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THE FEDERAL HIRING PROCESS, PARTS I AND II

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE

AND AGENCY ORGANIZATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 7 AND JULY 13, 2004

Serial No. 108–281

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND AGENCY ORGANIZATION

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia, Chairwoman

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

ADAH H. PUTNAM, Florida

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

RON MARTINSON, Staff Director

B. CHAD BUNGARD, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel

REID VOSS, Clerk

TANIA SHAND, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on:

June 6, 2004 ............................................................................................... 1

July 13, 2004 ............................................................................................. 161

Statement of:

Blair, Dan G., Deputy Director, Office of Personnel Management .............. 4

Blair, Dan, Deputy Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management; David

Chu, UnderSecretary for Personnel and Readiness, U.S. Department

of Defense; Ed Sontag, Assistant Secretary for Administration and

Management, Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services; Claudia Cross, Chief Human Capital Officer,

Director, Office of Human Resources Management, U.S. Department

of Energy; and J. Christopher Mihm, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S.

Government Accountability Office ............................................................... 171

Mihm, J. Christopher, Managing Director, General Accounting Office;

Stanley D. Moore, Regional Director, U.S. Census Bureau; Marcia

Marsh, vice president, Strategic Human Capital Planning; Krystal

Kemp, applicant for Federal employment, law student, Washington

University; and Camille Sladek, recent Federal applicant ....................... 31

Pearson, Brent, vice president, Monster Government Solutions; Ed Flynn,

managing consultant, Federal sector programs, Hewitt Associates LLC;

and Andres Garza, director, Career Placement Services, University of

Illinois ............................................................................................................ 101

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Blair, Dan G., Deputy Director, Office of Personnel Management, prepared statements of....................................................................................... 7, 174

Chu, David, UnderSecretary for Personnel and Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense, prepared statement of ..................................................... 196

Cross, Claudia, Chief Human Capital Officer, Director, Office of Human

Resources Management, U.S. Department of Energy, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 213

Davis, Hon. Jo Ann, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, memo dated July 8, 2004 ............................................................. 162

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 170

Flynn, Ed, managing consultant, Federal sector programs, Hewitt Associates LLC, prepared statement of ................................................................. 128

Garza, Andres, director, Career Placement Services, University of Illinois,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 148

Kemp, Krystal, applicant for Federal employment, law student, Washington University, prepared statement of ........................................................ 81

Marsh, Marcia, vice president, Strategic Human Capital Planning, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 62

Mihm, J. Christopher, Managing Director, General Accounting Office,

prepared statements of ............................................................................... 34, 218

Moore, Stanley D., Regional Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 48

Pearson, Brent, vice president, Monster Government Solutions, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 104

Sladek, Camille, recent Federal applicant, prepared statement of .............. 86

Sontag, Ed, Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management,

Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, prepared statement of ................................................................... 206

(1)

THE FEDERAL HIRING PROCESS: THE LONG

AND WINDING ROAD

MONDAY, JUNE 7, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND AGENCY

ORGANIZATION, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Chicago, IL.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., at 3333

West Arthington Street, Chicago, IL, Hon. Jo Ann Davis (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia, and Davis of Illinois.

Staff present: Ronald Martinson, staff director; Chad Bungard,

deputy staff director and chief counsel; Christopher Barkley, professional staff member; Reid Voss, clerk; John Landers, OPM

detailee; and Tania Shand, minority professional staff member.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. The Federal hiring process for

most applicants is a long and winding road. The road is so long and

winding that the government misses out on some of the best and

brightest applicants. This is totally unacceptable. The Federal Government needs to have a hiring process in place that is more efficient, timely, modern, simple and consistent, while keeping in line

with the merit system principles. Otherwise, the Federal Government will continue to lose out on talented employees who want to

serve their country.

There have been many recent studies on the Federal hiring process, all of which made interesting findings. I will quickly summarize a few of these findings. An October 2001 survey conducted by

the Partnership for Public Service revealed, ‘‘Many people view the

process of seeking Federal employment as a daunting one. Threequarters of non-Federal workers say making the application process quicker and simpler would be an effective way of attracting talented workers to government.’’

A July 2002 report by the National Academy of Public Administration found that Federal hiring remains a slow and tedious process and current hiring methods do not keep pace with the private

sector.

A September 2002 report by the Merit Systems Protections

Board said that the Federal hiring process is overly complex, has

inadequate, time-consuming assessment procedures and is burdened by ineffective hiring authorities.

In November 2002, OPM recognized in its strategic plan that,

‘‘There is a general perception that our hiring process takes too

long and may not provide well-qualified candidates.’’

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In the January 2003 Report of the National Commission on the

Public Service, the commission found that, ‘‘A college graduate applying for a Federal job confronts a complex and lengthy application demanding far more information than any employer reasonably needs. The very nature of the application deters.’’

In GAO’s May 2003 report to Congress, GAO noted some key

problems with the hiring process: Outdated and cumbersome procedures are used to define a job and set pay; job announcements are

unclear and unfriendly; convening panels and the manual rating of

applicants is time consuming; a key assessment tool and hiring

programs used for entry level positions are ineffective; numerical

rating and ranking and the rule of three limit the choice of applicants and are viewed as ineffective.

According to the GAO report to be released today, ‘‘Within government and the private sector, it has been widely recognized that

the Federal hiring process is lengthy and cumbersome and hampers agencies’ ability to hire the high-quality people they need to

achieve their agency goals and missions.’’

That same GAO report also reveals that, ‘‘Agencies appear to be

making limited use of two new personnel authorities created by

Congress in November 2002 and implemented by OPM in June

2003: category rating and direct hiring authority.’’ The report also

cites the lack of OPM guidance, the lack of flexibility in OPM rules

and regulations and the lack of agency policies and procedures as

barriers to using these new flexibilities.

These findings are certainly disconcerting. Government agencies

too often leave too many talented applicants waiting in limbo for

too long, and the job announcements alone discourage top talent

from applying. I expect to make real progress to improve this situation. We regularly say the government can ill afford to lose the socalled, ‘‘war for talent,’’ but this morning we will be hearing about

what is being done right now and what real actions we can expect

in the near future.

We will hear from witnesses who I know are actively engaged in

initiatives to improve Federal hiring, such as OPM’s revamping of

its e-recruitment site and its promotion of a 45-day hiring model

as well as efforts by the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

aimed directly at the hiring process. I very much look forward to

hearing from all the witnesses, and I thank all of our witnesses for

being here and look forward to the discussion.

I would now like to recognize our ranking member, Mr. Danny

Davis, for an opening statement. And, Mr. Davis, thank you for inviting us here to your district to hold this hearing, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and let me, first of all, just thank you and all of the members of the subcommittee, staff and witnesses who have traveled to

Chicago to participate in this hearing. For those who have not been

to Chicago lately, let me just suggest to you that we are always delighted when visitors come. We have a theme for you: Soldiers’

Field, Rigley Field, Marshall Field. [Laughter.]

So it’s a field that we are accustomed to and we are very excited

that you are here for this field hearing. [Laughter.]

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The Office of Personnel Management, OPM, the General Accounting Office, GAO, public interest groups and the media have

all predicted a wave of retirements in the Federal civil service.

More than ever, a streamlined and efficient Federal hiring process

will be critical as we strive to hire talented and qualified personnel

to fill the positions of those who will soon retire.

There are many aspects to the Federal hiring process. First, the

hiring agency must notify the public that a position is open and

that applications will be accepted for the job. All applicants are

then screened for minimum qualifications. Those who meet the

minimum qualifications are assessed according to the skills, knowledge and abilities needed to perform the job. Finally, Federal agencies must rate and rank candidates based on their experience,

training and education.

In 2002, the Government Accounting Office surveyed the human

resources directors at 24 major Federal departments and agencies.

Thirteen of the human resources directors reported that lengthy

hiring time was a very great problem, and 8 stated that hiring time

was a moderate problem. Among the reasons cited were the manual processing of thousands of applicants, the lack of understanding of personnel hiring rules and procedures and the paperwork-intensive hiring process that requires rating and ranking of applicants and the creation of lists of the best qualified applicants.

Congress and OPM have taken steps to address many of these

problems. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 contained new governmentwide hiring flexibilities that could help agencies in expediting and controlling their hiring process. The act also permitted category ranking, which is an alternative ranking and selection procedure that can expand the pool of qualified job applicants from

which agency managers can select. Agencies also were given direct

hiring authority which allows an agency to appoint individuals to

positions without adhering to certain hiring requirements. Finally,

the act also established a Chief Human Capital Officer, called

CHCO, in each of the 24 Federal agencies to advise and assist the

head of each agency with human capital management efforts.

Chairwoman Davis and I requested a GAO report on the hiring

process that will be released today. Unfortunately, the report found

that agencies are making limited use of the hiring flexibilities enacted by Congress and implemented by the Office of Personnel

Management almost a year ago. Additionally, it appears that Federal agencies are not using long-existing personnel flexibilities.

GAO also has released two reports that document the importance

of succession planning and the need to incorporate diversity as a

management initiative in the senior executive service. Federal

agencies must ensure that they are hiring a diverse pool of candidates for Federal jobs, particularly at the senior management

level. To this end, I am pleased to note that OPM will be hosting

a job fair at the State of African-American Male Conference that

I will be holding at Malcolm X College on Saturday, June 26.

The Federal Government is at an important crossroads. We have

an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the Federal hiring

process and the diversity of the work force, particularly at the senior levels of government. The GAO report is telling us that we are

not there yet, so let’s not squander this rare opportunity.

4

Again, Madam Chairwoman, I thank you for holding this hearing, for bringing it to Chicago. I again thank all of the witnesses

who have traveled to our city and all of the staffpersons who have

come with the subcommittee, and I look forward to the testimony

we will hear today. Thank you very much.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Davis. I ask

unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to

submit written statements and questions for the hearing record

and that any answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and other

materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be included in the hearing record and that all Members be permitted to

revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, it is so ordered.

On the first panel today, we are going to hear from the Honorable Dan Blair, Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel

Management. It is standard practice for this committee to administer the oath to all witnesses, and at this time, if all of those who

are going to be witnesses today would please stand, including anyone who may also be answering questions, I will administer the

oath to all of you at one time. Please raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let the record reflect that the

witnesses have answered in the affirmative, and you may be seated.

Mr. Blair, as always, it is a pleasure to have you before this committee as a witness, and we thank you for traveling out to Chicago

for this field hearing. And I hope you are going to have the time

to hang around just for a little bit to at least hear from the two

witnesses who either are or were Federal applicants and to hear

what their actual experience has been.

Today, as always, we have your full statement in the record, and

if you would like to summarize your statement, I will recognize you

for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF DAN G. BLAIR, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF

PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

Mr. BLAIR. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Mr. Davis. It is

a pleasure to be in Chicago today. I want to thank you for asking

me to testify on behalf of OPM and Director James on the efforts

that we have been taking to improve Federal hiring. I do have a

written statement for the record, and I am happy to summarize.

When I first started at OPM, Director James and I sat down and

she tasked me with an assignment, and that was to fix Federal hiring. Indeed, that task has been proven to be quite complex and vexing. We have seen some important improvements. Enactment of

authorities for category rating and ranking, additional direct hire

authorities are two big areas where we have seen improvements.

We have seen an emphasis on the strategic management of human

capital, which includes staffing and hiring and how major agencies

and departments across Government now have new HR leadership

by way of the Chief Human Capital Officers [CHCOs] Act, are a

way of focusing responsibility and accountability on improving FedVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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eral HR management. But far too often Federal hiring appears too

cumbersome, too complex and takes too long.

Some things are under OPM’s direct control. For instance, the

USAJOBS Web site and the ways that we are attempting to improve that and make it more user friendly. Another is our Call to

Serve Initiative that we have with the Partnership for Public Service, and Marcia Marsh will be testifying following me. That initiative is intended to reestablish links between agencies and colleges

and universities that have kind of fallen by the wayside over the

last 15 years or so. And, as Mr. Davis mentioned earlier, the job

fairs. We have hosted job fairs across the country, I think we have

had about a dozen, and we have seen a tremendous amount of interest in those job fairs every time that we have hosted those.

I attended a New York job fair with members of your staff, and

in the city that was the site of the September 11 attacks we saw

15,000, and I emphasize, well-dressed, well-prepared men and

women from a diverse variety and background, standing in line. I

was told the line went four times around Madison Square Garden.

It was on a long spring day. Also, they could come in and learn

more about Federal jobs and Federal job opportunities. And, I am

told that we achieved some good results at that job fair. For instance, the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] was there. The people that were there were prepared and ready, and they got 11 onthe-spot hires that day. So that is good news.

We started obtaining feedback from other agencies, but I think

the lesson that we have learned is that there is a tremendous

amount of interest in Federal employment at this time. I hope we

have a good turnout in Chicago as well, but one thing is clear: We

need to make sure that agencies send to these job fairs the right

people who are knowledgeable about the available agency jobs. If

that is done, like with the CIA, we are going to see some good results.

Let me talk about a few other areas that are proving to be more

complex. OPM doesn’t hire for the agencies. As my written testimony points out, that authority was delegated to the agencies back

in the mid-eighties and nineties, so it is important to recognize that

hiring is an important component of an agency’s human capital

management strategies, and it rightly belongs with the individual

agencies and departments. This decentralization can also fragment

accountability and responsibility, and so that is where this subcommittee can come in. Madam Chairwoman, you and your colleagues can help focus light and heat on this subject. As President

Bush said, ‘‘What gets measured is what gets done.’’ Looking at

time-to-hire is one of those areas that OPM plans to monitor, and

we hope that you can engage and fortify us as we go down that

path.

Frankly, at OPM, we can offer guidance, direction and help, but

the rubber meets the road where it comes to the agencies and departments. Agency leaders must take it and own it and make it a

priority to hire more effectively and efficiently. It just can’t be

viewed as an HR thing. We can offer all the flexibilities in the

world, offer training sessions to HR specialists and offer guidance,

but if agencies don’t avail themselves of these flexibilities, I find

that terribly frustrating, and I can imagine that you do too.

6

I also find it frustrating when I hear horror stories of people, especially young, energetic and motivated young people, tell stories

of waiting for months on end only to find out that the Federal job

they applied for has been filled or, worse yet, hearing nothing at

all. Let’s be clear, not everyone who wants a Federal job will get

one, but agencies should afford applicants the courtesy of a reply

and letting them know where they stand in the process, and they

can do that in a timely manner.

So that is where we stand. The good news is we have seen improvements. Last year, fiscal year 2003, we saw the Federal Government hire 95,000 people, but much more work is needed, and

indeed it is taking place. We have seen new personnel systems

being established with the Department of Homeland Security and

with the Department of Defense, and both of these instances provide us opportunities, whether directly or indirectly, to improve our

hiring. The personnel systems for the CIA and NASA will also see

changes, and just recently OPM approved direct hire authority for

the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security.

But more needs to be done, and at OPM, our commitment is to

holding agencies accountable. Evidence of our commitment can be

found in our new agency structure at OPM, an organizational

structure which is intended to better serve our clients—the agencies. And agencies, I believe, want to do a better job. Yet such improvements must and can take place through the framework of a

merit system, be it ensuring fundamental fairness, protecting

against prohibitive personnel practices or safeguarding veterans’

preference. This system remains paramount as the Federal Government seeks out the best and brightest in service to America.

So in closing, I would point out that our collective efforts by

OPM, by the agencies, by Congress must work toward the same

goal, and that goal is to honor the Americans who have chosen to

answer the call to public service. So the least we can do in Government is have systems and processes in place that help and not

hinder Americans as they step forward in service to their country.

[NOTE.—The U.S. Office of Personnel Management report entitled, ‘‘Working for America Report on Agency Survey on Improving

Federal Hiring, June 2004,’’ may be found in subcommittee files.]

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blair follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Blair, as always, for appearing before our committee to testify. I am going to

move into the question and answer segment now, but I am going

to yield first to my ranking member, Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. And, Mr. Blair, of course, let me thank you for your testimony. As usual, you do an excellent job of representing OPM, and

while we always look for the Director, we know that if she is not

present, that you are going to represent the agency well. Please

give her our regards in terms of her inability to be here.

