Hire Calling

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has become a model of faster, smarter hiring.

As interest in nuclear energy started to heat up in 2005, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission braced for change. The demand for electricity was increasing worldwide, and people were looking for alternatives to fossil fuels.

A nuclear renaissance was on the way.

To many, determining how to meet the rising demand for more nuclear power plants and ensure the safety of existing ones would seem like a tough enough challenge. But for James McDermott, NRC's human resources director, figuring out how to navigate the federal hiring process and recruit highly skilled employees quickly to meet this challenge was a bigger burden. The agency's goal was a net gain of 200 employees annually, which meant it would have to continue hiring even as it replaced departing workers.

McDermott acknowledges he was skeptical about pulling off this feat. NRC was able to hire at most 220 employees annually. With a 6 percent annual attrition rate, the agency-which had about 3,000 people at the time-would have to nearly double annual hiring to about 400 people to meet the annual net gain goal.

The agency, however, managed to step up recruiting, streamline its hiring process and meet its goals nearly every year. McDermott says in hindsight, the effort didn't require the rocket science he thought it would.

NRC's situation is one that many federal agencies face as growing demands, changing missions and looming retirements force them to rethink their hiring processes. They're looking for innovative ways to recruit early- to mid-level career employees. It's a race against the clock, as agencies know if they don't speed hiring and make job offers to the best qualified candidates, someone else will.

"Being competitive isn't just about the benefits and the salary; it also involves the hiring process," says John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service. "Really good talent isn't going to jump through all kinds of hoops that don't make sense."

As agencies rush to find a solution, the Office of Personnel Management is touting models like NRC's. OPM is launching an initiative in September that will emphasize workforce planning, communication and orientation programs for new hires. If all goes as planned, the future of federal recruiting and hiring will be bright.

Above all, change requires a commitment from federal leaders and managers agencywide, observers agree. "Good HR management is a management responsibility," Palguta says.

Role Models

Government Accountability Office Chief Human Capital Officer Cynthia Heckman says commitment from top managers has been critical. "In my mind, how we're really successful is that we have top management support and folks throughout the organization involved in our hiring efforts," she says.

Commitment from management is why NRC has one of the most sought-after programs. When asked how he gets a place at the table where strategic agency decisions are made, McDermott says, "I tell them it's my table. The managers here are so into HR management that they own it now. I don't hire people; we hire people. And that's the way I want them to think of it."

While McDermott has gotten more managers in-volved in general hiring strategies, he has limited the number of people who evaluate each candidate to keep the process moving along. The agency has shifted from three-person applicant rating panels and instead usually has the person who would work most closely with the new hire review applications.

"If you want to slow your process down, you get a rating panel involved-a panel of busy people who have all kinds of conflicts on their schedules," McDermott says. NRC's streamlined course of action still has checks and balances, because the recruiter's boss must sign off on the decision.

The agency has simplified the application process further by requiring candidates to send only a résumé at first. McDermott says he believes questions on knowledge, skills and abilities-which are commonplace on federal applications-have little value in being solid predictors of good performance.

"What I want is a résumé, and then I want to put people to work," he says. "Get in and see them face to face and see if there's a match. Going at somebody with the right questions is highly predictive of future success at the job."

To generate interest in applying, the agency is engaging in broad, but carefully planned, outreach to universities. NRC recruiters do some prep work in advance of job fairs, McDermott says. Not only does the agency put together a 10-person team involving senior executives, mid-level professionals and entry-level hires from the particular school being targeted, NRC also schedules advance meetings with university department heads and student associations to get the word out.

"In some cases, if we have enough lead time and can comply with the merit promotion requirements, we'll have posted a job targeting that particular school," McDermott says. "If we get enough response, we'll go to the [job fair] having vetted a lot of these applications, and if these people come across as semi-normal, we can offer them a job."

NRC also casts an even wider net and advertises entry- and mid-level openings in locations with the career groups they're targeting and invites individuals to submit a résumé and set aside the upcoming Saturday for an interview. "We're tapping into a public service gene both at entry level and in mid- to late career," he says. "Half the people we hired last year were over 40."

Striking the Right Balance

OPM has touted the use of hiring authorities-some of which target veterans and people with disabilities-for agencies that feel the pinch of traditional ranking and selection procedures. From fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2007, the number of employees hired under eight special authorities rose more than 48 percent, from slightly less than 30,000 to more than 43,000, OPM reports.

