FedRecruit Pilot Program

The Need

More than 270,000 “mission-critical” jobs will need to be filled by 2012. Federal agencies need to attract highly skilled professionals to serve in these positions in order for the government to achieve its mission and serve the American people.

To help government attract top talent, the Partnership has launched a three-year pilot program to assist federal agencies build their capacity to recruit, hire and retain top entry-level talent in mission-critical jobs. Participating agencies explore leading recruiting, hiring and onboarding practices and develop new, innovative approaches to address their hiring needs in acquisition, human resources and information technology. Agency teams participate in workshops, collaborate at monthly forums and work toward achieving their goals by meeting regularly with an assigned Partnership coach. Each phase will last for one year and will include different participating agencies.

Goals for participating agencies include:

• Maximizing college and university recruitment by building stronger relationships that will create pipelines into the agencies.
• Improving hiring and onboarding processes by comparing their onboarding efforts to those of the top-ranked agencies and established best practices from the private sector to identify areas of improvement.
• Developing metrics for recruitment and hiring that measure the effectiveness of their outreach, recruitment and hiring efforts.

Mission-critical Jobs

During the three-year pilot, FedRecruit will focus on building agency capacity to acquire and retain talent in acquisitions, IT and HR.

Acquisitions
In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency, National Nuclear Security Administration and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center participated in FedRecruit to tackle a lack of entry-level acquisition professionals. As a result, the agencies increased the number of qualified applicants being considered; improved the applicant experience by providing clearly worded vacancy announcements, a career pathing tool and ongoing communication; improved communication between HR and hiring managers; and revamped the onboarding experience.

Information Technology
The federal IT workforce will face a number of challenges over the coming decade. IT talent will ensure our ability to engage in cyber defense, cloud computing and e-government, including citizen participation and online service delivery models.

In March 2010, FedRecruit launched its second phase of the pilot program to help agencies acquire and retain top entry-level talent. Partners include the Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Air Force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Social Security Administration.

Human Resources
In 2011, we will launch the third phase of FedRecruit focusing on the federal HR community. If your agency is interested in particpating, please contact us at fedrecruit@ourpublicservice.org.

FedRecruit Program Goals

• Build agency capacity to recruit, hire and retain top entry-level talent in mission-critical areas
• Empower agencies to solve problems creatively
• Develop innovative solutions to retain talent
• Help agencies define success and encourage data-driven decisions
• Introduce tools, templates and resources for federal agencies
• Educate job seekers about federal opportunities in mission-critical fields

 

For more information about FedRecruit, please contact us at fedrecruit@ourpublicservice.org.

 

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