Federal hiring is getting faster and smarter as agencies set sights on an 80-days-to-hire target.
One year after President Obama’s executive order to overhaul the federal government’s hiring system, many agencies are making steady and measurable progress towards the goal of reducing federal hiring times to 80 days or less. This is music to the ears of graduates holding advanced management degrees, like the popular Master of Public Administration, which is highly sought after in the federal workforce. |
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When the president first instructed federal officials to speed up the hiring process, the average time from job posting to job placement was 160 days, more than five months. Government hiring managers believed qualified and motivated candidates were abandoning their efforts to secure a job with the federal government simply because they couldn’t wait that long to begin work and start receiving a paycheck.
There were many reasons for the extended hiring time, including publication of large and convoluted job descriptions (often 30 pages long or more) and the infamous federal requirement for KSA (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) essays. The essays took time for job applicants to prepare and significant time for hiring managers to read and evaluate. Many in the federal government believed KSAs themselves were responsible for discouraging a large percentage of applicants from pursuing a job with the federal government.
Twelve months into the reforms, KSA requirements are significantly more rare, 90 percent of federal job announcements are now five pages or less, and the average hire time has been reduced to 105 days.
Plus, the government is still hiring and hiring aggressively. Much attention has been paid by the media to hiring and pay freezes in some federal agencies, but at a recent browse of USAJobs.gov revealed more than 20,000 open jobs waiting to be filled throughout the federal government. Most are high-paying jobs with exceptional benefits, and jobs are available in every state in the union.
Thanks to hiring reforms, applying for government jobs is now more like the private sector application process. Traditional résumés and cover letters are replacing KSAs, and job descriptions are being written in more natural language to attract applicants not familiar with traditional government bureaucracy-speak. Experience, advanced education and qualifications also carry more weight, say federal hiring managers, as supervisors want to ensure the faster hiring process does not result in the rapid hire of an unqualified candidate.
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