OPM wants to woo young workers. Can internet memes overcome Trump’s cuts to the civil service?

As the federal government’s human resources agency, the Office of Personnel Management frequently posts information on its social media about subjects like performance ratings and retirement processing. 

On Aug. 6, however, OPM shared a post on its X account of an IMAX theater showing a video encouraging young people to apply to work at agencies with the caption: “Learning why you should join the federal government the way Christopher Nolan intended.” 

The post is referencing the movie director’s decision to shoot “The Odyssey," his latest box office hit, entirely with IMAX cameras. It also includes a link to a government early career talent webpage. 

While the Nolan IMAX post might seem random, OPM Director Scott Kupor said it’s a key part of an effort to recruit more early-career employees into government. 

“Yes, we're trying to be funny and kitschy and stuff like that,” Kupor said. “But most of that is in service of a strategy, which is, can we actually find the people that we're interested in talking to and convince them to take 30 seconds out of their busy days and hear what we have to say?”

The underrepresentation of young people in the federal government is a longstanding issue that the Biden administration also sought to fix. As officials in the second Trump presidency take their shot at solving the problem, Michelle Amante, senior vice president of government programs at the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit, warned that the president’s ongoing efforts to downsize the civil service could undermine any attempt at mass recruitment.  

“When [Gen Z is] thinking about — ‘where do I want to spend my career [and] where do I want to make a difference’ — it's hard to just brush [the last year-and-a-half] under the rug, regardless of what fancy social media campaign you have,” she said. 

“Make the federal government feel more approachable and even fun” 

Kiki Nyoh, an OPM spokeswoman, said that the agency’s social media presence is driven by a four-person communications team — all of whom are under the age of 30. 

“We know how our generation communicates because we are our generation, and we’re using that perspective to make federal service resonate with the next generation of talent,” she said over email. 

Christina Harbison, a senior digital adviser, shared that a lot of OPM’s social media content is inspired by a stray comment that someone will make in the office. 

“We’re always listening for those unexpected ideas and looking at what people are already engaging with online, then thinking about how we can give it a federal workforce spin,” she said by email. “Content that feels timely, light and culturally relevant tends to make the federal government feel more approachable and even fun.”

For example, Harbison said that a recent post with clips of characters from the popular sitcom “The Office” dancing to tout OPM’s transition away from paper to streamline the retirement process originated with Kupor mentioning that he liked Michael Scott, who is the boss in the show. 

Kupor, who is frequently featured in these posts, said that he’s always up for participating, even if he doesn’t understand the humor, such as a recent video he filmed as part of the “what’s on my desk” trend. 

“Quite frankly, I'm willing to try anything,” he said. “You know, at the end of the day, obviously I trust [my staff] to not completely embarrass me.”

Several agencies, including the Homeland Security Department, Transportation Department and Small Business Administration, have launched TikTok accounts in recent weeks after the Justice Department found in July that a 2022 law banning the Chinese social media platform from government devices is no longer applicable because the U.S.-based version of the app is now under majority control by American investors. 

When asked if OPM would create a TikTok account, Nyoh replied “stay tuned.” 

“They want to hear it from people their own age”

Amante — of the Partnership, which assists agencies with hiring — said she “applauds OPM’s desire to try to expand the way it recruits the next generation” but doesn’t think that its “specific messaging is likely to land well with Gen Z.” 

In particular, she criticized OPM’s “Making Government Cool Again” slogan. 

“Cool is not really a word that is being used frequently by Gen Z,” she said. “That is a Gen X-era word.”

Pew Research Center defines Gen X as those born between 1965 and 1980 and starts Gen Z with anyone born in 1997. 

Writers for Slang Insights, a website led by a “team of linguists, language enthusiasts, cultural researchers and content creators who share a common passion for understanding how language evolves,” reported in an Aug. 4 blog post that “if you’re still saying ‘cool,’ you might be dating yourself.”

Relatedly, a video promoting OPM’s Early Career Talent Network features country singer Kid Rock, a Trump supporter whose peak popularity was in the 2000s. 

Amante also suggested that OPM should highlight younger civil servants on social media. 

“It's not helpful to only hear the leaders telling [potential hires] what they think they will experience,” she said. “They want to hear it from people their own age.”

“Broad reshaping of government” 

OPM’s social media posts encouraging younger workers to apply for the government come after agencies have shed more than 300,000 employees since the end of 2024, according to federal workforce data. 

Kupor argued that many of the incentives that the Trump administration used to push out civil servants, such as Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, didn’t apply to early-career workers. 

He also contended that there’s an opportunity for a “broad reshaping of government.” Specifically, the OPM director pointed to the importance of addressing skills shortages across the civil service, which the Government Accountability Office has identified as a major issue since 2001, as well as the share of retirement-eligible federal employees, which currently stands at 13.5%. 

But the percentage of agency staffers under the age of 30 decreased over the first year of the Trump administration, according to a Partnership analysis, going from 8.9% in September 2024 to 7.9% in January 2026. Researchers attributed this to the mass firings of probationary employees, which generally impacted those who had been hired or promoted within the past year. 

And while the Trump administration created Tech Force in 2025 with a goal to bring on 1,000 early-career software and data engineers potentially as soon as the end of March, OPM reported to Government Executive that it has only made 325 hires so far. And the president eliminated initiatives like the Presidential Management Fellows, a nearly 50-year-old program that served as a pipeline for graduate students to consider and pursue a career in government. 

Still, Kupor is optimistic. 

“I think at the end of the day, people are going to take a job or listen to what I say mostly because I give them either a compelling reason that matches their interests and that shows that we're helping them try to develop their career,” he said. “If we do that well, then I think we'll continue to attract great people. Quite frankly, if that story is not believable or not compelling to folks, then I get it, and we won't have the success that I certainly expect that we'll have.”