The number of mid-career candidates — GS 12 to GS 15 —
hired from outside the government to fill managerial and
specialists positions has risen five percentage points
over the past three years to 15 percent, according to new
report from the Partnership for Public Service, a
non-profit that tries to generate interest in government
careers.
Workers from outside the government are necessary to inject
new ideas and perspectives as well as to brace for
retirements that will outpace “the number of promotion
ready candidates who are already in the federal government,”
said the report.
It said the federal government has become more efficient
in attracting external mid-careerists, and that in 2003 it
hired 2,476 more people from outside even though fewer jobs
were available to them — in 2000, 21,162 vacancies, or 49
percent, were open to the public and in 2003, 15,719, or 43
percent, were open to the public.
The report said agencies vary in both extent and success in
advertising and hiring mid-career employees.
For example, the Small Business Administration opened up
nearly all — 97.1 percent — of its mid-career jobs to the
public in 2003 but filled just 4.2 percent of them with
non-federal candidates.
However, the State Department, working to close a civil
service gap, filled 22.8 percent of those jobs with external
candidates with just 30.8 percent of its jobs available to
the public.
PPS said further study was needed to determine why the number
of hires from outside the government is increasing even while
the number of jobs opened to them is decreasing, though of
course one indication is that agencies are becoming more
efficient in targeting individuals.
