Programs Have Controversial Aspects

Federal employee unions have expressed concerns about some of the authorities, especially the career intern program, as providing a shortcut around merit hiring principles of open competition. However, the OPM study also included a survey of managers and HR practitioners who said overall that they consider the alternative systems more efficient and that they are more effective in finding quality candidates than traditional methods. Managers especially tabbed the career intern program, the direct hire authority and the management fellows programs as producing higher quality hires, and faster while HR employees especially cited the student career experience program, the career intern program and direct hire authority. Both groups also reported a lack of agency training on the use of the authorities.