Pitching Public Service

Despite its humorous overtones, NASPAA's "Calling Students to Public Service Careers" initiative is serious. Government service used to attract the best and brightest, the idealists who flocked to federal jobs during World War II, joined the Peace Corps in the 1960s and staffed the offices of regulatory agencies charged with fighting pollution and unsafe workplaces in the 1970s.

Somewhere along the way, however, public service fell out of favor. Efforts to reinvent government and cut waste in the last decade painted public servants as robots biding their time until retirement. Federal hiring slowed while the country's soaring economy stimulated jobs in both the private and nonprofit sectors. For many, including a growing number of college graduates, public service-in the federal government, at least-began to spell "bureaucracy." Once considered plum jobs with good salaries, great benefits, job security and stimulating work, government service now seemed increasingly dead-end and underpaid.

Enrollment in schools of public administration remains fairly steady despite the federal sector's reputation. "There is plenty of interest in government service among young people and there are exciting jobs there," says Paul C. Light, vice president and director of government studies at the Brookings Institution.

But skepticism about the civil service-and the government's lackluster attempts to recruit top candidates-is fueling a growing human capital shortfall that experts say threatens to leave gaping holes in the upper layers of management. Over the next four years, the government will lose close to 400,000 workers through attrition alone as baby boomers begin retiring at age 55, says Joseph Stix, director of the Office of Personnel Management's Philadelphia service center. Many of these boomers, Stix says, have risen to the top ranks of management and the Senior Executive Service, policy-making positions that are not likely to fall victim to cutbacks.

The need to fill those slots and to alter perceptions about public service prompted NASPAA in 1998 to commission a study of student attitudes toward public service careers. Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, a research team from The George Washington University's Public Administration Department looked at careers in federal and local government, public interest groups, public policy analysis and nonprofits. Researchers found "a large body of students who say that under the right circumstances, they would consider a career in the public or nonprofit sector," says Deborah Rosenbloom, NASPAA director of public policy and law. However, while many graduate students of public administration viewed federal jobs as having attractive benefits and job security, they gave much lower scores to other aspects of civil service work, such as having capable co-workers, job autonomy and opportunities for advancement.

The study was a catalyst for the launch of NASPAA's "Look Ma!" campaign, Rosenbloom says. Backed by an advisory board whose members range from MTV's Rock the Vote organization to the Harry S. Truman Foundation, NASPAA came up with the catchy brochure and faculty materials that are now distributed at colleges nationwide. "Forget about old gray desks and a lack of imagination," the booklet proclaims. "The nine young men and women you'll meet in these pages are living proof that public service careers can be stimulating, satisfying and highly rewarding."

Image Makeover

Remaking the image of public service won't be easy, says Rosslyn Kleeman, executive in residence at The George Washington University's Public Administration Department and former director of workforce issues at the General Accounting Office.

"Government employment is not very glamorous, and people sometimes have terrible misconceptions about the government and government em- ployees," says GAO analyst Casey Brown, who has a master's degree in public administration and a juris doctorate from Indiana University in Bloomington.

Brandon Konda, a graduate student of public administration at The George Washington University, is a Capitol Hill intern headed toward the federal civil service. He finds himself having to defend his choice to critics who say federal employees are just feeding at the government trough. The government, says Hia Phua, a 1997 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School for Public and International Affairs, who opted for a private-sector consulting job, sometimes conjures up "images of unmotivated paper-pushers or backroom politics." Moreover, she says, Americans "seem to value entrepreneurship and also tend to devalue commitment to community versus individuals, and that's reflected in the kinds of careers that get

the glamour and attention-not federal government jobs." Perceptions aside, there are more tangible complaints about federal public service.

Steve MacKley, a 1999 alumnus of the University of Pittsburgh's graduate public affairs school, opted for GAO because it promised hands-on policy evaluation work in his field, human resources, and a higher salary than other agencies were paying. His job-dealing with the looming human resources crisis in the federal government-was interesting. But what eventually led MacKley to switch to local government, he says, were burdensome time-in-grade requirements that made for "a very long career path," low salary and a lack of variety in assignments. Now in the Montgomery County, Md. human resources office, MacKley says he's able to have a "greater and more direct impact" on policy decisions than he did in the federal sector. He has more responsibility, and, he says, has earned promotions and salary increases amounting to twice what he could expect in the federal government.

Money is one thing keeping Corinnee Vallier out of federal public service. Vallier, who will graduate from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, La., next spring and join KPMG LLP, is interning for her state's education department as an auditor. Although she's "heard really great things" about the federal government, she says, she leans toward a more corporate environment. "If I had to choose one thing that may be a setback when considering a position with the feds, [it] would be pay," she says. "Compared to industry, the federal government does not pay competitive salaries, especially when you take into account our specialized experience and education."

With a father and stepfather in the federal government, it might seem natural for Anna Staton to follow suit. Still, says the first-year public affairs student at The George Washington University who works part-time at the National Academy of Sciences, federal jobs don't have the range she's looking for and she's not sure she'd find one where she could feel "the tangible effects of my work." Reinventing government "looks great on paper," but Staton says she's headed to a nonprofit.

Recruiting Woes

Although still in its infancy, NASPAA's program has been a roaring success in targeting its intended audience, which includes not only college students but high-schoolers as well, Rosenbloom says. Still, all the attitude-shifting in the world won't fill those upper management holes until the government cleans up its recruiting act.