Mr. BLAIR. It is a pleasure to pinch-hit for her.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. How many people would you say that we

expect to retire from the Federal Government, say, within the next

5 years?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, we have projections that up to over 50 percent

of the work force will be eligible to retire, and while our projections

can be on and off, last year more retired than actually were projected. The bottom line is that we expect up to half the Federal

work force to be eligible to retire up through 2013. And so we need

to—as the economy grows, as other jobs and other industries become more competitive, how that will impact us we are not sure

yet, but the bottom line is that we know that we are going to have

a retirement wave, and so that is why we have been beating this

drum so loudly. We want to make sure that agencies are prepared

to have systems and processes in place that they can utilize when

in fact they see a number of their folks walking out the door.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And I think that is important to note, because as people wonder and especially as younger people who are

coming out of college, getting ready for their careers and wondering

whether they are going to be able to find a source of employment,

the Federal Government is going to actually have opportunities, I

mean with this much of the work force retiring or being projected

to retire over the next 5 years.

In your testimony, you mentioned the creation of a Federal Fellows component, the creation of a Senior Fellows component of the

Presidential Management Fellows Program. I know that we have

been working with OPM, and we have been very pleased with some

of the activity that has been generated around creating an opportunity for the first groups to become a part of the senior executive

management corps. What is the status of that program right now?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, we have the Senior Management Fellows Program, excuse me, the Presidential Management Fellows Program,

which we are in the process of revamping and increasing the grade

levels at which people can be hired. I think what you are referring

to is a Candidate Development program, and it is currently undergoing some internal review at OPM. We view this as a succession

planning tool that agencies will have talent in place to replace the

ranks of the members of the Senior Executive Service [SES] who

will be retiring over the next few years, and we will make sure that

we are doing it with an eye toward adherence to the merit system

principles. We want to make sure that in our efforts to do good, we

don’t inadvertently do something that will get us sued, and so we

are making sure internally that the review process includes the Department of Justice. But we want to make sure that we bring eligiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
23

ble candidates in at the GS–14 and GS–15 levels. They would undergo a 14-month leadership development program and, in turn, be

ready for an assisgnment epartment should a sponsoring agency select them for the SES. But, currently, to answer your question, it

is going through an internal review.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I always maintain that one of the missing

links in our country fulfilling its potential for greatness is the idea

in every person’s mind that they have the greatest amount of opportunity to achieve and excel and that they are on equal footing

with every other person, no matter who they are or where they

come from, what they do. We know that we have not reached that

point yet. I mean that is part of what is still missing. Does OPM

view as part of its mission to help make sure that is the feeling

relative to the Federal Government?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, I think the Federal Government historically has

been on the forefront of providing opportunities to people in society

who otherwise didn’t have them, but I also think that the underlying principle is our merit system, and that merit system is colorblind when it comes to what the ideas are for Government and civil

service. And so it is very important that we provide open opportunity to everyone who is qualified. And that is what has been frustrating in looking at this hiring process is that we have a number

of people who are qualified and want to serve and just making sure

that we can meet that demand because we know that the agencies

over the course of the next few years will certainly have that demand. And so that is why it is so imperative that we have a good

process to bring people into place.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. Thank you,

Madam Chairwoman.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Mr.

Blair, I said in my opening statement that it is disconcerting to me

that Congress in 2002 extended two of the flexibilities for agencies

to hire, the direct hire and the category rating, and I believe I also

said that some of the agencies were saying that it was due in part

to lack of guidance from OPM and also from the lack of flexibility

in OPM’s rules and regulations. You stated in your statement that

OPM doesn’t do that actual hiring and that you can do all the

training in the world and the guidance and so on but if the agencies don’t avail themselves, that is where the problem is. So the

agencies are putting the blame on OPM, OPM is saying the agencies aren’t doing it. Can you shed some light as to what type of

guidance, for instance, is OPM giving to the agencies, and what do

you feel is the reason that the agencies just aren’t using the flexibilities, because we are still hearing the horror stories?

Mr. BLAIR. I am reluctant to go down this path since we have

done this before, but, as we say, you can lead a horse to water——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I think it was the cart and the

carrot.

Mr. BLAIR. It was the cart and the carrot, but now we are going

back anyway. I am reluctant to do that, but I did it, so anyway you

can lead a horse to water. Since enactment and since we got the

regulations out, we have put out numerous memorandums to agency heads, to the Chief Human Capital Officers. The management

flexibilities were brought to the Chief Human Capital Officers’ atVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tention, not only in their initial meeting last year but in the 2-day

offsite that was held at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, so I remember there were some sessions for the CHCOs

devoted to personnel flexibilities this past winter, and we are having a CHCO Academy on the 17th devoted to hiring flexibilities.

Earlier this year, Director James put out the top 10 list of what

agencies can do right now to improve Federal hiring. We reorganized OPM. We now have desk officers, or what we call Human

Capital Officers, who are assigned to specific agencies, so agency

personnel know when they have an issue, a personnel issue, who

do you come to at OPM because that was always an issue before,

that unless you had personal contact, you didn’t know where to call

in. So we have desk officers who are assigned to specific agencies

to monitor and help agencies address their human capital needs.

We have had training sessions; we are having a training session at

the end of the month. We had the ‘‘Train the Trainer’’ sessions; we

had two of those last year. And so we are getting the word out

there.

I think, though, it does come down to what gets measured is

what gets done, and our frustration with the lack of use of flexibilities was translated into, ‘‘Why don’t we look at hiring and make

sure agencies are tracking it?’’ We did a survey last month and we

found out that about half the agencies out there actually now track

the time to hire. And so what we want to do is we want to monitor

that time, and that is why we came up with the 45-day hiring

model.

And what we did with this model is we looked at the hiring process and really divided it into three steps. You have the preliminary

work force analysis piece, and that is in defining what is mission

critical, what the job would be, the position description and even

writing a vacancy announcement. We have other issues with those

as well, but getting back to that, that was the preliminary session

or the preliminary part of it. Where we focus on the 45-day model

is in the screening and selection process, because we feel that is an

area that is ripe for attention and it is an area that we can see

some results. And so that is an area that again rests with the individual agency.

One of the areas in our survey that we found in surveying the

agencies was that the selecting officer took an inordinate amount

of time to screen applicants. And so we have proposed that the

process be broken down and we propose what days should be

taken. For instance, in reviewing applications, the selecting official

could take, in our view, 1 to 5 days and in scheduling and conducting interviews, another 1 to 15 days, all of this is in an effort to

shorten the time from close of the vacancy announcement to the

time the job is offered. It can be done within 45 days.

And so we plan to monitor that with agencies. A memorandum

went out from Director James last month stating our intention to

do so. We are working through the Chief Human Capital Officers

Council and the President’s Management Council, because we

think that should be part of the——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. When did you start the 45-day

model?

Mr. BLAIR. When did we—I beg your pardon?

25

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. When did you implement the

45-day model?

Mr. BLAIR. It hasn’t been implemented yet.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It has not been implemented?

Mr. BLAIR. Because we want to put it as part of the scorecard,

and in order to do that, we want to make sure that agencies understand it.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Have you talked to the agencies

about it?

Mr. BLAIR. We are in the process of talking to the agencies.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. What has been the response so

far by the agencies?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, thus far, I think it is hard for me to say because

I haven’t talked to anyone specifically about it, but the general

feedback that I have heard is that they want to make sure that

when it comes to the scorecard they are not changing the rules in

the middle of the game and they are not lowering the bar or raising

the bar, more specifically, at a time when you are scoring them.

But I think that from our survey we have seen that only half of

the agencies track time to hire now, so I think this is an important

component that needs to be part of that management scorecard.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And you said the 45 days was

for screening and——

Mr. BLAIR. It is from the time the vacancy announcement closes

to the time the job is offered, and so the third component of the

whole process is after you have accepted the offer, and then there

are other things that come into play: How long it takes you to get

your work site, security clearances are another big issue.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Right. And 45 days, 45 calendar

days?

Mr. BLAIR. Forty-five work days.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, if my math serves me

right, that is 9 weeks.

Mr. BLAIR. That would be right.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Which is calendar days of over

2 months.

Mr. BLAIR. Yes.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Just for the screening and advertising the job.

Mr. BLAIR. Yes. No, not advertising. The job had already been

advertised and the vacancy announcement closed. This is for the

screening and for interviews to have taken place.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So what you are looking at then

for the total time to hire someone?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, the total time would be—it depends on—it is

hard to say. GAO came in and said that was 102 days.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. Is that 102 calendar days?

Mr. BLAIR. I am not sure.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Does staff know?

Mr. BLAIR. I think it may have been work days or—I don’t know

if it was calendar days or work days.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Work days.

Mr. BLAIR. Work days. Wow, you are really getting into my math

now. So that is a long time.

26

Well, one would argue that is not a very high bar for agencies

to meet. When we implemented——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, you are talking probably

close to 3 or 4 months?

Mr. BLAIR. Yes.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. If a college student comes

to a job fair, why would we still not be losing some of the best talent out there if they are looking at 4 months?

Mr. BLAIR. You are talking job fair. I think that 45 days is something that could easily be met and should be broken and that this

is just a—our biggest issue right now is getting agencies to even

begin tracking that time.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Isn’t the argument now that it

takes 6 months to get someone hired, 6 to 9 months to get someone

hired? We are still looking at, if my math is right here, 4 to 6

months. So what have we——

Mr. BLAIR. Well, what we are doing here is at least beginning to

set a goal, and as agencies begin to track and monitor that, then

you can improve on that. If you haven’t even tracked it in the first

place, you could make a good argument of how can you even begin

to make improvements. So this is setting the standard and then we

can improve on it from there.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Davis, do you have any

more questions?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, just a couple. I was listening to the

exchange and I was thinking of an old adage that people used to

use when I was a kid and that is, ‘‘If you really want to know how

an Indian feels, walk in his moccasin,’’ and I guess I am thinking

how a job applicant might feel and how many job applicants can

actually wait 4 months, 5 months, 6 months to find out whether

they are going to be successful. Of course, in Chicago, that is kind

of difficult, especially if it was in the wintertime with the Hulk and

all of that and all of the difficulty.

And so yet I understand that maybe there could be some pre-involvement to help shorten the length of time that a decision could

get made or some notification step where an individual got some

sense of feeling that something may be going on, that you’re out

of the ballpark. And so that at least tells the person, ‘‘Move on with

your life. Go ahead and see if you can’t come in contact with something else.’’ I don’t know how that might get done.

Mr. BLAIR. Well, that has to be part of the recruitment one-stop

in terms of the Web site. Agencies should notify applicants where

they stand in the process. I don’t want to leave here with a

misimpression, but 45 days roughly translates to 9 weeks, and that

is a big improvement over what we are seeing that is out there.

That is a little over 2 months or that is basically 2 months from

the time the vacancy announcement closes and you have your resume in hand. We don’t know if agencies can do it more quickly.

Some of these things are very complex. If you have to go through

thousands of applicants, it does take an agency time to do something like that.

I am not trying to make excuses on their part. I would like to

see it done in a matter of weeks and not months. We would like

to see more use of the flexibilities that are out there, but you also

27

have to understand that agencies are supposed to hire within a

statutory framework which also includes application of veterans’

preference, and so we want to make sure that in doing this hiring

that short shrift is not given to the statutory protections that are

out there. It is a balancing act, it is clearly on the agencies’ backs,

and we want to make sure that the agencies have the tools in

place. Automation is out there that can quicken the process. Most

large agencies already use automation. We see that it is a budget

issue primarily with the smaller ones. But I don’t want to leave or

the chairwoman here with the impression that we think that the

standard quo is acceptable because we absolutely do not.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. That is the impression you are

giving.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. You mentioned merit employment a moment ago as we were talking, and I wondered if you would just address how difficult it is to devise a peer merit system. It seems to

me that when you get down to the end of the line, there are levels

of subjectivity that somehow or another become a part of the process, and that subjectivity oftentimes will tip the scales in favor of

one candidate versus another candidate. Is there any way to account for that or to come up with a system which accounts for it?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, it seems that you are looking at human nature

and that you can build into the process all kinds of safeguards but

it does come down to some subjectivity, and you just make sure

that subjectivity, which may not be bad, is being premised on the

right things, that it is being premised upon how people look at

someone’s application to make a determination that they are well

qualified, that they are getting the best applicants. But people are

involved in the process, and when people are involved in the process, you have some inherent subjectivity. I don’t think that is bad,

but it is just a fact of life, and we all have to deal with that.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, let me thank you very much, and

I guess what I am saying in terms of that is we have to keep working on those individuals who would have bottom line decisionmaking so that they are always conscious of the fact that their

sense of subjectivity sometimes might negate a great deal of what

has been structured in terms of arriving at merit employment. I

am saying there are still far too many individuals who for whatever their reasons are don’t make the final cut, and I think that

subjectivity plays a big role and becomes a key factor in that kind

of decisionmaking.

Mr. BLAIR. I think that the balancing to that subjectivity would

make sure that you have an open and transparent process so that

subjectivity would be open to scrutiny as well.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. Thank you,

Madam Chairwoman.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Mr.

Blair, I promise I won’t go to the horror stories. I guess it just boggles my mind why we would still be—it boggles my mind why we

take so long to hire somebody. And the complaint now is it is 6

months and this 45-day process, and according to GAO’s report it

could be 102 days, which is roughly somewhere close to 15 weeks

to 16 weeks, which is about 14 months. But if I came out of college

and I went to the private sector, I could expect to be hired someVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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times on the spot, sometimes within a week, sometimes within 2

weeks, but I don’t know that it is ever 4 months. Why does it have

to be so long for the Federal Government?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, the 45-day model is an improvement on the status quo.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, just because it is an improvement doesn’t mean we got things right.

Mr. BLAIR. Exactly, but keep in mind it is an improvement on

the status quo and that when you have a statutory framework for

hiring, certain I’s have to be dotted and T’s have to be crossed for

the process.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You can dot them and cross

them faster?

Mr. BLAIR. Well, we think you can, and that is where automation

can come in, but, for instance, if you look at some of the vacancy

announcements out there, they have 15 pages of qualifications or

questions that a applicant has to answer, and we think that is——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Can we streamline that?

Mr. BLAIR. We hope we can streamline that. Some of that is part

of the court case and is part of a consent decree under which we

operate, but other things we are trying to streamline, right? You

are changing culture in the Federal Government. Remember where

we were 5 years ago or 7 years ago. Our emphasis in the Federal

Government was how to get rid of people. And when you are changing that mind-set, which is 180 degrees, you are pushing people—

you are changing culture, and that doesn’t always happen overnight, although we would like to see that overnight. I think that,

for instance, a couple of years ago we unveiled a 30-day hiring

model for senior executive members. We were told that it took basically 9 months to hire an SES. That is ridiculous.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But you said it took 30 days.

Mr. BLAIR. Well, on average, it took 9 months, and so what we

did to address that is we said, ‘‘We think you can do it in 30 working day,’’ and, frankly, very few agencies have adopted that.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Why?

Mr. BLAIR. We hear different anecdotal reasons that we can’t

interview everyone in that period of time, we can’t screen our applicants in that period of time. There are a whole litany of reasons

but I think the bottom line is if the agency head and agency leaders want to adopt it and want to do it that fast, they can. For example, at OPM, we adopted it and we hired 17 executives within

that timeframe. So it can be done.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Why would an agency not want

to do it in 30 days?

Mr. BLAIR. I am probably the wrong person to ask, because I

can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to bring top talent on within

30 days. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. If you are the wrong one to ask,

who do I ask?

Mr. BLAIR. I think that you would want to ask other agency personnel, because that has been our game sign out there is that you

can hire quickly, and you can hire fast, and you can hire top talent

quickly, and we are tired of hearing the excuses of why you can’t

do it.

29

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Have these agencies here that

have direct hire authority have they been using the direct hire authority?

Mr. BLAIR. They have gotten it recently, and I will have to provide for the record how many they have. I know that we just gave

out the direct hire authority to Homeland and to the Centers for

Medicare and Medicaid Services just last week. And I am not sure

if we have any data of how often they have—for instance, how

often AG or the SEC—SEC has it for a wide range of occupations,

but we can provide that to you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, I would assume if you

stated that half the work force will be retiring—projected to retire

by 2013, I would think these agencies would want to make sure

they have the cream of the crop.

