Federal Manager's Daily Report

The newly signed DoD authorization bill contains a provision designed to improve recruitment for college students and recent graduates as proposed early this year by the Trump administration.

While the bill itself contains little explanation of the impact of the change, OPM in initially proposing the language said this:

“Students and recent college graduates are an important talent pool, but the current recruitment framework can sometimes make it difficult for these individuals to compete for jobs and internships. The proposal would enable federal agencies to be more agile in recruiting recent graduates and student talent on college campuses by modifying the recruitment and hiring process for recent college graduates and students.

“Agencies would be able to determine where and how students and recent graduates are recruited and would be able to make a conditional job offer “on the spot” to individuals who meet eligibility requirements, reducing some of the administrative burdens agencies face in hiring applicants from these candidate pools.

“This authority would not replace the regular hiring process for every entry-level position. Rather, it would be limited to specific kinds of jobs/occupations and OPM would establish caps on the number of hires that could be made under this authority, so as to facilitate open competition for most job openings.”