Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with career coach Don Orlando .
Don Orlando was this week’s career coach, and Don has extensive experience in military and government recruiting. Don noted that with the changes in the economy, many job seekers are finding new opportunities in the government sector; opportunities they may not have considered before. And he also sees big changes in the way government agencies are approaching hiring.
Don shared a memo he received from the recent Federal Jobs Conference in San Diego indicating that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will not be renewing its contract with Monster Government Solutions, the company that powers the Federal USAJOBS.com web site. Instead, the OPM plans to host the USAJOBS.com site itself, as part of an effort to create a more open Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) platform that can be integrated with all commercial ATS platforms. This is part of a new initiative to make federal hiring practices more competitive and help government agencies recruit the best and the brightest. As stated in a May 11 memorandum issued by the White House:
“To deliver the quality services and results the American people expect and deserve, the Federal Government must recruit and hire highly qualified employees, and public service should be a career of choice for the most talented Americans. Yet the complexity and inefficiency of today's Federal hiring process deters many highly qualified individuals from seeking and obtaining jobs in the Federal Government….”
The overall objective is to make federal hiring practices more competitive, and to start adopting the same best practices used for hiring by the private sector. For example, changes to be implemented by November 1 include:
- Eliminating any requirement to respond to essay-style questions when submitting an initial application for a federal job.
- Allowing individuals to submit resumes, cover letters, and applications using plain language, and assessing applicants using “valid, reliable tools,” and
- Selecting qualified applicants using the “category rating” approach, rather than the so called “rule of three” where candidates are limited to the top three scoring applicants.
There are some significant changes afoot in government hiring practices that will make it easier to compete for federal jobs. As with most bureaucratic changes, they won’t come overnight, but there is a sea change coming and more job seekers will start looking to government jobs as a more viable career alternative.
