U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Recruiting, Retaining and Honoring a World-Class Workforce to Serve the American People

Progress

Hiring Reform is Working

In May 2010, President Obama launched the largest reform of the Federal hiring process in over 30 years. Designed to make it easier to apply for Federal jobs and to provide hiring managers with the best possible job candidates, the Hiring Reform initiative is a major success story.

For the past year, the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Federal agencies represented on the Chief Human Capital Officers Council worked collaboratively to design and implement Hiring Reform. The initiative is now helping the government hire the workers it needs to provide the American people with the high level of service they deserve at the lowest possible cost.

Overhauling the way the Federal Government hires is an enormous undertaking that cannot be completed overnight. But in just over one year's time, the Hiring Reform initiative has taken firm hold across the Government, and important, measurable progress has been achieved. For example,

• 86% of job announcements are written in plain language, up from 55%;
• 66% are just 2-3 pages long, up from 24% prior to Hiring Reform;
• 92% of job announcements allow people to apply with a resume up from just 39%;
• 97% are free of the essay questions that used to haunt applicants, as compared to 39% before Hiring Reform; and
• we've shaved 26 days off of the average time to hire.
• Progress on President's Hiring Reform Initiative Job Opportunity Announcements 2009-2011 [240 KB]

We have also launched a renewed USAJOBS website to improve the experience of applicants searching for Federal jobs and the functionality for agencies looking to fill open positions. In addition, this spring, we rolled out USAJOBSRecruit, a brand new Federal recruitment community of practice for sharing best-in class recruiting practices, ideas, insights, lessons learned and creating recruiting solutions.  USAJOBSRecruit also provides tools (e.g., School Sorter, templates, checklists), job aids, learning modules, information on effective recruiting strategies, and webinars. Finally, we initiated a pilot program for new, state-of-the-art assessments that will assist agencies in culling through the large numbers of resumes they receive in order to identify the best qualified candidates.

We're building on the momentum of Hiring Reform with continued, comprehensive support to the agencies, and there are additional, exciting initiatives under development.

Student Pathways

The next phase of hiring reform involves President Obama's Student Pathways initiative, which will be the newest, best way to recruit America's students and recent graduates to rewarding careers in Federal public service. These new streamlined programs will allow students to compete against other students, and recent graduates to compete against other recent graduates for sought-after Federal internships and developmental opportunities.

Launched by Executive Order in December 2010, the nuts and bolts of the Pathways programs are now being developed through the Federal rule-making process. While this process can be lengthy, we have worked hard to speed it up, and so this summer, we'll propose regulations that reflect our ideas on how to best realize the President's vision, and we'll ask for additional input on those ideas from stakeholders and the public.

After we review the public's input and make any revisions to the regulations, we will issue final regulations and the Pathways programs will be ready for agencies to use in recruiting students and individuals graduating as early as next spring.