The Byzantine federal application process alone is enough to terrify some would-be public administrators. An entry-level job in the State Department's Office of Inspector General requires the completion of some 160 questions, says Bob Wurster, an issue area manager who spent 17 years at GAO before getting his master's degree in public administration at The George Washington University in 1997 and moving to State. Among the more bizarre questions that applicants for jobs as management analysts must navigate are whether they have successfully completed a long-term project outside of work where they were solely responsible for doing the work ("for example . . . prepared a horse for competition that won a ribbon"), or have done work that required them to live with other people 24 hours a day while working toward a common goal ("for example . . . completed a tour of duty on a submarine"). And, while it's true that application forms have been somewhat streamlined in the last few years, and that many jobs are now posted on OPM's Web site, job descriptions remain mired in jargon.

Then there's the government's notorious tendency to route applications to a black hole: Staton heard from one agency a year and a half after submitting her resume.

A much more critical problem is the government's reluctance to reach out for applicants in the first place.

"I believe that the federal government should make their presence known to us," says Vallier. "Many of the students in the MPA program would love to have jobs in the federal government, but since Louisiana doesn't have a strong federal government sector besides New Orleans, many of us go to work for the state."

Agencies need "corporate brands" to market themselves to students, says Stix. The Defense Contract Audit Agency experimented with that concept when it went looking for auditors. Managers and employees trained as recruiters visited college campuses armed with brochures and information about the online application process. Recruiters held "interviews, not job fairs," Stix notes, after which students filled out applications and submitted them directly to the recruiters. The hands-on process worked: The agency placed 582 entry-level auditors in an 18-month period because, according to Stix, its "brand" is now recognized at colleges across the country.

GAO and some other agencies now send executives with connections to particular schools to recruit students there, says Kleeman; these are people who know the jobs they're hiring for, not more narrowly disciplined human resources staff. But even the timing of federal recruitment is off, says NASPAA Executive Director Michael Brintnall: Businesses come calling in October, while the feds wait until spring, well after many slots are filled.

Antiquated Mind-Set

Failure to adapt to changing times creates more subtle roadblocks to effective recruiting efforts.

Both state and federal hiring focus on filling low-level positions, says MacKley, while those with a master's in public administration have high-level training. There's a disconnect between what the workplace wants and what the schools of public affairs are training for, resulting in the under-use of public administration graduates. The federal government has been "slow to respond to the skills these new people are bringing in," he says.

Federal agencies have also been slow to recognize the changing dynamics of the workplace.

"We're not seeing much evidence" of interest in the traditional 30-year career track among young people, says the Brookings Institution's Light. Younger people view government work as a chance to beef up their resumes, Wurster says, and they're not impressed by what used to be one of the federal government's top selling points-job security. Nevertheless, the government appears reluctant to make it easier for higher-level employees to flow in and out of federal service over the course of their working lives.

The Montgomery County Council recently bemoaned the fact that fewer young people are entering government service, says MacKley. Part of this is generational. "Gen-Xers" want a sense of "autonomy coupled with responsibility," he says. Because many have outside obligations, they're looking for jobs with flexibility, something government hours often don't provide.

Increasingly, too, young people are redefining the concept of "public service" to include opportunities in any sector where they can see that what they do has a tangible benefit to society. Younger workers are also more impatient, says Wurster; the bureaucracy's inability to move quickly is one reason why the hottest hiring action has shifted to nonprofits and the private sector.

Even in the area of diversity, where the federal government normally wins high marks, there are obstacles for public administration graduates. "The whole idea about diversifying the workforce to provide equitable opportunities is wonderful . . . 'talk,'" says Vallier, an African American who attends an HBCU (Historically Black College or University). Indeed, one of the items on NASPAA's "wish list" is forming a partnership with OPM and the HBCUs to bring more minority students into public service, Rosenbloom says.

Despite its faults, however, the government continues to inspire public administration students and graduates to seek public service positions. For Brown, the GAO's independence and nonpartisanship were a big draw. Although his work as an analyst "isn't glamorous by any means, it is often very exciting and deals with very timely policy issues," he says. Had he followed a more traditional legal trajectory, he would be "working to increase or protect the financial interests of already wealthy clients," a career path that left him cold.

Ditto for Konda. A history and political buff since childhood, Konda wants to help set an international agenda, something he doesn't think is possible in a corporate setting.

Fellow first-year George Washington University student Kara Miller wants a career in women's health issues. Although she now works part time for a health policy research organization, Miller earlier worked as a manager at the Census Bureau. Despite its challenges, that job failed to sour her on a federal public service career; she's drawn by the potential for hands-on public contact, the knowledge that government work makes a difference and the chance to use her expertise. "This may be a bad attitude to have," Miller says, "but I think working for a big corporation is selling out" if you have a public administration degree.

NASPAA's campaign, worthy as it is by all accounts, can't reverse the impending human capital crisis without significant cooperation from the government. Even so, says Stix, if he were a public administration student now he'd "absolutely" be looking at federal jobs as his first choice. With so many retirements coming up-and so few candidates-jobs will be plentiful and promotions speedier, he says.

David Morris agrees. A budget analyst, Morris graduated from the University of Nebraska's Department of Public Administration and completed a presidential management internship before taking a job at GSA. He has seen newer MPAs leave his agency, disillusioned by low-level work assignments. If they had just hung in a little while longer, Morris says, the responsibility would have come. With so many GS-14s and GS-15s on their way out, "the promotion potential is there."