Federal agencies want young talent. They need to rethink the pitch, experts say

Bringing more early-career workers into the civil service will require agencies to rethink not just how they recruit, but what a career in public service looks like, according to speakers this week at the National Academy of Public Administration’s national conference.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who spoke at the event Tuesday, predicted that the damage done to the federal workforce by last year’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts could eventually lead to a public administration "renaissance" in which young people play an important role. 

“The damage that's been done needs to be repaired, but we would make the mistake if we just repaired it without reimagining,” he said. “We really need a lot of young public administrators and young altruistic people around the table as we do that because we need to reimagine these agencies and institutions, as we're building them, in a way that is purpose built for tomorrow — not yesterday — and that really excites this next generation.” 

Kaine also expects that Democrats will nominate someone for president in 2028 who, like John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama, will appeal to young people and “make being a public servant cool again.” 

Similarly, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor has prioritized bringing more early-career employees into government and uses “Making Government Cool Again” as a slogan. 

Michelle Amante, a senior leader at the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit and a new NAPA fellow, told Government Executive in August that she would not recommend using the word “cool” in messaging to Gen Z applicants, as it’s somewhat of a dated word. 

However, attracting young workers may require more than a change in messaging. Kupor has pitched government service to young people by arguing that they can try it out for a couple years and then potentially pivot to a different sector, as opposed to spending their whole career at an agency. Noah Peters, who was a senior adviser at OPM during Trump’s second term, made a similar argument during a NAPA panel on Tuesday.  

“We had to get a lot more proactive about hiring and also change the value proposition for federal service to try to get people who are highly skilled to come in for a few years and have that be a thing instead of the ‘30-year federal career,’ which still has a place,” he said. “I think [the 30-year-career] has to be supplemented by different tracks where we can be more dynamic. But that's going to take a mindset shift on behalf of the agencies and how they hire and recruit people.”

Peters said that the greatest challenges in government are hiring and recruitment — issues that have hindered Trump administration initiatives. For example, OPM initially fell far short of its goal to recruit a 1,000-strong cohort for Tech Force, a program for early-career software and data engineers to work in government. At the time, Kupor said: “I would love to have everybody here yesterday. But I’m learning the government hiring process does take time.”

Arun Gupta — the CEO of the NobleReach Foundation, a nonprofit that is a partner of Tech Force — argued during a NAPA panel on Monday that the government needs to create more “prestigious” opportunities for young people to serve at all levels. Alumni of those programs, he said, would motivate their peers to enter public service. 

“They become the ones that are telling their friends, ‘Why are you doing that banking, consulting, PowerPoint, spreadsheet thing when you can be doing really interesting things, solving really interesting problems and having really interesting impact?” he said.