Mr. BLAIR. That would be the logical conclusion.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I guess I generally think in

common sense terms, so I am having trouble with Federal Government terms here.

Mr. BLAIR. Welcome to our world. [Laughter.]

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It just boggles my mind. I mean

I was a businesswoman. If I had waited 6 months to hire somebody, I mean I probably wouldn’t have been in business very long.

Mr. BLAIR. And that is true, and I think on one hand it shows

the testament of people who are willing to wait because they want

to engage in public service.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But some of them can’t afford

to wait. I mean they have graduated college, they have student

loans to pay and——

Mr. BLAIR. Exactly. And on the other hand, you have to wonder

if you are going to wait around 6 to 9 months, is that the candidate

that you really want, because it may not be the most highly sought

after candidate. But what still surprises me is that we were able

to hire 90 some odd thousand people last year.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, that is what I was going

to ask you. I am glad you brought it back up. Where were most of

those people hired?

Mr. BLAIR. I would have to have a breakdown for that. Thank

you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I think you have one. [Laughter.]

Mr. BLAIR. Boy, that is quick. Let’s see, this is all hires. Why

don’t I provide that for the record because I am having trouble——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. That sounds good.

Mr. BLAIR. Since I have started testifying before you, Madam

Chairwoman, I have had to wear glasses. [Laughter.]

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I only got you one time.

Mr. BLAIR. Several times now. [Laughter.]

This shows you the frustrations that we have. For instance, one

agency hired 71,000 people last year. They have direct——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. One agency? So they hired twothirds of the 93,000?

Mr. BLAIR. It looks like that. It is the Department of Veterans’

Affairs. But just on the direct hire ability. And so you have to question why they—and a number of those folks were hired outside

30

Title V authorities, but only one time was direct hire used. And I

am not trying to put one agency or another on the spot, but that

has been our frustration.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, I am if we have certain

agencies that aren’t doing what we have asked them to do.

Mr. BLAIR. And so I think that if Congress is going to take the

time and effort to pass legislation like this, you want to see it being

not just delegated, which we have been doing, but actually used.

And that is one of the reasons that you are going to see OPM’s efforts to incorporate this into their, for instance, management scorecard. Because if you don’t measure it, then it won’t get done.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, I thank you for coming

out today to testify, and I am sorry if I am so hard on you.

Mr. BLAIR. No, you are not hard on me. I think that you are actually saying things that I like to hear because then we can take

that back. When we hear, ‘‘We can’t do this within 45 days, we

can’t do this in 30 days,’’ it always—what is even more important

is that when you tell agency staff that we need to do this in 30

days and they go, ‘‘Why,’’ and you explain to them that it is important and they go, ‘‘So what,’’ then it is——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Maybe we should have some of

them sitting right here.

Mr. BLAIR. I wouldn’t presume to be your witness. It is just frustrating and we want to make sure that—agency leaders want to

see these changes, but you don’t have—they understand the frustrations, and they understand the challenges ahead of them. And

especially if we were engaged in the global war on terrorism, now

more than ever you need to make sure that you have processes in

place that can accommodate agencies hiring the right people. That

is why when we get these requests for direct hiring, we make sure

that they are proper, because it is a limited authority as you intended it to be. It is not the common way for bringing people in.

But even more common ways, category rating and ranking, have

been used on a very limited basis, and that is frustrating for us because that was something that the human resources community

had been asking for it for years, and when Congress did act on it,

we are seeing a limited adoption by it and that frustrates us. We

want to get the word—not only get the word out there but get the

message out there that it is necessary for them to start using that

as well.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And one thing, Mr. Blair, if you

could bring it back for the record, I think I would like to know, and

I am sure Mr. Davis would like to know as well, is the agencies

that are using the direct hire, has that been a problem with hiring

diverse folks? What is the makeup of the people that have been

hired to make sure that direct hire is not causing us a problem as

far as the diversity that we need in the Federal Government? If

you could get back to me on that, you would like to hear that,

wouldn’t you?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Yes, indeed.

Mr. BLAIR. Of course.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, thank you very much.

Mr. BLAIR. Well, thank you.

31

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I hope it hasn’t been too tough

for you.

Mr. BLAIR. Oh, no.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. If you have a chance, I will say

that I did have a chance to visit one of the other fields yesterday.

I had a great time watching the Cubs beat the Pirates. [Laughter.]

But glad you came out and thank you so much.

Mr. BLAIR. Well, thank you very much. We are trying to do a lot

and change a lot in this area, and your focus and attention helps

us accomplish our job. So keep it up.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Blair.

Mr. BLAIR. Thank you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I would like to now invite our

second panel of witnesses to please come forward to the witness

table. First, we will hear from Mr. Christopher Mihm, Managing

Director of Strategic Issues at the U.S. General Accounting Office.

Then we will hear from Mr. Stanley D. Moore, Regional Director

of the U.S. Census Bureau. And next to him is Marcia Marsh, vice

president for agency partnerships at the Department of Public

Service. And if I could also ask for two of our panel three witnesses

to move up to panel two. We will hear from Ms. Krystal Kemp, a

law school student at the University of Washington-St. Louis, and,

finally, then we will hear from Ms. Camille Sladek, a recent Federal applicant. Did I pronounce your last name correctly?

Ms. SLADEK. You certainly did.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. Thank you all for

your patience and for joining us here today, and we have sworn you

in already. We will begin with the testimony, and we will start first

with Mr. Christopher Mihm, and we do have your full statement

for the record, so if you could summarize for 5 minutes, you are

recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM, MANAGING DIRECTOR, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; STANLEY D. MOORE,

REGIONAL DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; MARCIA

MARSH, VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL

PLANNING; KRYSTAL KEMP, APPLICANT FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT, LAW STUDENT, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY; AND

CAMILLE SLADEK, RECENT FEDERAL APPLICANT

Mr. MIHM. Yes, ma’am. It is a pleasure to be here. Chairwoman

Davis and Mr. Davis, as always, it is a great honor to be here and

I take particular pleasure in of course being in Chicago this morning.

We all recognize that the Federal hiring process all too often does

not meet the needs of agencies in achieving their missions, the

needs of managers in filling positions with the right talent nor the

needs of applicants for timely, efficient, transparent and meritbased processes. As you noted in your opening statement, Madam

Chairwoman, this evidence has been amply and repeatedly demonstrated through numerous studies, and so, clearly, things need to

change.

In May 2003, you should also know we issued a report recommending changes to address problems with Federal hiring, including actions that we believe OPM needed to take. We also reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
32

ported, and here I completely agree with Mr. Blair, that agencies

must take greater responsibility for their individual hiring within

the current statutory and regulatory framework that Congress and

OPM have provided. The chart we are showing today, which is also

found on Pages 8 and 9 of the report that you and Mr. Davis requested, shows the typical steps that an agency has to go through

as part of the hiring process. I should mention that the 102 days

that was part of the discussion was based on an OPM study from

fiscal year 2002 data that covered the entire process, whereas the

time to hiring model for OPM is just a slice of that process. So they

are really measuring, in essence, two different things.

Today, as you noted, we are issuing a report, a followup report

to that May 2003 report that focuses on recent governmentwide efforts to improve Federal hiring. In summary, we found the following: First, that Congress, OPM and the agencies are making concerted efforts to improve their hiring, in particular Congress has

provided agencies with additional flexibilities, OPM has taken significant steps to modernize job vacancy announcements and develop the government’s recruiting Web site, and most agencies are

continuing to automate their hiring processes. Nevertheless, problems remain with job classification standards that many view as

antiquated, and there is a need for improved tools to assess the

qualifications of candidates getting along the lines that Mr. Davis

was talking to making sure that they are merit-based.

Second, agencies appear to be making limited use of the two new

hiring flexibilities provided by Congress. One of these, as you

noted, was categorical ranking, which was designed to replace the

rule of three. The other was the direct hiring authority that Mr.

Blair talked about. I would note that the lack of use of these tools

that Congress provided is both surprising and of course of great

concern, given that the agencies in the past often expressed the

need for precisely these flexibilities. I remember them particularly

beating a path to both of your offices just pleading with you to give

them these tools.

One thing to report that you raised in the questions with Mr.

Blair concerning the we have had a great tradition at this subcommittee of carrots, horses and carts, but, basically, the ships

cross in the night, to keep mixing the metaphors here, of what help

agencies say they need versus what OPM says that they are giving

to them.

In a separate report we issued last May on human capital flexibilities, we recommended that OPM work with and through the

Chief Human Capital Officers Council to more thoroughly research

and compile and analyze information on effective and innovative

use of flexibilities. And, more specifically, as I had the honor of testifying before you just a couple of weeks ago, OPM and the agencies need to continue to work together to improve the hiring process, and the Council can be a key vehicle on this.

To accomplish this, we believe that agencies need to provide

OPM with timely and comprehensive information about their experiences in the hiring process at each of these various steps and that

OPM, in turn, can serve as a facilitator in the collection and exchange of this information, to get out more reading and best pracVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
33

tice information so that we can get a better sense of what an effective and successful approach is.

As the chart in the hiring process demonstrates, there are ample

opportunities to streamline and improve Federal hiring. As Mr.

Davis noted in his opening statement, the succession planning

challenges and opportunities that we face are great, and we all

need to get going if we are going to be successful in addressing this

critical issue.

We look forward to continue to work with this subcommittee and

the agencies and OPM. Let me just end there and take any questions that you may have. Thank you.

[NOTE.—The U.S. General Accounting Office report entitled,

‘‘Human Capital, Opportunities to Improve Executive Agencies’

Hiring Processes, GAO–03–450,’’ may be found in subcommittee

files.]

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mihm follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Mihm. It is always a pleasure to have you in front of the committee. Next we will

go to Mr. Stanley Moore. Thank you so much for being here with

us today, and you are now recognized for 5 minutes. We do have

your full statement for the record, so if you can summarize in 5

minutes, it would be appreciated.

Mr. MOORE. All right. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman and

Mr. Davis. Thank you for the invitation to come before you today.

I am pleased to speak before this committee on the Federal Government hiring process. With your permission, I would like to summarize my written testimony and ask that my full statement be included in the record.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So ordered.

Mr. MOORE. I am Regional Director of the Chicago Regional Office of the U.S. Census Bureau, which is responsible for all census

and survey activities in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. I have

been an employee of the Census Bureau for more than 48 years.

During my tenure, I have served in several positions, including Associate Director for Field Operations, Regional Director, Assistant

Regional Director, Senior Computer Program Analyst. I am also a

member of the Chicago Federal Executive Board. Although I have

served as a member of the Federal Executive Board Committee

since 1972, I served as its chairman during fiscal year 2003. The

Federal Executive Board was created in 1961 by President Kennedy through a Presidential directive to improve coordination between Federal activities and programs outside of Washington. Approximately 84 percent of Federal employees reside outside of

Washington, DC.

The Chicago Federal Executive Board is comprised of 180 Federal agencies and 85,000 civilian and military employees in an 11-

county area. I submit along with my testimony a list of activities

that the Chicago FEB has sponsored over the course of the past 4

years on the recruitment and retention of Federal employees. I

have been actively involved in all of these activities and events.

The Federal Government has made significant changes in the way

it recruits and selects its staff over the nearly five decades of my

employment. However, streamlining the hiring process remains a

work in progress. The Census Bureau is a leader in developing

strategies to remove any impediments that may prevent a seamless

hiring process.

Like other Federal agencies, the Census Bureau is concerned

with the potential loss of a significant number of our middle and

senior managers in the next few years due to retirements. The

question comes to mind, do we have programs in place to meet this

challenge and demand? The Census Bureau, with the support of

the Office of Personnel Management, have developed programs that

are a new, innovative approach to staff recruiting, training and development. Additionally, the effort to move the hiring authority

closer to those who recruit and review candidates have had a major

impact on streamlining the hiring process.

One of the major moves the Census Bureau has undertaken,

again, with OPM’s support, is the implementation of an electronic

hiring data base to streamline the hiring process for key occupations. Mathematical statisticians, statisticians and information

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technology specialists. This automated system enables a candidate

to file his or her application electronically as well as respond to a

series of screening questions. Applicants have reported how pleased

they are with this system. Also, the application remains active for

a period of 90 days and can be renewed electronically after this period on a continuous basis.

The OPM ranks the candidates and upon request provides the

Census Bureau with a certificate of eligible candidates. This

streamlining has reduced from about 4 months to a matter of

weeks the amount of time it takes to complete the hiring steps and

extend an offer of employment to an applicant. We believe this has

been a very successful effort, especially in our attempts to hire

entry level employees.

We continue to streamline in other ways as well. Through our

disability program, managers can have access to work force recruiting program data base. This data base contains the names of about

1,600 students and recent graduates with disabilities. Candidates

selected from this list can be hired without competition into the accepted service.

With the change in demographics in our Nation, the Federal

work force that reflects the face of America cannot be overlooked.

The Federal work force that was in place when I started nearly 50

years has changed for the better. As the streamlining of the hiring

process is considered, do not forget the policies and practices that

are in place to ensure that the Federal work force lives up to our

Nation’s creed and ideas. Over the past year, the Census Bureau

merged its diversity and recruitment program to ensure that its

commitment to diversity remains a core tenet of the recruitment

program.

The Census will continue its partnership with OPM and seeks

ways to incorporate existing hiring flexibility into hiring its recruitment and retention objectives.

Madam Chairwoman, that concludes my testimony, and I will be

happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you so much, Mr. Moore.

Ms. Marsh, you are recognized for 5 minutes, and as with the

other gentlemen, we have your complete statement for the record,

so if you could summarize, you have 5 minutes.

Ms. MARSH. Thank you. Chairman Davis, Congressman Davis,

thank you very much for the opportunity to appear in front of you

today.

The previous witnesses have regaled you with a litany of the

problems that are out there. Oftentimes, the process does a disservice to both the applicant and the government agencies trying to obtain critical talent. Given all the studies and the decades that have

gone by, why do we still have this problem? It is not rocket science.

Fixing this process is not like sending a lunar lander out there.

Certainly, competitive pay and the classification system loom large

as a problem, it is something that we need to look at. But greater

flexibilities, while they would be nice to have, are only one part of

the solution, and we believe that agencies have the wherewithal

currently to make major strides in cleaning that up.

I have spent 23 years consulting in the private sector before I

joined the Partnership for Public Service, and I work with Fortune

500 organizations and executives on creating systems so they can

win the war for talent and certainly take talent away from many

of the other sectors that are out there. And among the things that

I have observed with them and I was able to share with them and

I share with Federal leaders when I speak is it all starts at the

top. And if you look at examples in the private sector of great leaders, they spend a vast percentage of their time on people management processes. And I will give you two examples.

Tom Tierney was formerly the chairman of Bain and Co., which

is one of the most influential management consulting firms. He had

reports that he spent over 10 percent of his time very year in the

hiring process—out on college campuses, out at career conferences,

professional associations, meeting, greeting, reviewing and interviewing the candidates that were going to fuel their success. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, spends over 30 days a

year again in the management processes—in succession planning,

looking at filling top vacancies. And if you think about your own

busy schedules, imagine that somebody could allocate somewhere

between 20 and 30 days. Focusing on this issue is a very big and

substantial amount of time.

And if you had that same kind of leadership attention in the Federal Government, they simply wouldn’t accept these type of agency

failings internally. Basically, they would come in and say, ‘‘Just do

it. Get this thing fixed.’’ But it is not happening. And far too often

we see that is the case because it is simply delegated away as an

HR function. And I would like to say that you don’t have your

budget office spend your money. Resource management and allocation management is part of a management function, so relying and

putting responsibility for this firmly at the door of only the HR

function is inappropriate and won’t get us any action.

When Federal leaders actually step up to the plate and do something and focus their time and accountability on it, you see real

change> You see a great example in Comptroller General David

Walker, you see NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, two individVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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uals and their leadership teams who have applied pressure, they

have streamlined the hiring process, they have improved the kind

of recruiting they are getting, and they have also visited up on

Capitol Hill with very well-informed requests for additional flexibility. So you see good examples. And in our written testimony and

in our appendix, we have put some of our case studies about additional examples on successful Federal recruiting models.

