Tailor-Made

Rosslyn Kleeman has a knack for finding jobs that fit.

In the late 1960s, the federal government had little to offer Rosslyn Kleeman, a mother of four in search of a part-time management job. At the time, most women in government filled clerical positions.

That didn't deter Kleeman, who moved to the nation's capital from Minnesota in 1966 when her husband, a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, transferred to the newspaper's Washington bureau. She crafted a résumé trumpeting her extensive volunteer work and after six months of negotiation, persuaded federal personnel officials to count her unpaid jobs as "real" work experience worthy of a GS-13 classification.

Then she pressed her luck even more: She angled for a part-time position, a rare work arrangement at the time. "I presented a real problem to the federal government," she recalls. Her tenacity paid off, landing her a job at the former Health, Education and Welfare Department.

When Kleeman, now a distinguished executive in residence at The George Washington University, advises students interested in public service, she encourages them to display similar initiative, persistence, patience and enthusiasm.

At HEW, Kleeman directed research on how the department's social programs and internal policies treated women. She left HEW to work at the Office of Management and Budget briefly and, in the early 1970s, joined the General Accounting Office's nascent personnel division. After 16 years there, culminating in a position as director of workforce future issues, she left to join the Clinton administration's transition team.

Kleeman moved to academia in 1994 because she wanted a change. But she remains a member of several good-government groups and says that when she advises students-many of them choosing between public service and nonprofit work-she remains partial to public service. Salaries often equal or exceed those at nonprofits, she says, and there's no longer an expectation that federal employees will remain in the same job (or even in government) for their entire career. She is a big fan of the Presidential Management Fellows Program, a prestigious two-year internship that allows recent graduate-degree recipients to rotate among government jobs.

But Kleeman finds several trends worrisome.

Increased outsourcing of government work undermines job security, she says. She also fears that some candidates will grow impatient with the lengthy job application process. The government never has been especially quick at hiring, but the problem has been exacerbated because so many positions require security clearances-a process that can take a year.

Kleeman also will watch closely as the fiscal 2006 budget unfurls. She worries that belt tightening as President Bush attempts to cut the deficit will mean fewer entry-level jobs, especially in social research, an area that interests many of her students.

For those still intent on pursuing federal jobs, Kleeman has practical advice: Allot plenty of time for the search because the application paperwork alone can be tedious. In writing cover letters and résumés, use strong verbs and describe why work experience mattered, she says. Don't simply say "I did research," or "I wrote a report," she advises. "It's what happened with the report."

List relevant volunteer work, too. Kleeman says she landed her first federal job by convincing the government to value her volunteer experience-which ranged from serving as executive director of the Minnesota Council for the Gifted to a stint at Washington Opportunities for Women, where she conducted research for an advice book to help "rusty ladies" (women who had left their jobs to have children) re-enter the workforce.

Once in a government job, look for opportunities "beyond your day-to-day efforts," Kleeman says. Keep records of achievements and failures so that you'll be on your toes during performance reviews. Pay for performance should be embraced, she adds, because it will provide incentives for top-notch public servants to stay in government.