Angela Bailey, deputy associate director for talent and capacity policy at OPM, credits outreach to agencies for the increased use of special authorities. In a survey released by OPM in May, managers and human resources practitioners rated the authorities as more efficient and effective in producing quality hires than competitive procedures.

As agencies become even more aware of the flexibilities and demand for talent grows, use of the authorities is likely to rise again. That has labor unions worried. Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, says agencies could be using the exceptions to competitive hiring for the wrong reasons. "Agencies say they're hiring faster," she says. "I think that's what all this ends up being about, not about quality or openness of the process."

Kelley says she is particularly concerned about the Federal Career Intern Program, which allows for appointments to two-year internships that can be noncompetitively converted into career civil service jobs. According to OPM, hires under the internship program grew nearly 150 percent from 2004 to 2007, from about 6,800 to almost 17,000.

"FCIP was supposed to be used in very narrow instances and now it has just become the hiring practice of many agencies," Kelley says. "We're not opposed to a streamlined process as long as it doesn't give up the merit principles."

John Crum, acting director of the Office of Policy and Evaluation at the Merit Systems Protection Board, says the hiring process still is competitive, even when agencies use the special authorities. He notes that candidates for FCIP and a program created under the 1998 Veterans Employment Opportunity Act still compete with one another. "It's somewhat of a misnomer to characterize these processes as not competitive," Crum says.

Robert Goldenkoff, director of strategic issues at GAO, says agencies should be judged according to results. "There's too much of a focus on process and not enough on outcomes," he says. "If we hold agencies accountable for achieving diversity and veterans preference, it doesn't matter what process is used." Crum says it's basically a matter of agencies striking a balance between special hiring authorities and the competitive process. But as agencies face more competition for talent, he says, the balance has to swing toward improving the traditional process and becoming more applicant-friendly.

Roadmap for Change

One key to improving the traditional process, according to Crum, would be to create a uniform application for similar positions across agencies. "Especially at the entry level, we're more concerned with someone's skills and abilities than we are with them knowing the difference between how NASA does it and how Agriculture does it," he says.

Victoria Vargas, a member of Young Government Leaders, a grass-roots organization that educates and develops the next crop of federal leaders, says any overhaul of the traditional hiring process should emphasize communication with applicants. "Right now, there is no communication, and many applicants feel like their résumé goes into a black hole," she says.

OPM considered such recommendations and NRC's model in developing its hiring initiative. The effort, led by OPM acting Director Howard Weizmann, is the result of talks with students, veterans and all segments of society.

"There are a couple of things that are incredibly important to us as an agency, and that's the competitive process and veterans' preference," OPM's Bailey says. "It's the cornerstone of our business."

The hiring roadmap encourages agencies to first engage in workforce planning-determining the exact skills and staff an agency needs to accomplish its mission. "Rather than just fill jobs, step back from the process and figure out what you really need in order to get things accomplished in the 21st century," she says. Bailey says the hiring initiative also places greater emphasis on federal recruiting because, unlike the military, civilian agencies lack a defined recruitment strategy. "We need to hire career civilian recruiters to go out and start building relationships with military transition centers, universities and some parts of the private sector that are downsizing," she says.

Bailey says OPM's research also has shown a need to manage expectations. That portion of the initiative involves encouraging agencies to better communicate with applicants, as Vargas suggested. OPM also is encouraging agencies to make the complete process, from the time a manager recognizes the need to fill a position to the time a new hire starts a job, no longer than 80 days. "That's pretty much what we think the market will bear," she says.

Finally, the initiative emphasizes creating a positive orientation experience for new hires, a process that should begin at least 30 days before the employee arrives on the job, Bailey says. This means making sure the employee has a desk and computer, the proper badges and a mentor for his or her entire first year.

"It's a whole lot more than just posting a job," she says. "It involves a whole lot of upfront thinking for managers to figure out what they need."

Still, the key not only is raising the visibility of hiring reform at agencies, Palguta says, it's also holding them accountable for improving their processes and achieving results. "Collectively, managers, Congress, OPM and HR professionals have to do their part to make sure they're designing good programs and policies," he says. "It's not one thing that's broken, so that if we fix it, it all works. There are no silver bullets; we need silver buckshot."