So how do we perpetuate more of these success stories across the

Federal space? We actually have four comments that we wanted to

leave you with today and that are in our written testimony. One

is certainly oversight like this, and I like Dan Blair’s comments

about asking agency leaders about the kind of investment that they

are making on both an organization level and a personal level in

getting this thing fixed. Is it a priority for them? So that is item

No. 1.

You certainly have a natural avenue via the CHCO Act legislation and the reporter requirements, and also there are some wonderful measures coming out of the President’s managements agenda that might be something that you can look to and rely upon.

But we wanted to issue a caution about too much focus or disproportionate focus on time to hire. We think there is a need for

speed, much more speed than we have in the system; that is very

laudable. But we have seen in performance management in the

past in the Federal Government if you focus only on the quantitative measures, oftentimes you will get unintended and undesirable results from that. So you would have the measure as to the

quality of the applicants, diversity and those other things that

clearly need to be part of the mix.

Another thing that we are excited about in terms of the change

agent measures, some of the work that OPM is now undertaking,

the project that they have with HUD to create a model for success

and actually get your hands dirty in the hiring process and fix

some of those things. We are really anxious to find out what some

of the results are and being able to get under the covers and fix

some of those processes.

At the partnership, we inaugurating this summer a very complementary project. We are going to adopt three pilot organizations

and work with them on trying to transform their hiring processes.

And we are going to enjoy contributions from some of America’s

leading recruiting consultants, including our colleagues from Monster that are here today to try and put our hands around this and

fix those. We anticipate having some quick wins by the end of this

year and look forward and are eager to report out to you about

some of our results and findings as they come to pass.

The last comment that we have is certainly we want to continue

to see some efforts on looking at reforming a general schedule and

more competitive in market-driven pay practices and classification

systems.

With that, I thank you very much for the opportunity again and

look forward to answering any questions that you have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Marsh follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Ms. Marsh, for that

great summary of your testimony. Ms. Kemp, we know you have

to leave early, so if you can summarize your statement in 5 minutes.

Ms. KEMP. Chairwoman Jo Ann Davis and Ranking Member

Danny K. Davis, thank you for the opportunity today to address

you regarding the Federal hiring process. My name is Krystal

Kemp, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to share my experiences with you.

I would like to take this time to give you a little bit of background information about myself. I graduated with honors from the

University of Alabama in 1998 where I was selected to become a

member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. This May, I received

my juris doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis. At

Washington University, I interned in a variety of legal settings, including working for the city prosecutor, the Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and clerking for a Federal magistrate judge. I was

also fortunate to be selected for our Washington, DC, Congressional

and Administrative Law Clinic. The aspect of all of these jobs that

I enjoyed most was the knowledge that I was using my education

to help the public. These experiences sparked a desire in me to

work for the Federal Government.

As you may know, Washington University in St. Louis is a highly

respected educational institution. This year, the Washington University undergraduate program was ranked as the ninth best university in America by U.S. News and World Report, and the law

school was ranged No. 20.

I have been searching for a permanent position for roughly 1

year. I am very anxious over my current jobless situation due to

the debt I have incurred to undertake my legal studies, as I owe

over $100,000 in educational debt. My search for a Federal job led

me to the usajobs.com Web site. I found the Web site to be, at best,

confusing and, at worst, discouraging. There were three main areas

in which I had difficulties with the Web site: The language, the resume builder, and some job announcements directed me to another

Web site where I was required to fill out more applications.

First, the language of many of the job announcements was incomprehensible. Many of the announcements used special government code talk that I had not previously encountered. I do not understand how the average citizen could read those announcements

and know clearly what the jobs’ duties entailed or what the requirements were. I had the feeling that the announcements were

not written for me but were created for people already initiated

into the fraternity of government jobs.

Second, I was uncomfortable with the resume builder. The resume builder requires the applicant to enter data and then compiles the information into the Web site’s resume format. This function was not especially helpful to me because the format for an attorney’s resume is different, and I was constricted to the single format provided. However, this was not the most troubling aspect of

the resume builder. The resume builder requires the user to input

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tion for Federal employment. Due to the desire to protect my personal information, I have had difficulty completing the resume.

Finally, I found it very frustrating when I accessed a job announcement on the USA Jobs and was then directed to another

Web site where I would be directed to fill out another application.

I was under the impression that the purpose of the USA Jobs Web

site was to allow the job seeker to provide information once and be

able to send it to multiple employers within the Federal Government.

At this time, I have given up on the Web site. When I complete

my bar study and sit for the bar exam, I will have more time to

work with the site and hopefully figure it out. Thus far the only

Federal jobs that I have applied for have been through job announcements directed to my school. Unfortunately, there have not

been many sent to the Washington University School of Law.

I hope my remarks today have been informative and helpful to

each of you in understanding this issue. I thank you for inviting

me to testify.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kemp follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Ms. Kemp. Ms.

Sladek, we have your full testimony for the record, and if you

would summarize your testimony, I will recognize you for 5 minutes. And thank you for being here today.

Ms. SLADEK. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis, Congressman

Davis. I am under a little different circumstances here than

Krystal. After September 11, I was one of the 8 airline employees

approved by the FAA to be hired in a temporary position not to exceed 6 months with the FAA. This was prior to TSA’s birth and

TSA taking over the security of the airports. When TSA came into

existence and took over security, we were all told we would all

have permanent positions within TSA. Then we were told we would

be given a 6-month extension. I was given a 6-month extension.

They got TSA formed, hired the screening, turned the screening

over to the TSA and replaced it throughout the airports.

As time went on, 6 months came and they said, ‘‘Well, now we

have to get into positive baggage claim and we have to initiate this

program, and regulatory people,’’ which is what I was hired for,

‘‘regulatory people will have to take a back burner as we get this

other section in place.’’ We were all granted another 6-month extension. Another year and a half went by.

As an ASI hired in November 2001, we were to assist in being

the eyes and the ears for the regulatory agents of the FAA since

there were not enough special agents to go around to cover the

problems that we had at the airport, and we were to assist them.

Most of the people that are hired, as a matter of fact all of eight

of us that were hired in Chicago, were former airline people who

brought to the table our knowledge from the airline industry which

I worked in for at least 22 years.

A year and a half went by and then I was subjected to the final

extension. My time was running out. I approached my Human Resource benefit person and said, ‘‘What is the latest on the extension

for ASIs here,’’ and she said, ‘‘There is no extension.’’ I was like,

‘‘OK. We were told that we would all have permanent positions,

and we were given extensions to cover until they could get back to

us with permanent positions.’’

At the end of the 6 months, my last 6 months, which was to run

out in May 2003, I was told that there was not going to be anymore

extensions, that I should contact the government’s People Line to

find out what the status was. People Line didn’t know anything

that was happening with the ASIs in Chicago. So I went back to

my person and I asked them, and they said, ‘‘Well, it means then

that when the time is up, you will be without a job.’’

At the beginning of 6 months when the Federal Security Director

was in place at Chicago O’Hare and starting to form the team

there, I had a meeting with the Director and I was told, ‘‘Here’s

your name on the board. You are going to get positions with the

TSA.’’ At that time, we were in transition to go from FAA to TSA

and of course we went from TSA to Homeland Security. So we had

to change titles three times in a month.

In the beginning of May 2003, I was informed that there were

no extensions. They had to cut 190 permanent screeners from the

airport, so since I was still a temporary person, that was one less

permanent person they had to cut. This started my conversations

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with the People Line and went on for 2 months, 2 months which

is documented here, back and forth: ‘‘No, you were granted an extension;’’ ‘‘You need to contact your airport.’’ I contacted my airport,

no one had an extension. In my conversations with them, I was

told that an extension was granted in Washington for all TSA employees, all TSA ASIs out at the airports. That never happened.

May 200 I was unemployed, because my temporary position had

expired. Six months I went back and forth. I could never apply for

any permanent positions because I wasn’t a permanent employee

according to the job requisitions. So this went on. Needless to say,

I spent 6 months unemployed and applied for a position through

the Web site for an airport screener which I am now working as

a part-time airport screener at Chicago Midway Airport. And in

conversing with everyone in this 6-month period, it went from one

person—I spoke to people in Washington, people at O’Hare, it was

the biggest runaround that I ever got. And to this day I don’t know

why I wasn’t given a position that I was told and from our Legal

Department in Washington they’re like, ‘‘It wasn’t in writing. It

was only at our meetings.’’

There is something wrong with this. It is not the way to treat

people. I was one of the people that left my job to join the FAA for

at that time what was a temporary position. There was something

that needed to be done because of September 11. The airline industry was dying and something needed to be done, and I went out,

I took a gamble and I went with them for 6 months. Then it became something that was going to be a permanent position. I was

told by the FAA and then the TSA, ‘‘All of you will have a permanent position,’’ and it didn’t happen.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sladek follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Ms. Sladek. Thank

you so much. Mr. Davis, I am going to move to your first for questions.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, thank you very much, and I want

to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony.

Mr. Mihm, it is always a pleasure to see you and to hear you.

Given the fact that agencies are not using all the flexibilities that

have already been granted to them, should we grant any additional

or is there some other process perhaps that we should try and use?

Mr. MIHM. The key going forward at this point, Mr. Davis, in our

view, is for agencies to step up and make effective use of the tools

that Congress has already granted them and the authorities that

they have long had to have—there is nothing we can null or OPM

regulations that hampers an agency from having an effective recruitment program and college outreach program. We find that

agencies that are strategic, and we like to think that we are particularly good in this regard, are very serious about going down

and recruiting on campuses and spending a lot of time on that.

That is not something that agencies should be waiting for Congress

to be telling them to do or dictating or OPM to be having regulations along those lines. So much of what needs to be done is already within the agencies’ authorities. It is not time for them to

step up to the plate. We also think, as I mentioned in my statement, that there are opportunities for the Chief Human Capital Officers Council to serve as an information clearinghouse for leading

practices so that agencies can learn from one another.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I find the recommendations and suggestions—sounds like you are saying we need to persuade the agencies.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir. That wouldn’t hurt. As you know, we have

done a number of reports for you on the looming retirement that

is coming at all levels, particularly the executive service. We are

going to be have a big turnover of the senior executives. We have

half of those retiring within the next several years based on historical data. There is an enormous opportunity for agencies, and as

you know from the work that we have done for you is that if we

do not do anything, if we do not implement the diversity programs

that are already in place, we will fall behind just based on the

trends of where we are now. That is something that is all within

the agencies’ authority. That is something they need to step up to

the plate and take care of.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. Mr. Moore, 48

years in the Federal system, I mean that is a long period of time.

I mean, obviously, you didn’t take advantage of any of the early retirement programs. [Laughter.]

We are going to ask you to stay put. What have you seen that

you would say has been the most effective change that has enabled

the Census Bureau to diversity its work force, to recruit, bring in

women and other minorities? What have you seen?

Mr. MOORE. Well, 48 years don’t seem very long, but the Federal

system has changed. When I first came in the Federal system, you

had to come through what they called the Federal service entrance

exam, which was a written exam that you had to take, along with

your college credits and your degree. And that has been changed.

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They now allow you to come in with looking at your application

based on your experience and your education, rather than the written exam. And looking at the GAO report where they talk about

the rule of three, I think the rule of three has allowed many minorities to get the job where a lot of managers want to get rid of

the rule of three, because they want to select anybody that is on

their cert. But if you had to rank the people on the cert and you

take the best qualified applicant, I notice that the rule of three has

helped us bring on women, minorities, people that were qualified.

The other thing is the Census Bureau has come up with the electronic hiring system where they have speeded up the process. We

can put a person on real fast now through the Census Bureau because they have automated the system. Besides the system being

automated, we have hired people in what we call the accepted service, the Schedule A appointments, the temporary appointments. Because we hire so many people during the decennial census, we can

bring people on in the accepted service. So if someone applies for

a job in the competitive service and while we are interviewing them

if they are a good person, we can put them through the accepted

service appointment, and that allows us to move fast.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, thank you very much. Quickly,

Madam Chairwoman, Ms. Kemp and Ms. Sladek, if you were going

to make a recommendation based on your experiences, what would

you recommend that the Federal service do in order to improve the

situation?

Ms. KEMP. I guess I have something very quick that I could say.

This goes back to something Mr. Blair said. He mentioned that applicants don’t get a reply or a timely reply and that has been my

experience. I have applied with several different Federal groups

and most of them I have heard nothing, not even a rejection letter.

I don’t know if the job is available or not. Recently, I was contacted

about an interview with GSA and I applied with them in the fall,

and the first that I have heard from them was this last week I got

an email. So being very generous, that was at least 7 months before I heard anything. So I think that some feedback, a little feedback, ‘‘We have you resume. We are thinking about you,’’ that

would be nice.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. In Chicago, you could have starved to

death in that period of time. Thank you. [Laughter.]

Ms. SLADEK. Well, unfortunately, I would say that I would expect

someone to be a little more honest and stand behind what they say,

don’t make show of promises. If you would like to tell someone that

this is the way it is, stand behind it. Don’t give the person the runaround and somehow let the right hand know what the left hand

is doing, because with all the people involved, nobody seemed to

have known what was going on, and I was referred to someone else

and talked to someone else. It is very frustrating, especially when

it is my life on the line.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So a greater sense of coordination.

Ms. SLADEK. Would be very helpful.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you also very much.

Ms. SLADEK. Thank you.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. Ms. Kemp, I know

you have to leave to catch a plane, and, actually, Mr. Davis asked

you the question I had for you. Let me just ask you this maybe in

a different way, maybe that is the only answer you have. What

changes would you recommend that we make other than just the

coming back and forth in answering an email? Did you hear from

any agencies that there was no job opening for at the time?

Ms. KEMP. No.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You haven’t heard from anyone

a rejection, period.

Ms. KEMP. No, I haven’t.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And the email you got from

GSA after 7 months, was that just, ‘‘Thank you for your application?’’

Ms. KEMP. No. The email I got was, ‘‘In response to your resume

and application, you have an interview during the June 14 week.

Please call us for a time slot.’’ That was the email that I received.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And when did you send it in?

Ms. KEMP. In the fall, so even if it was December, that would be

about 7 months that I was waiting.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But in your testimony you

talked about the application being a problem. So if you had to give

your social security number, then you just didn’t apply, is that——

Ms. KEMP. Well, no, that is not it, but I felt like putting my social security number, that I had to do it over the Internet was a

little bit frightening, because there is a lot of identity theft going

on right now, and I don’t know who is going to see that or how

many people are going to see it. And that is not something I have

to put on my resume or my application for any private firm. I

haven’t had to do it for any local government jobs. It is only when

they bring you in to speak with you and you have a serious job possibility that they want that type of very personal information about

you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Did they accept your application without the social security number?

Ms. KEMP. Well, there is a little disclaimer that says, ‘‘We will

not process your application without your social security number.’’

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Is there a reason for that?

Mr. MIHM. I am not sure, ma’am. We will check into it. That is

interesting. I mean it would seem that, just like as Ms. Kemp is

saying, that you should be able to do an initial screening and then

once you get to the second stage in which you are either whittling

it down or beginning the actual interview process that is where you

would presumably ask a whole host of other information that

would be pertinent.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Isn’t there security screening

that goes on with every applicant before they are even talked to?

Mr. MIHM. Before they are talked to, no. I mean I should say

often not the case.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. If they are offered a job with

the CIA or something?

Mr. MIHM. They often do both a national background check, basically a records check and obviously increasing it today.

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But after the application and

the interview.

Mr. MIHM. Right. Right.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, I would tend to align myself with Ms. Kemp, that I don’t think I would put my social security number on the Internet, not today anyways.

Do you have anything else you want to add before I excuse you,

so you can go catch a plane?

Ms. KEMP. No, that it is it. Thank you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you so much for taking

the time to come out today. The rest of you stay, but Ms. Kemp

has been excused.

Ms. Sladek, I would like to ask you, you said there were eight

of them that left and came to the FAA, TSA, whatever it ended up

being at the time. Were the other seven offered permanent jobs and

you were the only one not?

Ms. SLADEK. Before TSA, there were some positions that started

opening up. Some went to Dangerous Goods, which ended up staying with the FAA after the split, and as different positions became

available with the Regulatory and the Dangerous Goods, we applied for them and most of them or all of them have permanent positions now. And I was the last——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Is there a reason why you

didn’t?

