disqualified my application for lack of "specialized experience", or "I didn't put my time in" was the way they put it. In the words of one of the people was the explanation, "Your experience "outside the yard" (Philadelphia Naval Shipyard) don't count!! (sic) With that, who wants to work in the land where tenure and political patronage is everything and seasoned workers just coming into the civil service have to start all over? By the way, no wonder the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard is no longer. Nothing has changed. Disgruntled. GovExec.com reader Posted February 6, 2007 1:30 PM
• Sure -- Ask experienced, well-trained and very capable private sector employees interested in a federal position to put up with the federal government's awful staffing and hiring process. Ask them to fill out horrendous KSA narratives on why they are the best writer or communicator on the planet Earth. Ask them to wait months and months without feedback. Ask them to enjoy being told by a GS-11 HR staffing assistant who can't spell or speak well that in that assistant's opinion, the applicant's qualifications didn't rank them best qualified. Ask them to also enjoy being interviewed by people who don't have a clue what skills are necessary to fill the position. And if they finally have the patience to be hired through this maze they can enjoy coming into the government on probation with the same benefits package as the kid right out of college. Welcome to Uncle Sam's asylum. After the stories I have told my kids about my experiences in the federal career service I doubt very much they will ever opt for a federal career and I can't blame them. HR Specialist GovExec.com reader Posted February 6, 2007 7:28 AM