Private sector steps in to help agencies with hiring

Three federal agencies are undergoing extreme hiring makeovers, thanks to the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington nonprofit that has convinced private and public sector hiring experts to donate their services to help agencies attract top applicants and bring them on board quickly.

The three agencies, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Education Department, will rely on the firms to diagnose problems in recruiting and hiring processes and implement solutions. Agency representatives expect to start seeing results by the end of the year, and hope that the hiring makeovers will yield significant benefits by the end of 2005. The partnership, funded by New Jersey businessman Samuel Heyman, encourages Americans to consider careers in public service and helps agencies extend their outreach efforts.

Partnership Executive Vice President Kevin Simpson said that historically, government has "done a poor job of selling itself." Managers, he added, are "too removed from the process… [and] need to take ownership and partner with [agency] human resources staff," rather than rely on the HR office completely.

The organizations that have volunteered their services include Monster Government Solutions, ePredix, AIRS, CPS Human Resource Services and Brainbench.

Surveys of graduating college seniors have shown that even as new graduates are eager to work in public service, most are reluctant to wait more than a few weeks to receive a government job offer when they already have a private sector offer in hand.

"My big 'ah-hah' moment came 15 days into the job," said Terri Shaw, head of the Education Department's Office of Federal Student Aid, who spent 22 years in the private sector before joining the department two years ago. "The time it takes from A to Z is incredibly too long," she said. "We don't have that kind of luxury…. You lose so many talented people."

Shaw is working with CPS Human Resource Services to diagnose the department's problem. The firm is holding focus groups with managers, applicants and new hires to identify bottlenecks.

John Dyer, chief operating officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said his agency was looking to hire about 200 people as it rolls out the new prescription drug benefit program for seniors. "Our managers were complaining that they couldn't find [qualified] people," he said. As a result, the firms have assisted CMS in designing job fairs, and are in the process of developing assessment tools to help the agency evaluate candidates for information technology positions.

The volunteers are helping the National Nuclear Security Administration spice up unappealing job announcements. After years of downsizing, the agency -- which oversees U.S. nuclear stockpiles -- began recruiting again and found that it would only get a handful of applicants for openings. "We were not reaching the marketplace, or we'd forgotten how to reach the marketplace," said Associate Administrator Michael Kane. According to Roger Campbell, Monster's director of human capital strategy, the expert team hopes to help the agencies put in place "repeatable processes and programs" that would outlast the makeover and provide future benefits.