Ms. SLADEK. Well, the reason when I confronted the director out

at O’Hare was that we had 191 people that we had to cut, permanent people, and you were still a temporary person, and instead of

having to eliminate another permanent person, we just won’t

renew you at the end of 6 months, and that is one less we have

to cut. That’s what I was told.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Did the human resource officer

with TSA that hired you and told you you’d be permanent?

Ms. SLADEK. No. As a matter of fact, it was the—I attended the

job fair for the open house for FAA when they were starting the

screening. There were thousands of us there. I interviewed with

the FAA, and then the Human Resource person hired me. Then

when TSA was created, FAA said, and I believe it was—he said,

‘‘You all will have permanent positions within the organization.’’

Now, when the TSA came in, the Federal Security Director met

with us all, all the ASIs at the FAA Casper Office and said, ‘‘You

all will have a permanent position.’’ And during that time, we

couldn’t apply for the permanent positions except for anything that

was Regulatory or at that time Dangerous Goods because then we

split. We split the Casper. Dangerous Goods stayed with FAA, Regulatory people became part of TSA. So we were TSA because we

were just ASIs, Assistant Security Inspectors.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So your problem isn’t so much

the hiring process as it is keeping their word if they tell you something and then they break it.

Ms. SLADEK. Yes. Kind of left out there. I was stuck in the freeze,

and then when the thaw came I wasn’t an employee anymore. So

I am back out starting all over again.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Before I go back to Mr. Davis,

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other round. Does the Congress require report cards on our agencies for use of flexibility and defining hiring employees on these

agencies, that they will meet those standards and goals? Because

what I am hearing here today is that, and Ms. Marsh said it, that

the flexibilities are there, we have given them everything they

need, and, unfortunately, there is no agency here to defend themselves with the exception of Mr. Moore, which I think the Census

Bureau has done a good job. So you are not one of the bad guys,

if you will. Should we in Congress ask for a report card if the agencies aren’t doing what they need to be doing?

Mr. MIHM. First, in regards to the Census Bureau, I mean we

profiled the Census Bureau as being one of the organizations, as

Mr. Moore was mentioning, that had done a good job in automation

in our report of May of last year, so I would agree with you on that.

In terms of report cards from agencies, there is already a vehicle,

fortunately, that Congress can use on that. As you know, under the

Human Capital legislation, the Homeland Security legislation of a

year ago that created Human Capital Officers, agencies, as part of

their performance plans under the Government Performance and

Results Act, are now to include parts that speak directly to the

human capital goals and provisions that they want to have in

there. It is entirely appropriate, I think, for Congress to be expecting discussions of how agencies are using those flexibilities or using

the tools that Congress has granted recently and long-standing

flexibilities that agencies have had as part of those plans and then

subsequently as part of the accountability reports that agencies are

required at the end of the year.

In terms of penalties, I think there can be no greater penalty in

the sense of holding the bar for agencies, as consistently asking

agencies when they come up and request additional authorities,

‘‘What have you done with the authorities that Congress has already granted?’’ To making sure, in other words, that they have a

sound business case, that they have explored all the available opportunities, that they have really made sure that they have a good

plan in place, they have used the available flexibilities, they have

a good plan for how they will generally use additional flexibilities

so that we don’t get in this situation where Congress is constantly

being asked for additional authorities, additional flexibilities without any evidence that the previous ones have shown to not fully

meet the need or any evidence that if new ones are granted that

they are indeed actually being used.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, we are in the process of

trying to come up with some legislation to streamline the hiring

process. We hope to have something, I hope, by the first of the

year. But I guess my concern is, and if I am hearing you, as each

different individual agency comes up and asks for more streamlining or more flexibility, then we ask that agency what they are

doing. So we couldn’t go through Congress and give everybody the

same flexibilities because not everybody is using the flexibilities. Is

that what you are saying?

Mr. MIHM. Madam, I agree with your point that we think that

the next stage in governmentwide changes for human capital reform is exactly that, a governmentwide examination. We have been

through a process in which we have given Department of HomeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00100 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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land Security, Department of Defense and NASA and there is consideration, of course, of FBI is on the horizon, agency-specific flexibilities. And if the agencies have specific needs, they need to be

considered on a case-by-case basis. However, it is time to move toward, we believe, more of a governmentwide examination. I know

that is something that you have been certainly looking at.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. This piecemeal, we will never

know what anybody——

Mr. MIHM. That is right.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But my concern is how do we—

and Mr. Blair, I don’t know if he is still here—but he says you can

lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, and I don’t

disagree with him on that. But how can we make this horse drink?

I mean are we going to be wasting our time? Are we still not going

to be able to get the quality folks because we can’t agency heads

to do their job? How do we get them to do their job? Do we impose

requirements, which is not something I am in favor, by the way,

but is that what is needed?

Mr. MIHM. I think one of the areas that might be fruitful for

Congress to look at going forward with governmentwide reform will

be to the extent that you give additional flexibilities require that

an agency cannot use those flexibilities unless they have a business

case in place that shows how they have used existing flexibilities.

Could be subject, for example, to an OPM certification that they

have a good plan in place for how they are going to use more authorities, that they have used existing authorities. And we could

put OPM under a 45-day model based on an agency application for

additional flexibilities that OPM would have 45 days—I am making

that number up, obviously—would have a specified set of time in

which they would have to either approve or deny the request to

trigger the new authorities. I think that is an entirely appropriate

way for Congress to be thinking going forward is to, again, let’s

make sure we are using what has already been granted before we

come up and ask for, and within the framework of governmentwide

reforms, that would certainly make sense.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, OPM coming out with this

45-day thing——

Mr. MIHM. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA [continuing]. And then they are

going to be grading the agencies or bringing some of them up to

what is called the green light or something, I can’t remember exactly what it is called, the green something. Do you anticipate any

of these other agencies getting that green light or getting that

green whatever it is called?

Mr. MIHM. I understand from Dan’s testimony that they are looking to get it into the scorecard and kind of to get to green No. 45.

And that is important. I mean it does create some visibility and

focus on that. I would also take, and think it is very important, I

would take Marcia’s point that we need to be very careful that we

will balancing not just time limits but also with the quality indicator to make sure that we don’t lean too far in the wrong direction.

It gets to a point that certainly you and Mr. Davis had a discussion

with Ms. Kemp when she was here, and Marcia mentioned Tom

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Tierney from Bain Associates, one of the preeminent consulting

firms on this.

What Mr. Tierney has said that it is not so much the speed of

the hiring for many positions, it is do people feel that their application is getting a serious consideration and are they actually—is

someone in the agency aware in the process so that we don’t get

into a GSA situation where it sounds like a form email 7 months

after the fact, ‘‘Call us and we may decide to interview you.’’ As Mr.

Tierney has put it, many applicants are willing to go through a lot

of hoops as long as they have the sense that they are competitive

hoops and not bureaucratic hoops that they are going through. And

that is what is outrageous if we are putting people through bureaucratic hoops as opposed to competitive hoops.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. We heard today that the young

lady didn’t hear anything for 7 months.

Mr. MIHM. That is not—things like that when they happen, that

doesn’t show it is a serious hiring effort that is going on.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I will probably come back with

more questions, but I want to go now to Mr. Davis for a second

round.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. Ms. Marsh, what are the biggest barriers that exist in the

processes that we are using to get the most qualified, and of course

as quickly as we can get them, individuals to fill the positions that

become available?

Ms. MARSH. I will give you first a kind of simplistic overview, but

I think it is making it a priority, and when you make it a priority,

you are out on the college campuses and you see the Krystal

Kemps very early on, not when she is graduating. Under the GAO

model, Chris is measured on his attendance at college campuses

and getting to know people. So you spot that young talent early on,

you are encouraging them through the process, so I think the priority piece. But I know there was a discussion that Dan Blair had

earlier about the assessment process, and I think that is a problem

from both the timeliness aspect, a problem from discouraging candidates and also quality. Because I knew we were coming here, I

went out on the Web site and looked at Chicago jobs and I pulled

one of them. I will not name the agency, but it came up with all

the ACWA questions. So 156 what seemed to be nonsensical questions for the entry level college applicant. I am not even sure what

ACWA stands for, I would have to look over to my other——

Mr. MIHM. Administrative Careers with America.

Ms. MARSH. It comes the entry level positions that would fall

under the Luevano consent decree in 1981, so a number of the

entry level positions, and if you are somebody graduating from college, and I am sure that ii among the things that Ms. Kemp looked

at, the questions themselves really put the employee off completely.

And agencies have the wherewithal to substitute other valid selection procedures, and only a few have. I mean Customs, I think Border Patrol did it a while ago when they were ramping up for 9,000

people. So attending to the assessment process so that the applicants look at something and it is in plain English and they feel like

they have been approached by agencies is one thing. I think the

whole responsiveness, there is no excuse with the automation the

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way it is that applicants don’t hear right away where they are and

can’t see through the whole process where they stand in that thing.

That is just ludicrous that happens.

And then in the quantitative sense, managers need to be involved in the interviewing process, behavior interviews, structured

interviews, assessment processes that are more appropriate. And

then, finally, when we bring people on board, we want to make

sure we hold on to these people that we spent a lot of time and

money bringing in the door. So changing the orientation and assimilation process is something that we would want to focus on as

well.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you. Mr. Mihm, much has been

made of the fact that individuals like yourself and others at GAO

have to go out and—or not have to go out but—yes.

Mr. MIHM. Have to.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. He loves it. [Laughter.]

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And go out to college campuses and recruit. I mean what do you say to individuals when you are out

there? I mean what do you tell them?

Mr. MIHM. We have two big differences at GAO over most other

recruitment programs that you see. And I should be reluctant to

say this because I compete with many other Federal agencies on

this, but here are the two secrets that we have. One is that for us

recruitment is our responsibility not an HR responsibility, and so

as Marcia was saying and as you are alluding, there are about 50

different universities across the country that we target for recruitment. We have individual senior executives that are assigned as

lead recruiters at those agencies, it is made clear to us as part of

our SES performance contracts that we will be successful there, we

are measured and then data is provided to us in rank order among

these colleges as to how many applicants we got, how many were

accepted, their retention rates over time. That is all made very

clear to us as part of my performance contract each year, the success or lack of success of what we have there. I regret, sir, I don’t

have the University of Chicago, I have just Washington University,

but we do pretty well there.

But now directly to your question. The sales point that we have,

and this is the second aspect that we are a little different than

other agencies, is that we have college relations programs rather

than college recruitment programs, meaning that most of the visits

that I and my colleagues make to college campuses aren’t at a jobs

fair where we are putting out a banner that says, ‘‘Come work for

the GAO.’’ I mean we do that, but that is mostly the seal the deal

type things. Most of my visits are meeting with classes, meeting

with professors, having discussions with them, making sure that

they are making lists of GAO work in the various courses.

Here is an example is that virtually every public affairs policy

program in the country seems to have a homeland security course

that they are offering now fairly routinely as part of the graduate

programs. If you go through the syllabus, or at least the last time

I did a while back, you often will not find government agency and

Federal reports in there or agencies making available speakers to

come in and talk about what their agencies are doing. Every Federal agency has a compelling story to tell. To the extent that they

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are only waiting for a job fair to tell the story, you have missed

your opportunity. You have to be in there as part of the college relations program. So it is those two things that we do differently

than at least many other agencies that I am seeing.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, thank you very much. And with all

due respect to the University of Chicago comment, we don’t have

the University of Chicago either.

Mr. MIHM. Oh, I’m sorry. Once again, I miss congressional districts. [Laughter.]

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. We do have 27 other colleges and universities in our district. I mean we have made downtown Chicago now

a mecca for higher education, and South Loop has become the place

to be. But the University of Chicago still remains the University

of Chicago. Thank you all so very much. I have no further questions, Madam Chairwoman.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Davis. That is

all right, Mr. Mihm, I don’t know his district either. But I didn’t

make the faux pa you did. [Laughter.]

You know, it is interesting, we hear you talk, Ms. Marsh, about

with technology being what it is today, it is ludicrous that—I think

you say ludicrous that these applicants don’t know where they

stand. I am a busy person so I order everything online, and when

I have one order the next day or the day after I can—if it is coming

UPS or Fed Ex, I can go online and go tracking and find out where

my package is. And these guys can’t even go on and find out where

their application is after 7 months, I don’t know. I don’t know that

I could handle that.

Mr. Moore, it seems to me that the Census Bureau has done a

good job.

Mr. MOORE. Thank you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And I guess my question to you

is, No. 1, I would like to know what made you all do it? I am hearing that the agencies aren’t doing it. What was your incentive to

do it? And what was it that you learned from the automated process?

Mr. MOORE. Well, I think the line managers complained about

the long period of time it took us to bring on professionals.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So the folks within your agency

complained that you weren’t bringing anybody in.

Mr. MOORE. Right. And between the Bureau and the Department, you had to speed it up because you take a census for reinforcement and redistricting once every 10 years, and when that

process rolls, you have to move fast. So it was great that they came

up with that automation system. Before they were doing that, we

were putting people in the accepted service once we identified a college grad or a person that we needed. But it was great for us, the

automation system.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You would highly recommend

it to all the agencies?

Mr. MOORE. Oh, I would, definitely.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And what is your turnaround

time now on hiring?

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Mr. MOORE. Well, it can take anywhere from—once I notify HR

that I need a person and they send me a cert, I can get a person

on in about a month or less than a month.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. That to me sounds reasonable.

I am not sure why we are having trouble doing that. And you have

no problem getting quality people?

Mr. MOORE. Our certs are open all the time. I mean we advertise

college graduates all the time, and so there is a whole list of college

graduates. And we are able to go into the system and look at all

the names in the system and what their experiences are. And we

are allowed to give weight to people that have worked in certain

areas. Survey statisticians that have a map background or has a

computer background, we put them on pretty fast.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It sounds like you are doing a

good job. Congratulations.

Mr. MOORE. Thank you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I want to thank all of you for

being here today, and I don’t want to take up any more of your

time, but we need to move on to the third panel. But it is a pleasure to have you here, and it is really good to hear your comments.

And I hope, Mr. Mihm, we can work together to do something. And

Ms. Marsh, I may pick your brain a little bit to do something to

fix the process that apparently seems to be broken.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, ma’am. Thank you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Ms. Sladek and my best to you.

Ms. SLADEK. Thank you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I would like to now invite our

third panel of witnesses to please come forward to the witness

table. Again, we have already sworn you in, so I will remind you

you are under oath. First, we will hear from Mr. Brent Pearson,

senior vice president and general manager for Monster Government Solutions. Then we will hear from Mr. Ed Flynn. Mr. Flynn

is the managing consultant of Federal Sector Programs for Hewitt

Associates. And last we will hear from Mr. Andres Garza, the director of career placement services at the University of Illinois,

Chicago campus.

Thank you all for your patience, and thank you for being with

us today. Are we missing someone? And as soon as he is ready, we

will recognize Mr. Brent Pearson. Take your time, Mr. Pearson,

you are doing all right.

Mr. PEARSON. Thank you very much.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you very much for being

here, and as with all the other panelists, we have your written

statement for the record, so if you could summarize your statement, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF BRENT PEARSON, VICE PRESIDENT, MONSTER GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS; ED FLYNN, MANAGING

CONSULTANT, FEDERAL SECTOR PROGRAMS, HEWITT ASSOCIATES LLC; AND ANDRES GARZA, DIRECTOR, CAREER

PLACEMENT SERVICES, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Mr. PEARSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I will cut to the

chase pretty quickly. Monster Government Solutions has been

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working with OPM over the past year to organize the USA Jobs

Web site, and we also provide the recruitment automation technology for 19 Federal agencies. And what I wanted to do is, first

of all, give you a quick update on some of the progress that was

made and then just share some of my observations about areas

where the process could still be improved.

The first chart you see on the left is the old USA Jobs site before

we modernized it. The one on the right is the new look and feel.

And what we have done in the two launches since August the 4th

is basically put a new face onto the site. We have introduced a lot

of the best practices from the private sector and really totally modernized the site.

