Posted by: This past week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Andy Lowenthal, Program Manager, FedRecruit, a program that is run through the Partnership for Public Service. While I had his undivided attention, I wanted to pick his brain about his position and the mission of the program.
Tell us a little bit about your current position as the program manager of FedRecruit.
We currently have a team of six people, which bring a breadth of experience. We have also assembled experts from private sector, senior executives from federal government, consultants and academia. Together we pull together the perspectives of business, public service and education. We call this our “tri-sector approach.”
One interesting fact is that each member of the team serves as a coach to their agency teams and shares the title of partnership coach.
What does the program do?
Our main mission is to:
- Build agency capacity to recruit, hire and retain talent
- Focus on entry-level talent
- Encouraging agencies to build strong pipelines
And its methodology incorporates best practices from private, public, non-profit, universities and brings them all together.
The program recently kicked off with two dozen federal agencies, a handful of companies and some universities.
What’s the story with agencies being reluctant to hire recent grads?
Not certain, but organization charts show that current positions are at more senior level and there is no impetus to change that. In fact, most agencies don’t even think to re-examine what they need to try to hire at a more entry-level position.
But it is something that should be done. When you take out a GS-15 executive, sometimes you can backfill with 2 GS-7 entry-level employees. That’s valuable and it adds diversity of experience and thought. Not to mention, recent graduates have the latest training.
No ageism implied, but a younger workforce can actually help ensure continuity of operations, as federal agencies continue to see attrition due to baby boomer retirements.
The Partnership for Public Service estimated that there will be about 11,000 technology job openings during the next three years. What is this growth attributed to?
Retirements make up the bulk of attrition. Other voluntary separations will make an impact as well. In addition, we’ll see a lot of transfers from within the federal government itself. Homeland Security to DoD, for example. That’s great for the receiving agency, but it limits the new blood coming into the government. It’s not just about poaching from sister agencies, but truly recruiting on campus and elsewhere.
What is the Partnership teaching agencies to do that’s a departure from their normal activities?
The program is a formal 12-month engagement. Cross-agency teams (from HR and IT) set strategic goals. These teams take the large category of recruiting, hiring and retention and narrow it down to key areas. Some agencies are interested in IT internship programs, some want robust onboarding while others want to streamline the hiring process.
The FedRecruit team is trying to get them to look at the process from a number of different vantage points — not just transactional. What is the job seeker really looking for? What do the best and the brightest look for? How do we get inside the head of a top grad?
How do agencies decide which priorities are most important? Is there data analysis?
Partnership does a baselining exercise to validate their set of strategic objectives before moving forward into the planning and execution phases. Another way to incorporate data-driven decision-making is to tap into institutional memory; they know what past challenges have been. Also, there may be administrative priorities to follow from an executive, or a champion for onboarding or retention.
What advice would you give an agency that is looking to hire specialized talent?
It’s about making change. It’s not easy, particularly in the federal government. Arming them with practical knowledge, but also political skills, savvy, public speaking….it’s all part of achieving objectives.
Advice: be thoughtful. Use data to make decisions. (See all recommendations in the IT issue brief on www.ourpublicservice.org – collaboration, best practices, etc). Take advantage of the federal CIO council and other cross-agency opportunities to learn about best practices. Encourage mid-course correction. If it’s not working, just pull off the highway and try another route.
For more information on FedRecruit, you can visit their site at www.ourpublicservice.org or follow them on Twitter at @psrw10. In addition, FedRecruit will be hosting free workshops that will kick-off on May 25 for anyone in an agency who wants to tap IT talent.
Tue, Apr 6, 2010
Federal