To date, there has been sporadic effort, at best, applied to reducing the time it takes to hire and making the application process easier and more readily understood by potential applicants, OMB added in the memo.
Orzag said that he and OPM director John Berry expect significant progress in four areas of hiring — timeliness, plain language and streamlined announcements, communication with applicants, and involvement of hiring managers.
According to the memo — M-09-20 — OMB and OPM expect agencies over the next six months to map current hiring processes using OPM’s "end-to-end hiring process" from the time a manager identifies a need to hire until the person selected starts their first day on the job.
Agencies will also be expected to review job announcements for their top 10 occupations and have them written in plain language and reduced to no more than five pages; notify applicants of their status at four points through USAJobs.gov in a timely fashion; and,
engage hiring managers in all critical parts of the hiring process — including targeting recruitment, drafting job announcements, reviewing initial applications, interviewing applicants, and selecting applicants.
OMB said more specific guidance on the mapping process would be forthcoming and that the results of these initiatives should be provided to OPM and OMB no later than December 15.