GovernmentExecutive.com

The government's top personnel official is pushing agencies to do more on-the-spot hiring, but at least one expert says that tool is only one of many that agencies should rely on to improve hiring efforts.

In an interview this week, Office of Personnel Management director Kay Coles James praised the CIA for its success in using direct hiring capability at a recent job fair in New York City. James lauded CIA personnel officials for making 11 conditional employment offers at the fair.

The agency "actually came to the fair prepared to hire," James said.

A senior official at the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington advocacy group, cautioned, however, that direct hiring is only a small part of the solution to the government's personnel problems.

"Direct hiring is a tool. It's one of many out there," said John Palguta, vice president for policy and research at the Partnership. "But is having direct hire authority going to fix what's broken about the federal hiring process? No, not entirely. It's going to take more."

On Tuesday, James said she was pushing agencies to use a variety of hiring flexibilities, but she placed specific emphasis on direct hiring. She said that future federal job fairs might require agency recruiters to come equipped with 10 jobs that they are prepared to offer to qualified candidates.

In an interview this week with Government Executive, Palguta emphasized that he is "a fan of the direct hire authority." But he made clear that direct hiring is appropriate only when agencies are competing in a tight labor market for personnel with specific skills.

In recent weeks, OPM officials have accused agencies of not taking advantage of existing personnel flexibilities. For their part, chief human capital officers complained that OPM has not provided sufficient guidelines on various hiring authorities.

In recent interviews and reports, senior OPM officials have placed particular emphasis on direct hiring authority. Palguta said such authority has been helpful in the past, but he cautioned federal personnel officials against adopting it too broadly. He noted that direct hiring is not a common practice in the private sector. Instead, effective corporate recruiters maintain strong ties to universities and often know the best graduates before they leave school. For mid-level or senior hires, companies research their candidates and put them through rounds of interviews.

"Good private-sector companies invest a lot of time and effort in their hiring," Palguta said. When a high-quality private corporation offers someone a job, "it's not because they met them that day and took a liking to them."

"The task of finding good people, well matched to your needs, is not simple," Palguta said. "It should not be taking months to bring someone on board. But it should not be instantaneous."

COMMENTS

• On the spot hiring doesn't allow for background checks. I wonder how many additional TSA airport screeners who are convicted felons would have been hired with on the spot authority. :-) Speed is great but mindless speed is dangerous. In any case, I doubt very much that breakneck speed will really solve the government's problem in hiring which OPM refuses to acknowledge exists. We can go and hire at job fairs and give on the spot offer letters but will young people accept and if they accept will they stay? My experience has been doubtful and probably not. You can't help with recruitment if you can't solve the retention problem for mid career federal employees. HR GovExec.com reader Posted June 22, 2004 4:05 PM
• I have to agree with this story because as having served on active duty with the Marines for 12 years, I applied for civil servant jobs within the section that I worked and was told that I didn't possess any of the skills needed to do that job. I found that to be pretty ironic because I possessed all the necessary skills as a Marine to do that same job, but because I didn't match those infamous "key words" within the DoNHR Resumix system, I wasn't considered to be qualified. This continues to happen to other qualified candidates. I know of people with college degrees in their area of expertise who were found not qualified while others who have family in upper management positions always seem to to be able to find those "key words" and are able to get qualified. I don't see how anyone can argue that Resumix finds the most qualified candidate for job. GovExec.com reader Posted June 16, 2004 9:35 AM
• John Palguta is absolutely right. I suggest a brief explaination each time the phrase "direct hire" is used. Direct Hire is not as simple a process as it might appear to a layperson or to many managers and was never intended to be used as the prime method of staffing. And Director James should be clear that the CIA is an excepted appointment agency, not a competitive appointment agency as most government agencies are. With all the time, effort, and money spent for the New York Job Fair, 10 hires is not a great return on investment. GovExec.com reader Posted June 14, 2004 8:51 PM