By Stephen Barr
Friday, May 9, 2008; D04

The federal hiring process is broken and needs a quick fix, two senators with a keen interest in government management said yesterday.

"We are in a crisis," Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the federal workforce, said. "This is an emergency," added Sen. George V. Voinovich (Ohio), the panel's ranking Republican.

Applicants for government jobs have long complained about federal hiring procedures, which they think require too much paperwork and take too long. After filing their applications, many job seekers say they never get any feedback from agencies.

Frustrations with the hiring process are now getting more attention on Capitol Hill, largely because about a third of federal employees will be eligible to retire by 2012. How many will leave government is unclear, but some occupations, such as border protection, air traffic control and administrative law judge, are vulnerable to large-scale turnover.

Bringing on board the next generation of federal employees could be difficult because corporations often are more aggressive in recruiting, especially among recent college graduates. Surveys, meanwhile, suggest that many young Americans do not know how to seek federal employment or lack interest in a long-term career with Uncle Sam.

Akaka and Voinovich raised their concerns at a hearing timed to coincide with Public Service Recognition Week, held each year in early May to celebrate the contributions of government employees.

Akaka said he was worried that high-quality applicants may give up on the government, leaving it to hire from the most persistent instead of the best qualified. "Agencies need to adapt, just as the private sector has, to the culture of the next generation of federal workers," he said.

Voinovich displayed poster boards showing three advertisements for the same job. Two were from the private sector and asked for a résumé and cover letter. The job announcements, which included instructions, each covered two poster boards. In contrast, the federal job announcement requested a résumé and essay-style responses to eight questions about the applicant's "knowledge, skills and abilities." The federal application form covered five poster boards.

"I'm not convinced it is necessary to subject applicants to this process," Voinovich said. He and Akaka suggested that asking applicants only to submit résumés and cover letters might be one way to change the initial round of the hiring process.

John Crum, acting director for policy and evaluation at the Merit Systems Protection Board, said recent surveys of entry-level hires and upper-level hires showed that substantial numbers had to wait five months or longer before being hired, too long to expect a high-quality applicant to wait. Agencies need to study how they make hiring decisions, he said, noting that many will probably be surprised to learn that much of their red tape is self-imposed.

The Office of Personnel Management oversees federal hiring policies but leaves individual hiring decisions to agencies. Angela Bailey, a deputy associate director at the OPM, acknowledged that federal hiring has become cumbersome and takes too long.

The OPM has tried to speed up federal hiring in the past, urging agencies to take advantage of recent laws that encourage quick hiring decisions and permit the use of bonuses to recruit and retain employees. Bailey said the OPM and an interagency team of personnel chiefs are working on new initiatives, including a pilot project involving four agencies.

In September, the OPM will urge agencies to hire applicants within 80 days, Bailey said. The OPM will ask agencies to measure and report their success in meeting the 80-day hiring goal by December 2009. She said the approach will not only shorten the time it takes an applicant to be hired but will improve how agencies communicate with job applicants.

Bailey also said the OPM is working to streamline job announcements for some entry-level positions and developing a model that can be used to hire entry-level contracting officials. Working with the Federal Acquisition Institute, officials have cut "verbiage by 75 percent," she said.

Voinovich said the subcommittee wants to monitor the OPM's efforts on hiring, in part to ensure the work gets done, and asked for the plan in writing. Bailey said the OPM would send it within two weeks.

John Sigler of the National Defense University will be the guest on "FedTalk" at 11 a.m. today on FederalNewsRadio.com and WFED radio (1050 AM).

Reginald F. Wells, deputy commissioner for human resources at the Social Security Administration, will be the guest on the "IBM Business of Government Hour" at 9 a.m. Saturday on WJFK radio (106.7 FM).

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.