OPM touts ‘hire-palooza’ event for early-career employees

The Office of Personnel Management is hosting a virtual hiring fair on Thursday as part of Director Scott Kupor’s push to bring more early-career workers into the civil service. 

“I’ll call it a hire-palooza for lack of a better word,” Kupor said on The Charlie Kirk Show, a podcast that was previously hosted by the slain conservative activist. “We’re going to have 16 agencies who are literally going to use an online campaign and do online interviews with folks, and we’re going to make job offers on the spot on Oct. 29.” 

In response to questions from Government Executive, an OPM spokesperson clarified that the event is only for applicants who are already going through the hiring process. 

“The purpose of the hiring fair is to coordinate across agencies to complete virtual interviews and initiate job offers for early career positions across the country,” they said in a statement. 

The spokesperson added that the event supports OPM’s goal of recruiting more than 30,000 early-career employees into the federal workforce. In fiscal 2027 guidance released this summer, the federal government’s HR agency set a governmentwide target that at least 33% of external hires be in the early stages of their careers. 

The Partnership for Public Service, a good government group that has been critical of the Trump administration’s federal workforce reforms, argued that OPM hasn’t publicized information that would be integral for potential hires to be able participate in the upcoming fair.  

“Hiring fairs can help bring early career talent into federal service, but only if participants know who is being recruited, for which positions and what’s expected of them. So far, OPM has said little about why the event is limited to people already in the hiring process, which hiring authorities agencies will use or how skills-based assessments are integrated,” said Jenny Mattingley, the nonprofit’s vice president of public policy and stakeholder engagement, in a statement to Government Executive. “Rebuilding candidates’ trust in the civil service as a stable career path after almost two years of widespread federal workforce cuts requires more transparency than what’s being provided.”

During Kupor’s interview on The Charlie Kirk Show, co-host Blake Neff complained that the "[The bureaucracy] is filled up with so many committed ideologue career people, and we need people who have a conservative disposition to be in the federal government because they can stop that from happening.” 

Kupor responded that that was a “fair point” and added: “Fundamentally, we need people who love this country, who believe in the Constitution and who are saying ‘Hey, look, I actually want to be part of the solution to the problems.’” 

In recent weeks, the OPM director has been visiting college campuses as part of a recruitment tour, and he is occasionally joined by conservative influencers, such as billionaire Joe Lonsdale and commentator Benny Johnson. 

Kupor has sought to bring more young people into government, as they are underrepresented in the federal workforce. The Biden administration also prioritized recruiting early-career workers for the same reason. 

While OPM is currently spearheading a hiring push, the Trump administration last year pushed out hundreds of thousands of civil servants as part of an effort to downsize the federal workforce, including by firing thousands of newly hired and promoted employees who were still in their probationary periods. 

From September 2024 to January 2026, the percentage of feds younger than 30 fell from 8.9% to 7.9%. The Partnership attributed this to the probationary firings, as they impacted many early-career employees.