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Return to Article: OPM chief urges next president to promote public service

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  Something needs to be done to consolidate the hiring process. Applicants can submit resumes thru the USAJOBS website, but they seem to go into a black hole with no responses or a way to check the status. Army has the CPOL website with resume builder which lets users check the status of their resumes. Too many systems between all the different agencies. I like the idea of recruiting from high schools. I took a civil service exam to get into the clerical field. It was entry level, but the government had good benefits and better pay than I could make in private sector at the time. I worked my way up thru the system from a GS-3 to GS-12 (NPSP Pay Band 2). I learned a lot. There isn't any way for someone to come in at the ground floor and work their way up any more. A lot of the jobs don't really require a 4-year degree, but that's the requirement now. I'd rather hire someone with a good work ethic and drive than someone with a 4-year degree who feels entitlement.

  CSRS Posted May 8, 2008 4:40 PM
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  As usual finger pointing the problem with recruiting is OPM. They are the bottle neck and act like the standard gov't practice old and archaic. Another activity that needs a house cleaning, the whole hiring practice could be farmed out to Manpower and A76'd

  dan m ketter Posted May 8, 2008 12:32 PM
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  Director Springer is absolutely right -- the next president needs to use the bully pulpit to promote public service, rather than score cheap political points by bashing "bureaucrats." One way the next president can show that he is serious about promoting public service, particularly among a younger generation, is to embrace the Public Service Academy, which would be the civilian counterpart to the military service academies. The U.S. Public Service Act already has 19 Senate co-sponsors and 96 House co-sponsors -- what it needs now is a president!

  CMA Posted May 8, 2008 12:32 PM
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  I agree with most of the previous comments. The federal government is a good place to work, it's been good for me. I think the recruitment process should start at the high school level. At this level they can be informed of govenment service and how to be employed. This would allow them to keep their personal records clean, which would eliminate them from federal service.

  JH Posted May 8, 2008 11:06 AM
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  There are plenty of qualified people that want to work for the federal government. The problem is the "slug-like" HR hiring processes in many agencies. Months and even years pass before candidates are contacted with a job offer. The current GS pay tables also have to be adjusted to attract experienced professionals from the private sector. Candidates with advanced degrees are often insulted with job offers for GS-9 and below positions, while the rotating door of retired military fill positions over a weekend.

  mudpie Posted May 8, 2008 8:46 AM
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  We have yet again the claim that an imminent surge in the retirement rate of Federal employees will in some way or other leave the Federal government bereft of minimum staffing levels of competent workers to carry out agency missions. OPM has been playing the Chicken Little card on this topic for years with no evidence that the Federal workforce sky is in any danger of an early fall. Agencies continue to routinely receive more than adequate numbers of well qualified applicants for the vast majority - there are limited exceptions in certain technical and professional fields - whenever they announce their vacancies on USAJOBS. The two recent MSPB studies of the demographic and attitudinal makeup of recent hires at entry and above levels clearly indicate that the "package" offered by the the government to potential new hires (especially FEHB benfits, a generous retirement system, generally competitive salaries, and far better job security than found in the private sector) is highly effective in attracting large numbers of well qualified candidates. It's true that many agencies pretty much dismantled their external recruitment programs during the downsizing years of the Clinton administration, but most of them have moved to remedy that lack, especially since 9/11, and are quite capable of conducting outreach recruitment as needed to generate the necessary applicant pools. Of course, inside the Beltway, in order to gain media or congressional attention any topic or issue must as a matter of course be characterized as a "crisis" or "disaster in the making" if it's to have any hope of gaining attention in the day-to-day cacaphony that goes into what passes for public debate there. It's just that the hypocrisy of the supposed Federal employees' looming retirement "tsunami" has become a bit much even by Washington's loose standards and is all too clearly an attention-grabbing charade.

  Jeremiah Posted May 8, 2008 8:33 AM
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  I agree with Director Springer that brand recognition is uneven across departments and agencies. While individual agencies conduct outreach to attract job candidates (with varying results), maybe its time to create a new agency to take on the responsibility of civilian recruitment--it has worked for the military departments so why not do the same for the civilian departments and agencies?

  Veteran Posted May 7, 2008 5:49 PM