Uncle Sam Failing to Capitalize on Motivated Student Interns

The latest chapter in Uncle Sam's sorry saga on federal hiring involves young, public service-minded people seeking their first real job.

Like many old folks, Sam doesn't seem to know what to do with the younger set. He tries to develop programs meant for their needs but manages to flub the execution.

Look at these numbers from a Partnership for Public Service report released yesterday:

In 2007, federal agencies employed 59,510 interns, but only 6.6 percent of them were hired for full-time jobs. At the same time, private-sector employers hired 50.5 percent of their interns.

The use of interns is an efficient way to build a workforce. As interns, young people get experience and a pathway to a career. Employers get an up-close look at potential long-term employees, who also provide cheap labor. It's a win-win situation.

So why does Sam lag so far behind?

"The dramatic difference between the two sectors in the percentage of interns hired into permanent jobs does not appear to be related to either the quality of the interns or the percentage of permanent jobs that need to be filled," says the report, titled "Leaving Talent on the Table." It says: "Rather, it appears to be a function of how both sectors view and use student internships.'

Unlike private employers, Sam does not view interns strategically, as young professionals who should be cultivated into valued members of the federal workforce. He thinks doing a good deed by giving students experience is enough, while playing down the potential long-term benefit to the government the students represent.

Sam puts most of his intern eggs into a basket with a big hole at the bottom. That basket is the Student Temporary Employment Program, which had 75 percent of the federal interns in 2007. It is "not designed to connect to career or academic goals, and . . . offers no direct route to students for full-time federal employment," the report says. Temporary-employment interns don't necessarily work on substantive projects. They may be assigned clerical or unskilled jobs.

A better basket is the Student Career Experience Program. It "enables direct conversion to a permanent, federal civil service job, allowing students to bypass some of the cumbersome and time-consuming parts of the government's hiring process."

The names of the programs tell the tale.

"Student Temporary Employment Program" makes it clear that the employment is temporary. "Student Career Experience Program" indicates it provides experiences that could lead to careers. It has more rigorous requirements, including written agreements between agencies and the students' schools that detail work assignments, evaluation procedures and stipulations for success. It had a quarter of the government's interns in 2007.