A lot of people ask us how we are going and what still exists to

do. On the right, the customer satisfaction chart, it is actually a

third party audited measure of customer satisfaction. And what

you see on the left hand side there is the score of the old USA Jobs

site was scored a 71. When we launched you can see the score

plummet, which is quite typical of any major change, and it shows

how difficult change is for people to get their head around. Then

you see it rebound pretty quickly, it rebounded up to around about

a 72, 73, but probably the most important part of this graph is the

way the line just keep trending up at the end. And in fact where

we are at now is currently a 78. And to give you an idea of that

78, that is pretty much world class when it comes to career Web

sites. ETrade is around about, I think, a 72, 73. The best career

site—in fact, the best career site was just awarded to CIA site

about 2 weeks ago. It scored an 80. So the point that I want to

make follows a benchmark of a score. The USA Jobs site is actually

pretty close to world class.

The one final chart that I wanted to just—if someone could just

hold up that last board. Thanks. Our founder, Jeff Taylor, I think

presented about a year ago in front of this committee, and I think

during that presentation he unrolled a 17-page typical job posting

and really showed the committee the sorts of unwieldiness that a

job seeker has to go through. Well, what you are looking at there

is the new redesigned vacancy announcement format, which has

been implemented now for about 3 or 4 months. And what we have

done is we have taken that information and we have presented it

in a much more legible, readable manner for the job seekers so that

they can actually start navigating the site in a similar way as if

they were using any of the best of breed private sites.

So my point with all of that is I don’t believe that issues with

the Federal hiring process are anything to do with the Web site.

I don’t believe they are anything to do with technology either. I

think it sort of comes down to three things, in my observation. I

think the first is metrics. There is a distinct lack of metrics, so we

don’t even know how bad the Federal hiring process is. We don’t

know who is doing a good job and who is doing a bad job. There

is no way to measure it, and I come from definitely the school that

says you can’t manage it if you don’t measure it and hence the customer satisfaction gives us a very quantitative way of improving

the work that we are doing.

The second area I think is the attitude and the lack of accountability. The previous speaker with GAO mentioned how accountVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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able he was, and I think that the metrics and accountability make

it something that people should care about.

And then the last area where I think there is a real need in the

education. I think that government HR staff do not view recruitment as a strategic function. They view it as an administrative or

a processing function, and so they just try and get it done with the

least amount of work, and they don’t pay a lot of attention to it,

and they don’t use anywhere near the best practices. The world of

recruitment has changed a lot in the last few years, and I think

they still view recruiting as putting a vacancy up on USA Jobs and

then managing the paper or managing the applications, and that

is a long way from recruitment. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pearson follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Pearson.

Mr. Flynn, it is good to see you again, and we have your complete statement on the record, so if you would summarize, you are

recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. FLYNN. Chairwoman Davis, Mr. Davis, it is good to see all

of you again as well. I appear before you today as a representative

of Hewitt Associates, a global human resources delivery and consulting firm with over 15,000 associates in 38 countries. We work

with private companies day in and day out on their recruiting programs, and I am hoping I can share some of that work and some

of the challenges we have helped companies overcome today.

It might be helpful, though, to talk just for a moment about some

of the challenges that companies face in today’s recruitment environment. You have heard this morning already, and I needn’t repeat, the projections of pending retirement of baby boomers and the

aging of the American work force. Increasingly, we see a lack of

skilled workers in the United States. Over the next 10 years, to be

quite honest, we don’t have enough workers, and there will be particularly acute shortages in areas like technology and health care.

Employees today are more mobile than ever, including Federal

employees. That means that Federal employers and others will

have to recruit aggressively and create and maintain incentives to

retain their top performers.

And in the recruitment arena, as you have heard all too often

this morning, there are often unique and often conflicting needs of

different stakeholders in the process. Business leaders want a competitive work force, positions filled, people productive quickly. Job

seekers want efficient interviews, equitable selection processes, access to decisionmakers and timely feedback. If you don’t manage

those seemingly conflicting needs well, the recruitment program, to

be quite honest, will yield mediocrity, dissatisfaction, long hiring

cycles and ultimately will produce a negative impact on the overall

organization. And the challenges won’t go away, and new ones will

emerge.

Fortunately, there are successful strategies and tools to overcome

them, and, as I said earlier, we have worked with many organizations to help them do that. First, as you have heard from many

witnesses, a sustained effort, a sustained leadership commitment is

needed to really force the idea that people are the lifeblood of an

organization. A study just completed by Hewitt looked at the people practices of companies that consistently experience double-digit

growth. One key finding was that the leaders of these organizations constantly reinforce their importance of talent.

Second, leading organizations embrace a clearly articulated employment brand. Branding is a unique, clearly stated message from

the employer to the employee or prospective employee about the job

its doing as an organization. In a survey of companies using an employment brand, Hewitt found that over 90 percent reported an increase in employee retention and their satisfaction, and they were

better able to attract job candidates. Seventy percent of those companies experienced improved business results.

Leading organizations find ways to overcome those conflicting or

perceptions of conflicting needs that I spoke about a minute ago.

They take a methodical approach. They forecast hiring, they foreVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00130 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cast hiring needs based on where the organization is heading, and

they systematically roll those forecasts up to the corporate level. To

avoid being inundated with job seekers, they conduct targeted recruitment campaigns to find qualified candidates. As one example

of this technique, a large consumer product company in Atlanta recently formed an alliance with the United Negro College Fund to

sponsor summer internship programs and to serve as a source for

job candidates for that particular company.

Almost all of the Fortune 500 companies have a career section

on their Web site. With these Web sites, they build virtual relationships with prospective job seekers. Brent has talked with you about

some of the functionality of the USA Jobs Web site, and some of

that enables individuals to go in, identify the job characteristics

they are interested in and to get emails back when jobs they are

interested in go up and are posted.

Another thing that we have found is that all companies with double-digit growth have rigorous assessment processes. They use

valid tools to make sure that they get the best applicants. They

look beyond the job requirements when hiring people in considering

not only their current capabilities but future potential and cultural

fit. And, finally, leading employers power their recruitment processes with today’s technology. They provide instant information to

applicants and managers throughout the process. These systems

interface with third party providers to keep the process moving forward and, as importantly, they provide reporting capabilities, allowing measurement and tracking of the recruitment process.

In conclusion, successful companies use many techniques, but organizational leadership, branding, process redesign and technology

are key. They are key because people, as I said earlier, are the lifeblood of an organization, and how an organization recruits, whom

it recruits, the accountabilities in place and the process itself all

dramatically impact on results, whether those results are in the

private or the public sector.

Thank you, Ms. Davis, Mr. Davis. I would be happy to answer

any questions you may have for me.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Flynn follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Flynn. Mr.

Garza, thank you for being here today. You didn’t have to travel

quite as far, but we appreciate you coming and look forward to

hearing your testimony.

Mr. GARZA. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Congressman

Davis, for allowing me this time to testify. I have been asked to

testify about some of the obstacles that face recent graduates, particularly minority students, in obtaining employment from the Federal Government. While I speak today about the experience that

university students have encountered in process, I believe that

many of the issues can easily work to deter other potential job

seekers. Attracting the best and the brightest of all racial and ethnic groups to public service is an admirable goal that can only

strengthen the Federal Government and ultimately reinforce the

concept of democracy upon which this government was founded.

The initial goal of any prospective employer is to provide employment and career information that generates excitement within the

pool of job seekers. The Federal Government competes with other

public and private sector employers to get their story out. This is

a task made more difficult if one believes that shrinking the size

of government is an objective of the powers in Washington. The

message that government employees can be easily replaced by outside contractors or that the Federal bureaucracy is seen as an obstacle to progress does little to generate enthusiasm in pursuing a

career with the government.

Federal agencies use a number of programs that are notable as

stepping stones to hire students into full-time permanent employment. The Stay-in-School Program works with students as early as

high school to encourage them to complete their education and to

consider the Federal Government as an employer of choice. The

Student Temporary Employment Program places students and

graduates in temporary positions within the Federal Government—

it is the second program. The graduates can also use the Outstanding Scholar Program as a supplement to competitive examining for

some entry level positions, helping to streamline the hiring process.

Unfortunately, not enough students know about these programs

and take advantage of their benefits.

Federal agencies use a variety of strategies to recruit students on

college campuses, including participation in career fairs, hosting information sessions, providing printed recruitment materials and

some limited advertising in college papers. In addition, there are

special initiatives to enhance the recruiting activities at colleges,

such as participation in the Government College Relations Council,

the GCRC, here in Chicago that seeks to strengthen partnership

between government and higher education. The Diplomat on Campus Program places an ambassador on a university campus to meet

and recruit candidates for the U.S. Department of State. The Partnership for Public Service, it is called the Cert Program, which

works to publicize careers in the Federal Government, also helps

to publicize our positions on campus. The redesigned USA Jobs

Web site has also done much to reach the Internet generation. Notably absent is on-campus interviews, which is an effective tool

used by many employers to identify the best candidates for their

positions and organization.

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Despite attempts to simplify and streamline the Federal hiring

process, it remains the biggest obstacle in getting a potential candidate to a job with the Federal Government. I will list some of the

hurdles that face candidates in this long and rigorous process.

While this process has an adverse effect on most candidates, it

places a major obstacle in the path of minority candidates who may

not have access to the Internet 24–7, may not know persons able

to guide them through the process or may not be able to wait out

the lengthy process due to financial concerns.

The first problem that candidates face is the months that go by

from the initial application to the actual hiring by the agency.

While there may be perfectly understandable reasons for the delay

in hiring, it can place college applicants in a difficult financial situation that discourages some from even applying. There are few

things that make a graduate or the parents happier than to walk

away after graduation with a job in hand. Employers who are able

to make offers early in the process frequently grab the best and the

brightest and also generate an amount of excitement about the recruitment on campus.

Graduates waiting for a hiring decision are faced with living expenses, loans to pay off and a strong desire to get on with the next

chapter in their lives. Many find themselves forced to look for work

at this time but are handicapped in their search if they are honest

with their prospective employers about their long-term plans. They

struggle to get by while many of their friends who are already employed are beginning to reap the rewards of their education. The

contact between the agency and the applicant, which may be limited, often leaves the applicant with the sense that little or nothing

is happening. Parents or spouse may be supportive or add to the

pressures as the applicant sits and waits.

The actual vacancy announcement available on the USA Jobs

Internet site is an imposing and comprehensive listing that often

intimidates potential applicants. While gathering my thoughts for

this testimony, I visited the Web site and printed off a vacancy announcement for what appears to be an entry level position. I was

rewarded with 11 pages of instructions for a posting that is open

for only 1 week. They only have 1 week to apply and get through

this. The information is extremely thorough and can be of great use

for anyone who reads and follows directions carefully. Unfortunately, for most applicants, the vacancy announcement uses terminology not easily understood, requires that the resume be redone

to fit Federal guidelines, may require written pages in which the

applicant describes their knowledge, skills and abilities, their

KSAs, and in general causes anxiety and frustration. Moreover, one

misstep, such as missing documents and the application is not considered and the applicant is never notified about the results.

Some vacancies are open only to previous Federal Government

employees or veterans, which excludes the majority of college graduates. Others have very short periods of time in which to apply,

and the applicant either needs to have someone on the inside keeping them informed or needs to be in the right place at the right

time. The concept of continuous hiring for some vacancies discourages applicants who mistakenly believe that it is a waste of time

to apply because there are no jobs currently available.

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For those who work through the application process, and there

are many who do, they may find themselves placed on a certificate

list. This list ranks the candidates and is used to determine the

order of interviews by the hiring agency. Applicants may or may

not get a letter stating that they were placed on this list and usually aren’t aware they are placed on the list. The onus is on the

applicant to contact the Human Resource person in charge of the

hiring process for information about their status. The contacts,

phone numbers listed in the vacancy announcement. What follows

is an extensive and necessary background check and further delays

an already lengthy hiring process. Those candidates who are

cleared are then ready to start their jobs with the hiring agency.

Are they still willing or have they moved on and taking permanent

jobs with another employer?

In short, the process is long and cumbersome. To be honest with

you, while there are career service professionals who fully understand the process, there are many others who rarely use it, and are

not in a position to guide someone through it. Even if our level of

expertise about the process is better, not every student uses our office to the extent that we would like to see. Consequently, graduates are often not around to investigate and navigate the pitfalls

to the Federal hiring process.

There are many highly qualified motivated students who would

consider working for the Federal Government if there were more

of a recruitment presence on college campuses. While I understand

that government jobs should be open to everyone, I believe that college graduates have particular skills and abilities that make them

excellent candidates. Identifying college campuses with diverse student bodies and designing a recruitment plan which would help to

increase diversity in the Federal work force is a great idea. It

would be good for students and good for the Nation.

And if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Garza follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Garza, and

thank all three of you for your patience. We will move now to the

question and answer period, and now I will yield to Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, and I too want to

thank you for your patience. We always say that patience is a virtue, and of course there are other times when we say, ‘‘Everything

has already been said but I haven’t said it yet.’’ [Laughter.]

So we are a victim of our vote. Mr. Flynn, let me ask you, you

talked about sustained, effective executive leadership, meaning

that those at the top with serious decisionmaking opportunity and

responsibility, should be actively involved in the recruitment process. Do you have any time allocation? Say if a guy is the head of

an agency or the head of a department, head of a division, head

of a company, is there any amount of time that individual perhaps

ought to be spending dealing with human resources issues and recruitment, you know, personnel selection, that kind of thing?

Mr. FLYNN. Mr. Davis, I don’t know that there is any particular

benchmark or frame of reference specifically that one could point

to, but the two examples that you heard this morning from prior

witnesses suggest that for the head of an organization or a chief

executive, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 percent of

the time is involved in emphasizing the importance of talent within

an organization, be that through visiting college campuses, spending time on succession planning with your senior staff and similar

kinds of activities.

To point to just two other examples that while the don’t have a

timeframework to them, which suggests that these are really important strategic activities that deserve substantial blocks of time.

There is a quote by Alfred Sloan who headed General Motors some

years back who said, basically, ‘‘Give me my top 20 people, and I

will go somewhere else, and I will be as successful as I was in General Motors in 5 years.’’ And even more recently, Bill Gates said

something to the effect of, ‘‘Take my best 20 people away from me

and I will be a mediocre company the next day.’’

I think you see in those examples the kind of importance that

leadership has in this particular arena. So I would look to that and

say probably a day a week, on average, is not unusual and is indicative of the measure of importance that this issue holds for chief

executives.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you, very interesting. Mr. Pearson,

how does USA Jobs take into account unique needs of an agency?

I mean like, for example, the Census Bureau might need statisticians, individuals with a math background or computer background. How do you attempt to handle that?

Mr. PEARSON. Sure. USA Jobs is the one central government portal, and personally I believe this is part of a mistake that agencies

when they recruit using USA Jobs. While you may satisfy posting

requirements to put your vacancy up there, 55 percent of the traffic

that visits USA Jobs are government employees, so you’re attracting people from within the government. I don’t think that many

agencies do a good job of actually thinking like private sector companies and saying, ‘‘Where do I go to strategically source it up people that I want.’’ And if I was going to be hiring entry level mathematicians or statisticians, I would be looking at the specific propVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:40 May 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00158 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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erties on how to go out and advertise. And I don’t think they do

that. I think they put a vacancy up on USA Jobs and they think

that is it, and it is not.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Garza, I was very interested in the

job description that you had been able to obtain and the information contained in it. If we are to improve on—the Federal Government is to improve the way in which we recruit on college campuses to provide perhaps the most information and the most likelihood that recent college graduates are going to be able to want to

come in and come into the Federal service, what do we need to do?

Mr. GARZA. Well, I think that on-campus recruiting, coming in to

actually interview people on campus generates a lot of excitement

on campuses. Those employers who do and do it early in the fall

during the early part of the recruitment season generate a lot of

enthusiasm on campus. People do come to the job fairs, people do

participate—agencies participate in many of the activities, but that

is one that they never participate in, and there may be very good,

logical reasons why they can’t, but it is something that is missing,

it is something that is really missing from their recruitment strategies.

I think feedback is important. I think one of the prior witnesses

talked about not getting any feedback, and nothing can be more

discouraging than to apply for a job and never hear anything. I admire her persistence in applying to other agency jobs when she has

never gotten a response from a number of agencies that she applied

for, but a lot of college students aren’t going to do that. They are

not going to follow through with agency after agency if they never

get a response in a friendly way or at all.

