A Hiring Process in Need of Major Repair

Getting government work has become such a hassle that a cottage industry has developed to help job seekers deal with the aggravation. Google "federal resume writing," and a long list of companies appears.

Kathryn K. Troutman, author of the "Federal Resume Guidebook and "Ten Steps to a Federal Job," says requests for her consulting services have jumped 500 percent since November, because the private sector has dumped so many people.

But the federal hiring process leaves many of them overwhelmed. "It's very shocking for private industry people to see what they [federal agencies] require," she said.

It's a shock because the job announcements by some agencies run to 29 pages, says Angela Bailey, a deputy associate director at the Office of Personnel Management. Bailey is a clear-talking bureaucrat who acknowledges the federal shortcomings, while standing strong when she thinks Uncle Sam gets a bad rap. "We hire 240,000 people a year, so we're doing something right," she's quick to say. Most of those aren't full-time.

Bailey doesn't try to defend the 29-page announcements. "We are terrible at communicating with applicants, and that's pretty much across the board," she said.

She said that the OPM is trying, with varying degrees of success, to get agencies to vastly simplify the hiring process. It's made more complex because of the need to follow merit principles and veterans preferences, which Bailey strongly defends.

A major complicating factor for applicants is Uncle Sam's insistence that they describe their knowledge, skills and abilities, or KSAs, for each position. "People are very intimidated and they don't know what to write," said Troutman, who helps them for a fee.

When people finally do get hired, the process often doesn't produce a good fit, says Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a good-government group that focuses on federal hiring. In addition to speeding the process, federal agencies need to pay much more attention to getting the right talent, he argues.

One of Stier's former employees, April Kappler, is among those who managed to get a federal gig -- after a seven-month wait. She said she applied for more than two dozen positions, then heard nothing, except from the Justice Department.

She took that job, but once there, it quickly became clear that her talents could have been better used elsewhere. She sent out another set of federal applications, this time getting no replies.

So she quit the government and now has "the perfect job with my experience level." That's Uncle Sam's loss. Kappler really wanted to be a fed.

"It broke my heart to leave the government," she said. "Everything that could have gone wrong in the federal government went wrong for me."

Diary associate Eric Yoder contributed to this column. Contact Joe Davidson at federaldiary@washpost.com.