A survey by the Partnership for Public Service has shown that while nearly half of the 3,000 college juniors and seniors participating in it expressed strong interest in government service, just over 10 percent felt they were very knowledgeable about federal job opportunities.
According to the report, 42 percent of students questioned at Clark Atlanta University, George Washington University, Louisiana State University, Ohio State University, Stanford University and the University of New Mexico, are “extremely or very interested” in working for the federal government, compared to 49 percent for large private sector companies and 40 percent for nonprofits.
PPS said it issued the report, “Back to School: Rethinking Federal Recruiting on College Campuses,” to help agencies respond to an upcoming wave of federal retirements. It said 44 percent of 1.9 million federal employees would be eligible to retire by 2010, including 60 percent of senior managers.
The release of the report also coincides with an ad campaign just launched by the Office of Personnel Management aimed at attracting more and younger candidates to federal employment.
But while that may reassure some managers that OPM recognizes they are going to have vacancies to fill, that still doesn’t solve the difficulty getting candidates through a sometimes convoluted hiring process. Further, OPM’s ad campaign will cover just two markets and even be limited there at the outset.
PPS’s survey was commissioned as part of a “call to serve” recruitment initiative launched in 2003 with OPM to inform students of federal job opportunities. Currently, 572 colleges and universities and 62 federal agencies participate in the program.
“It is up to the federal agencies to change their approach and to take the message to students in a way that resonates with them,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of PPS.