I think they need to work a little bit more closely with colleges.

There are national organizations, mid-west organizations. We have

the National Association of Colleges and Employers, and we have

regional organizations, the Mid-West Association of Colleges and

Employers. We have people from Hewitt and other places that are

members of these organizations. They are constantly talking to use

the career services people from across the country or in a region

about processes, about opportunities. Those things need to be reinforced, I think.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Are there any things that colleges and

universities can do, on the other side, that would perhaps better

assist students to know what is available within the Federal Government as well as the process that must be used to prepare themselves to try and enter government services?

Mr. GARZA. Well, I think we need to know the process better as

well. When I got the call to testify, I sent out an email to about

40 or 50 career services directors and other people that I work with

in the region, asking if anybody else would like to testify or give

me some feedback, their experience with the process. I think I got

four or five emails back, and most of it was information about the

length of the process, stuff that I already knew. But I don’t think

despite some of the efforts, both agencies and the college side, that

there are necessarily a lot of experts in this area.

I know that I co-chair a conference that we are having here in

August, the Mid-West Association of Colleges and Employers, and

one of the workshops that is being presented is on Federal hiring.

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So people are trying to get out the word and try to make people

realize how to navigate through the process so that we can work

better with the college students, but we need to become better experts at this as well.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, gentlemen, thank you so very

much, and I really do appreciate your patience and endurance and

the fact that you have been here with us throughout the entire

morning to provide this information and interact with us. Thank

you.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Again,

I thank you for your patience, because it has been a rather long

morning so far.

We heard in the last hearing and in this hearing that the agency

heads have to be a part and take up a strong leadership role in

this, but, as we all know, many of the agency heads serve at the

discretion of the President. So, therefore, many of them are not

permanent. They may only serve 4 years, typically, maybe 8 years.

Do you think that would affect their desire, willingness, ability,

what have you to become engaged in taking a leadership role and

going out and letting their agency know how important the hiring

process is, the recruitment is? And can we do about it if that is the

case? And that is for any of you or all of you.

Mr. PEARSON. Personally, I don’t think the 4-year tenure is going

to impede making progress in that area. I think that a lot of the

changes can be made very effectively. We work with a lot of different agencies, and we are working with someone that is pretty

passionate at the top and believes in the importance of this, they

can impact and effect change very, very quickly. And quite often

they like doing that because they can make their mark quickly. So

I don’t think the 4-year tenure is really a barrier.

Mr. FLYNN. I think I would like to just very quickly echo what

Brent is saying. We have heard also this morning some examples

of current administration appointees, Administrator Sean O’Keefe

with NASA being one, and there are others as well. I know from

firsthand experience that Kay Coles James is a pretty strong proponent of the importance of recruiting and its place in an organization. So I think that different agency leaders, different heads of

cabinet department and agencies will come to this with differences

that are borne of their own personality and perspective, but the

passion can be there.

I think also, Madam Chairwoman, that this is something that

the top senior career leadership within an organization has to embrace. These are people who stay from one administration to another, who often have a breadth of exposure and experience within

the agency that enables them to get things done perhaps more

quickly than others, and I think this is a responsibility that senior

career leadership should embrace as well. I don’t think there is

enough of that. I think there can be more, and we ought to find

ways to make that happen.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. Mr. Garza, do you

have any comments on that?

Mr. GARZA. Well, I am not sure but I would think that whether

it is 4 years or 50 years that you work in an agency, you still want

to move forward with things that are important to you, and the

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people that work with you, as Mr. Flynn said, are very important.

Success requires an infusion of enthusiasm, new people, new ideas,

and it has to be a priority for everybody and certainly someone at

the top.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I agree with you, Mr. Flynn, it

needs to be the career executives that really get in there and the

question is whether they can convince the department heads that

are just there for 4 years that is a priority as opposed to whatever

maybe that department head came in with their idea of what is the

most important.

Mr. Flynn, let me ask you again, there is some concern about

shortening the hiring process and keeping it fair. How do you think

the Federal Government—and any of you can answer this as well—

but how do you think the Federal Government can do it in a shorter period of time but keep it a fair process? A tough question?

Mr. FLYNN. No, it is a very insightful question. What makes the

process fair? The process is made fair because it is open, because

we provide opportunities for qualified people to apply, because

there is an assessment process that is objective and valid, and none

of those elements of fairness need be compromised by a focus on

swiftness or speed. To be quite honest with you, Madam Chairwoman, I am not aware of any private sector company on the face

of the United States who would characterize its selection process

as unfair at the expense of speed, and yet we see private sector

companies, particularly those who are leading edge companies who

are growing their businesses, are able to recruit successfully but

also to recruit swiftly. So I don’t think there is this tension that

you have to give up something on one end to gain on the other. I

actually think you can accommodate both quite nicely, particularly

today with all of what we have learned in process redesign and

what we can gain through the application of technology.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I happen to agree with you. I

just wonder if any of the departments or agencies are concerned

about lawsuits because we live in a day of lawsuits? Are they concerned about—I mean I am just trying to figure out why the agency

heads don’t use what we have given them.

Mr. FLYNN. Yes.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It is frustrating to me. Are they

worried about lawsuits? Is that why they are reluctant?

Mr. PEARSON. As I mentioned, we provide the automation tools

that power over 90 agency systems, and what they do is they force

the implementation of the merit-based hiring principles. Now, we

see some agencies and from the time the vacancy closes they can

generate a cert in under 2 days and the whole process has been audited by OPM many times, so we know that if they set things up

correctly, it is really defensible and they can work quickly. And it

is fair. It is fair. I think, again, it is just how important is it in

the minds of the people responsible for recruitment? How important is it to grow quickly?

Mr. FLYNN. And just to emphasize what Brent said earlier, it is

really important what you measure and how you measure it. I actually think that there is less concern about exposure to lawsuits

and litigation than there perhaps is not enough concern over what

the process actually looks like today and what the aspirational

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goals of that process are to look like going forward. I think it is

probably there more than—certainly more so than a fear of litigation that we could make some good progress.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Davis, do you have any

questions?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I have no further questions, Madam

Chairwoman, other than to want to again thank all of the staff persons who worked with us and helped to make this hearing possible

and to thank you and the witnesses, especially, do I want to thank

my professional staff person, Tania Shand and Dan Cantrell, Kaleb

Gilchrest, for the work that they have done, and I want to thank

our sound person, Maurice King, for making sure that we had audible opportunity.

We generally try to hold hearings away from downtown in the

Federal buildings because it makes it much easier for people to

come if they don’t have to fight the downtown traffic. Some other

people don’t have to pay parking fees, so we have come out in the

neighborhood as much as possible. So I want to thank all of them

for working cooperatively to help make that possible.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Danny, and I will

say my staff just said, ‘‘You never thank us.’’ [Laughter.]

So thanks for putting me on the spot, Danny. We do have a great

staff, and they do work well together, and they make all this possible, quite frankly. And if it were left up to Mr. Davis and I, we

would probably still be sitting here trying to figure out how to use

the microphones.

I just have one more question for Mr. Garza. This will put you

on the spot, but it is because I want to know how the career placement directors. Are you reluctant to push students to apply in the

Federal Government because of the way the process is?

Mr. GARZA. Well, college students really are looking for instant

gratification, many of them. They want a job today, and if you tell

them that this process can take anywhere from 2 to 7 or 8 months,

they are real reluctant to get involved in this process. They say,

‘‘No, no, no. Tell me about something that is open today, I can

apply for it today, I can hear from an employer in maybe a week,

2 weeks, get some feedback and know whether I have a possibility

of getting a job or I move on to something else.’’

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So if we got it down to a 30-

day process?

Mr. GARZA. I think that would make it a lot more realistic to sell

that to college students.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I didn’t mean to put you on the

spot there, but I don’t know till I ask.

Mr. GARZA. I think it is a great question, and I do think the time

is an issue. It really is an issue for college students.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Would you say that is the biggest issue?

Mr. GARZA. The complexity of some of this is probably the second

biggest issue. They look at this and say——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And that complexity is done by

each individual agency?

Mr. GARZA. Yes.

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Mr. PEARSON. You know what is interesting, when we redesigned

the vacancy announcement format, we created a brand tool with

new simple language, but what has happened is a lot of the administration folks that post this up want to keep cutting and pasting

their old vacancy announcements. They want to find the easiest

route up rather than rethinking the language and making it user

friendly. So OPM has provided the tools to create a much more

user friendly, and in fact there are some good examples, but still

a lot of agencies are just rehashing their old vacancy announcements rather than reinventing them.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So we have to change the culture of the agencies.

Mr. PEARSON. Absolutely.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Called reinvent the wheel.

Think we can do that?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I think we can do almost anything.

[Laughter.]

When you get the Davis’ working together——

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, because we have been

working together, but more than that, Danny, we have the greatest

staff on the—[laughter]—thank you, gentlemen, for being here

today, and, again, thanks for your patience and input. And if you

have any suggestions, we would sure love to hear them and if you

have anything else you want to put into the record. We may have

some other questions for you that we would ask you to submit answers for the record.

Thank you for being here, and with that, this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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THE FEDERAL HIRING PROCESS II: SHORTENING THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD 

JULY 13, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND AGENCY

ORGANIZATION,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jo Ann Davis (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, Blackburn,

Davis of Illinois, and Norton.

Staff present: Ronald Martinson, staff director; Chad Bungard,

senior counsel; John Landers, OPM detailee; Christopher Barkley,

and James Boland, professional staff members; Detgen Bannigan,

clerk; Tania Shand, minority professional staff member; and Teresa

Coufal, minority assistant clerk.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. The Subcommittee on Civil

Service and Agency Organization will come to order.

I would like to welcome everyone and thank you for being here

today.

Last month, the subcommittee held a field hearing in Chicago

entitled, The Federal Hiring Process, the Long and Winding Road,

to try and get to the bottom of why, as OPM estimated, it takes

an average of 5 months or 102 business days to fill a vacancy

through the competitive process. OPM appears to be working hard

on improving and expediting the hiring process and making it one

of its key initiatives.

Although I appreciate OPM’s dedication to this area, the hearing

revealed much more has to be done to improve and streamline the

hiring process. Hiring top talent in a timely and effective manner

should not be a difficult process, and I want to see results. The

Federal Government cannot keep missing out on the best and

brightest applicants merely because of cumbersome job announcements and a lengthy hiring process.

I called this followup hearing to see how we can move forward

in improving that hiring process.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Several important issues were

raised during the June 7 hearing. First, GAO reported that agencies are making limited use of the two new hiring flexibilities contained in the 2002 Homeland Security Act, category rating and direct-hire authority. This was disturbing to me in light of the fact

that many Agency officials from across the Federal Government

sought these flexibilities.

Some of the reasons for the lack of use of these flexibilities include the lack of agency policies and procedures, lack of OPM guidance, rigid OPM rules and regulations, lack of OPM technical assistance and concern about possible inconsistencies in the implementation of the flexibilities within the department or agency.

OPM and the agencies must work through these obstacles.

I am pleased to hear that, since our last hearing, OPM has provided further guidance to agencies in using these two new flexibilities through the issuance of final regulations, which apparently

provide clarification, and, just 2 weeks ago, conducted a training

symposium for Federal agencies to improve and expedite the hiring

process. Agencies must also do their part and be committed to improving the hiring process at their particular agency.

A second problem highlighted at the hearing was the content of

job vacancy announcements, which can often obstruct and delay the

hiring process. Krystal Kemp, a stellar law student and frustrated

applicant for Federal employment, testified at the hearing that,

‘‘The language of many job announcements was incomprehensible,’’

and, ‘‘use special Government code talk and seemed to be written

for people already initiated into the fraternity of Government jobs.’’

OPM agencies seem to be making strides in improving the content of job vacancy announcements, but more work needs to be

done to be sure that the Federal Government does not lose top talent like Krystal Kemp simply because the postings are too cumbersome.

Another significant issue raised during the last hearing was the

apparent lack of any mechanism to keep agencies’ hiring methods

accountable. It seems there is nothing in place to measure which

agencies are doing a good job and which agencies are doing a poor

job, including details of individual agencies’ time to hire and use

of hiring flexibility. As deputy director Blair, pointed out, ‘‘If you

don’t measure, then it won’t get done.’’ Agencies’ hiring methods

should be measured to assist Congress and OPM in improving the

hiring process.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses what steps are in

place to make this happen.

I am also delighted to have Dr. David Chu here this morning as

both Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness at the Department of Defense and as chairman of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council Subcommittee on Hiring. In addition to hearing about

the challenges the Department faces in hiring talented employees,

I look forward to hearing his vision for the Hiring Subcommittee

and what actions the subcommittee is undertaking to improving recruiting and streamlining the hiring process.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. And I thank you

all for being here. And I look forward to the discussion of how the

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Federal Government can keep pace with the private sector and stop

losing out on talented employees ready to serve their country.

I would like to recognize our Ranking Member Danny Davis for

an opening statement.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Chairman Davis.

As you know, in June, we held a Federal hiring process hearing

in my district in Chicago, and I want to thank you and all of those

who came to testify.

Based upon the testimony from the hearing, I am convinced of

two things: First, the Office of Personnel Management and the Federal agencies need to do more to improve their hiring processes.

Second, Federal agencies do not need new hiring flexibilities. The

Homeland Security Act of 2002 contained new Government-wide

hiring flexibilities that would help agencies to expedite and control

their hiring processes. The act permitted category ranking, which

is an alternative ranking and selection procedure that can expand

the pool of qualified job applicants for agency managers. Agencies

also were given direct-hiring authority, which allows agencies to

appoint individuals to positions without adhering to certain hiring

requirements. And finally, the act established a chief human capital officer in each of the 24 Federal agencies to advise and assist

the head of each agency with human capital management efforts.

Federal agencies are not taking advantage of these much requested flexibilities, and it appears they have not been taking advantage of long existing personnel flexibilities as well. The Government Accountability Office has released two reports that document

the importance of succession planning and the need to incorporate

diversity as a management initiative in the senior executive service. Federal agencies must ensure that they are hiring a diverse

pool of candidates for Federal jobs, particularly at the senior management levels.

Federal Government is at an important crossroads. We have an

opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the Federal hiring processes and the diversity of the work force, particularly at the senior

levels of Government. We can and should do better, and I am certain that we will.

I look forward to the testimony of today’s witnesses, and thank

you very much for calling this hearing.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative

days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing

record and that any answers to written questions provided by the

witnesses also be included in the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and other

materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be included in the hearing record and that all Members be permitted to

revise and extend their remarks.

And without objection, it is so ordered.

First, we are going to hear from the Honorable Dan Blair, Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Second,

we will hear from the Honorable Dr. David Chu, Under Secretary

for Personnel and Readiness at the Department of Defense. Third,

we will hear from Ed Sontag, Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management and is Chief Human Capital Officer at the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Then, we will

hear from Ms. Claudia Cross. Ms. Cross is Chief Human Capital

Officer and Director of the Office of Human Resources Management

at the U.S. Department of Energy. And finally, we will hear testimony from Christopher Mihm. Mr. Mihm is the Director of Strategic Issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I thought

that name has changed?

Mr. MIHM. Yes, ma’am. And thank you very much.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. If the witnesses could please

stand, including those who may also be assisting in answering

questions, I will administer the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let the record reflect that the

witnesses have answered in the affirmative.

And you may be seated.

We will begin first with Mr. Blair.

Mr. Blair, thank you again for agreeing to appear before our

hearing. And we have all the full written statements in the record,

so if each of you will summarize your statements in 5 minutes.

Mr. Blair, you’re recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF DAN BLAIR, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. OFFICE

OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT; DAVID CHU, UNDERSECRETARY FOR PERSONNEL AND READINESS, U.S. DEPARTMENT

OF DEFENSE; ED SONTAG, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT, CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL

OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES; CLAUDIA CROSS, CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; AND J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM,

DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

Mr. BLAIR. Madam Chair, I am glad to be back here, and glad

to be back in familiar surroundings.

OPM has provided consistent leadership and guidance on the

critical issue of Federal hiring. We have and will continue to take

steps to assist agencies in improving their hiring practices.

