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Are federal agencies prepared for the needed
investment in human capital in the new millennium? They employ
more than 900,000 people, such as engineers, scientists, law
enforcement agents, budget analysts, accountants, librarians,
psychologists, and information technology specialists. Each
year, agencies are hiring more than 20,000 new people for
entry-level positions in those occupations. New entries are
developed and rise quickly to leadership positions.
Current federal hiring methods simply do
not keep pace with the private sector in the battle to secure
the talent needed for the future. To reverse this trend, the
panel states that agency executives must make entry recruitment
a top management and resource priority. The panel recommends
a comprehensive set of changes to entry-level hiring methods
to improve the quality of candidates, increase candidate knowledge
of agency programs, uphold merit principles, improve process
timeliness, reduce complexity and burden, and contribute to
the government's goal of having a diverse workforce. According
to the report, "no single flexible hiring authority,
technique or method will resolve the difficulty of competing
for the best of the nation's recent college graduates."
Instead, agencies must make changes in basic policy, improve
their reputation on the nation's campuses (branding), use
the full range of alternatives in merit-based hiring, coordinate
better with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and
aggressively use available technology to increase the efficiency
and effectiveness of their recruitment programs. "Most
important," the report states, is for "the administration
and agency heads to give priority to competing more effectively
for the best of the graduating classes from our nation's colleges
and universities."
The Academy panel proposes the following
upgrades to capture and develop the best-of -the-best candidates:
- create a governmentwide career intern
program that gives agencies authority to hire college graduates
through two-year excepted appointments and structured formal
intern development
- create and promote internships and continuing
development, not just jobs, for entry hires
- aggressively organize and invigorate
the highly regarded College Cooperative Education Program
- emphasize that a team effort by OPM and
agencies is critical to agency recruiting success
- streamline the Presidential Management
Intern Program so the job fair where agencies make job offers
occurs in March before college spring break
- develop a separate careers website and
emphasize applicant computer proficiency.
- modify the rule of three that often blocks
quality candidates with identical or nearly identical scores.
- delegate to agencies examining authority
for the few remaining entry occupations retained by OPM
under the Luevano decree (112 of 297)
[During the 10-year period covered by the Academy study
only 1,533 or .8% of the entry hires in government were
made through use of the examination lists for those occupations
under the centralized Administrative Careers With America
exam]
The 124-page report, Entry-Level Hiring and Development
for the 21st Century: Professional and Administrative Positions,
Order # 99-19, is published by the National Academy of Public
Administration. Copies may be purchased for $20.00 plus shipping
by calling NAPA Publications at 301-617-7801. The media may
obtain complimentary copies by contacting the Academy's Office
of Communications.
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