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I detailed to you last month in my testimony a number of initiatives which OPM has undertaken to issue guidance and provide increased flexibility to agencies. Since that time, OPM has pursued

other opportunities to provide hiring or recruitment information as

well as guidance to agencies. For example, on July 1, we hosted a

briefing on the results of two surveys relating to recent recruitment

fairs. Our job fairs attracted a highly educated and motivated applicant pool who wanted to engage in public service. From our surveys of these applicants, we found an interest in Federal jobs was

high, that Federal jobs have appeal, and that appeal has increased

over the last few years.

This past June, OPM twice hosted events targeted for agency

chief human capital officers and human resources professionals.

The hiring symposium offered agency HR staff to gain up-to-date

information on efforts to improve the Federal hiring process. That

event was so successful, with over 230 in attendance, that OPM is

making plans to visit the 26 Federal executive board cities and conduct the same presentation. So we are taking it on the road.

We also hosted a CHCO Academy for OPM to offer hiring authorities and flexibilities applicable to veterans, students and recent college graduates. On June 15, OPM hosted a best practices

showcase featuring NASA’s strategic human capital initiatives as

a way of exposing other agency personnel to successful HR practices. Over 200 agency HR professionals attended as well.

But we know the work is far from done. That’s why we have

tasked our staff at OPM to identify and develop the next steps that

we need to take to continue our own leadership role. Based on this

analysis, we’ve initiated a sequence of actions to make key materials for training HR professionals available to our website.

We will be building on our work with the Department of Housing

and Urban Development by extending our efforts at reengineering

agency-specific hiring practices and other departments and agencies. We will continue our training efforts by conducting additional

hiring flexibility symposiums, utilizing these Federal executive

boards as a conduit for bringing and training this mission to the

field. We also plan to host another symposium in D.C. in early August.

In the long term, OPM is looking to develop competency models

and manage what is called a community of practice. OPM could

then share with agencies the general nature of the competencies

developed and utilize this information. We also want to explore

automating the Administrative Careers With America assessment

tool in order to speed the examination process. And finally, we plan

to continue updating and disseminating information regarding hiring flexibility through OPM’s human capital officers.

The subcommittee’s letter of invitation specifically asked about

direct-hire authority. GAO characterized our lack of flexibility and

rules and regulations as impediments to agency utilization. In this

area, we are following congressional intent. For example, directhire authority permits agencies to hire qualified employees without

putting them through a formal rating and ranking process. It is

limited to occupations for which there is a severe shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need. We believe Congress intended this

authority to be used in limited circumstances since regular merit

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procedures, including the applications of veterans’ preference, are

bypassed.

To date, this year, we granted agency-specific direct-hire authority to six agencies and are currently reviewing one additional request. Just last week, we granted direct-hire authority to the Department of Defense for auditing positions in their Office of Inspector General. These authorities are in addition to the Governmentwide authority for three positions granted last year. We have denied only one request, and that was a partial denial of some positions. Other positions within the request were approved. A full list

of this is included in my written statement.

Let me address one final issue. The subcommittee’s letter of invitation characterized concerns about Federal hiring as a blame

game. We don’t see it that way. Agencies and OPM each have specific roles within the Federal hiring process. In fact, that is what

we were asked to comment on by GAO. We answered by differentiating the specific responsibilities of OPM and the specific responsibilities of the agencies. There is plenty of work to go around, and

we understand the different responsibilities before the Federal hiring process will be fixed.

You can be assured that OPM is committed to working cooperatively both with the agencies and the subcommittee in Congress if

we are going to bring to the Federal Government the best and

brightest. I am happy to answer your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blair follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Blair.

Dr. Chu.

Mr. CHU. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for the

opportunity to be here.

Mr. Davis, it is a pleasure to appear before you.

Let me submit my written statement and speak to the two subjects of interest to you: First, the Chief Human Capital Officers

Council and the work of the subcommittee for which I am responsible specifically; and second, the use of flexible authorities within

the Department of Defense that the Congress has been generous in

granting the executive branch.

First, to the Chief Human Capital Officers Council: As you appreciate, it is an advisory body. It does not have authority in and

of itself, but it is an excellent forum in which the agencies can

come together and exchange views on common issues before us and

at least the best practices we might employ in resolving those

issues if not a common solution to the challenges we face.

I was delighted that Ms. James asked me to lead the Subcommittee on the Federal Hiring Process. Indeed, I was gratified that the

council as a whole endorsed our view that the hiring is more than

just process. It includes, importantly, the issue of attracting, as one

might say, the best and the brightest to the Federal Government,

the whole question of recruiting: How do we get young Americans

excited about Federal careers, and especially, how do we replace

the current generation of civil servants, many of whom will retire

in the next decade? I will return to that in a second.

To respond to the issue you raised in your opening statement,

Madam Chairwoman, the subcommittee has met several times

since its inception. We have sent our first report to the full council,

and I expect a second report very shortly.

Second, to the issue of the use of flexibilities with the Department of Defense, as Mr. Blair indicated, we are one of those who

have sought additional direct-hire authority from OPM, and OPM

has been gracious in granting that authority. We have two specific

authorities, both the auditor authority that he mentioned a moment ago and authority relating to Iraq. And we are very much

gratified at the payoff to that authority in terms of our current operations.

We will be putting in place our approach to categorical ranking

now that OPM, as you noted, Madam Chairwoman, published the

final regulations affecting this area. The Department does have a

broader set of flexibilities, National Security Personnel System,

that you helped to shepherd to passage last year, and that will be

unfolding in the next several years. But we intend to use the Government-wide authority as promptly as we can now that the final

regulations have been published.

I do want to say, in response to your challenge, that what is

measured is what gets done, that we are proud that we believe we

are already meeting the OPM standard for the portion of the Federal hiring process that is easily measured, and that is from close

of vacancy announcement to extension of tentative offer. The OPM

guideline is 45 days. The Department of Defense believes it is approximately 35 days for that segment of process.

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And finally, in response to, I think, your correct challenge,

Madam Chairwoman, regarding the nature of our job vacancy announcements, I think this is an area where the Federal Government has needed improvement. I am proud of the efforts by the Department of Defense. I looked yesterday at what is called the Hot

Jobs Section of our Web page where we post the positions of greatest interest in terms of our needs, one of which, of course, is auditors, as Mr. Blair has indicated. And I would like to quote—and I

will submit for the record the entire statement—just a few sentences from the way the Inspector General has now started to advertise these posts, which I think is up there with the best privatesector practices. Under the heading, it says, ‘‘Office of Inspector

General, Auditor. Do you see yourself making a real difference in

your career? Are you interested in performing professional financial

audits and helping to build sound, financial systems? Then the Defense Financial Auditing Service is for you.’’ And it goes on to say,

‘‘If you are an experienced professional auditor looking for exciting,

rewarding work in the field of financial or information technology

auditing and want to build a resume of professional experience and

education, come join the Defense Financial Auditing Service.’’ This

is, I think, the kind of positive view, not the numbing words in

which we have written these statements in the past. And I want

congratulate our IG for having risen to the challenge just within

a week or so of getting the direct-hire authority from OPM. Thank

you madam.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chu follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Dr. Chu.

Mr. Sontag, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. SONTAG. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman and members

of the subcommittee.

On behalf of Secretary Tommy Thompson, I appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning and talk about our Department’s efforts to improve the Federal hiring process and specifically our use

of recently granted hiring flexibilities. HHS is the principal agency

that protects the health of all Americans and provides essential

human services, especially for those who are the least able to help

themselves.

The ability to fulfill our ambitious mission depends on the quality of our work force. An agency is only as strong as its people, and

to be successful, we must be world-class as we break new ground

in science and technology, increase food and drug safety and control and prevent disease. We need the best and brightest, and this

means not only the scientists and researchers who form the core

of our work force but highly competent professionals who can support our technical programs and address our financial, human capital acquisition and business management challenges.

Let me begin by talking about one of our most successful hiring

initiatives, the Emerging Leaders Program, which is a 2-year program for recent college graduates that leads to permanent employment. We have been surprised at times and nearly overwhelmed

with the quality, the abundance of candidates with graduate degrees who are eager to come and work for their Government, who

are given a chance to succeed beyond all of our expectations. This

program is, as I said, is one of our most successful recruitment initiatives, and it is the centerpiece of Secretary Tommy Thompson’s

One Department vision of human capital management.

The program has generated incredible numbers of highly talented young people competing for the opportunity to come work for

their Government. Now in its third year, the program has attracted

an unprecedented number of applicants. On July 26, we will bring

on board 93 more Emerging Leaders, bringing our 3-year total to

250 recent college graduates. Managers and supervisors throughout

the Department are continually amazed that employees right out

of school are able to come in and make such an immediate impact.

This is a true testament to the strength of the applicants. As you

can see, we are very, very proud of this program.

The next story I would like to cover is streamlining of HHS hiring process. This past January, the Department completely restructured its human capital resource function by consolidating over 40

separate human capital offices into four human resource centers.

At the same time, we implemented a series of automation initiatives to help us standardize business practices and facilitate performance management. These automation initiatives have already

helped us by making it possible to forward lists of qualified candidates to selection managers within 5 days after a vacancy announcement has occurred.

As you know, OPM recently announced the creation of a 45-day

hiring model for the Federal community that focuses on the time

between the closing of the vacancy announcement and the making

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league at Defense Department did, we are within a 35-day window

on average for general grade employees.

I am also pleased to report that HHS is using the direct-hiring

authority throughout the Department to recruit medical officers,

nurses and pharmacists. We are using it to fill positions at the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as they implement the

Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act.

Although HHS has yet implemented the category rating flexibility, we have written internal guidelines for its use and are now

partnering with several other agencies to automate the category

rating process. It will likely take another 6 months to get there,

but we will get there, and we are appreciative of that flexibility.

The last area I would like to discuss is specific HHS hiring

needs. One of our primary challenges is the seeming inability to

hire employees at the entry grade professional level. This is the

GS–5 and GS–7 level. The process in place right now prevents most

young people who have just completed their undergraduate degree

from making the selection list because the assessment tool used is

heavily experience driven.

The current assessment process makes it nearly impossible for

recent college graduates to be rated or ranked higher than the current Federal employees and those who have been in the work force

for some time. We must have a vehicle that allows us not only to

reach those outstanding scholars but all individuals who are qualified to work in the Government, particularly the recent college

graduates.

Once again, I have been grateful for the opportunity to be here

this morning and would be happy to respond to any questions you

may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sontag follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you very much, Mr.

Sontag. Good to hear that you and Dr. Chu are working on bringing the timeline down.

Ms. Cross, it is good to have you here today, and you are now

recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. CROSS. Thank you and good morning, Madam Chairwoman

and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity,

allowing me to testify this morning.

I wish to speak to you today on the Department of Energy’s need

for improvement in the Federal hiring process. DOE’s use of newly

granted hiring flexibilities, specifically category rating and directhire authority and our efforts to streamline the hiring process to

make the Federal Government, especially DOE, the employer of

choice.

We understand and appreciate Congress’s interest in streamlining the hiring process. We, too, want the best and brightest, and

we always seem to need them quickly. There are two points we

would like to emphasize regarding improvements in the hiring

process. The first point is DOE would like to express its gratitude

for the interest, concern and zeal of the Office of Personnel Management in its exploring various flexibilities that will assist us and

other agencies in the search for good talent. OPM’s help has been

discerning and responsive. OPM has a tough job. It has to meet the

needs of many disparate agencies with processes and initiatives

that are flexible and yet protect the merit principles.

Our second point is that, while DOE may not be in the market

currently for all of the flexibilities established by OPM, we recognize the potential for future benefit to us and that the various flexibilities present. The fact that these flexibilities are present and

available will save us time and effort when our need arises.

Currently, we use a number of flexibilities to streamline our hiring process. Recently, DOE did use the Government-wide directhire authority for information technology specialists to place IT employees within a total of 2 weeks, which is remarkable in and of

itself. Other similar authorities that we routinely use include the

career intern hiring authority, which is an excellent tool for our use

on college campuses, and the President’s management fellows authority, another excellent tool for acquiring employees with academic backgrounds but little Federal expertise. Finally, DOE, along

with the National Nuclear Security Administration, makes extensive use of our agency-specific accepted-service appointment authorities for our scientific and technical employment needs.

As to the two hiring flexibilities referenced in your letter, DOE

has yet had an occasion to avail itself of OPM’s process for requesting an agency-specific direct-hire authority, but we are in the process of developing our case right now. We are exploring that option

for acquisition specialists, which are difficult to recruit in the

Washington, DC area, for engineers and scientists with nuclear

backgrounds, which are needed by the Office of Nuclear Energy,

Science and Technology within DOE, and specialists in nuclear engineering, nuclear safety and safeguards and security, which the

NNSA is finding to be in short supply throughout the country.

We are anticipating to have great success with OPM in achieving

and receiving some of those authorities. We have found, initially at

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least, that a category rating flexibility is less amenable to our current skill needs, which are concentrated in the scientific and technical series and for which there are rarely large number of applicants. Category ranking, which is most efficient when a substantial

number of applicants apply, may take time to be fully understood

and utilized in our agency, but we’re working along those lines.

We have been fully cooperating with OPM in our effort to shorten the time that it takes to hire employees. We are working with

our human resources directors, both in headquarters and in the

field, to measure the time that elapses. And our current average

is between 31 and 45 days, we are pleased to report. Although the

final statistics have yet to be compiled on all of our various appointment types, our preliminary indication is that, most of the

time, it is not spent in the ranking and rating process but in the

interview process. The amount of time it takes to arrange interviews and reference checks alone can be daunting.

I would like to offer three observations on DOE’s and OPM’s efforts to streamline the hiring process. First, we are grateful that

OPM is listening to us and to our needs. OPM’s initiatives to speed

hiring, to provide good quality candidates to improve the Government’s human capital performance management system and to ensure managerial accountability can send a message to us and to

our perspective employees that we want to be the employer of

choice, and that is powerful.

Second, DOE is one of many kinds of Federal agencies. No two

are alike. We cannot expect every initiative to meet our needs nor

can OPM expect us to adopt every initiative.

Third, in pursuit of our four-prong national security mission,

DOE will not sacrifice quality for speed. We want the best, even

if it takes just a little bit more time.

Thank you, again, for allowing me the opportunity today to testify, and I will be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cross follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you Ms. Cross.

Mr. Mihm, it’s always good to have you before the committee,

and you’re recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. MIHM. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Mr. Davis. It’s

always an honor to appear before you. And I very much appreciate

this opportunity to continue the important discussion that has been

going on about efforts to improve Federal hiring.

As the Chairwoman and Mr. Davis noted in their opening statements, Congress, OPM and the agencies have all undertaken efforts to improve the Federal hiring process. Still, agencies report

they are making limited use, as you have heard earlier today, of

category ranking—some more use, recently, of direct-hire authority—the two new hiring authorities that Congress created in November 2002.

In our April 2004 survey of the chief human capital officers in

each of the agencies, 21 of the 22 respondents cited at least one

barrier to the use of these flexibilities. The barriers frequently cited

by the chief human capital officers included: First, at that point,

a lack of OPM guidance; second, a lack of the agency’s own policies

and procedures—this is the point that Mr. Sontag was making in

regards to the progress they want to make over the next 6 months

on HHS’s future use of categorical ranking; third, the lack of flexibility in OPM rules and regulations; and finally, concern about possible inconsistencies in the implementation of the flexibilities within their own agency. So some of it was OPM directed, and some of

it was directed within their own agencies.

As you noted, Madam Chairwoman, and our survey results confirm, there is plenty of work for all of us to do on this. First, in

regards to the agencies, in our survey responses, the chief human

capital officers know that they need to step up and put in place the

internal capabilities to use flexibilities. To help in this regard, we

issued a comprehensive report in December 2002 on the effective

use of human capital flexibilities in the Federal Government, including flexibilities related to hiring. We reported that agencies are

often not maximizing the use of these authorities available to them,

and we identified key practices that they can implement to effectively use such authorities.

These practices are shown on page 11 of my prepared statement,

but they centered on six broad areas: First, planning strategically

and making targeted investments; second, ensuring stakeholder

and including employee input in developing policies and procedures; third, educating managers and employees on the availability

and use of these flexibilities to ensure they are merit-based; fourth,

streamlining and improving the administrative processes; fifth,

building transparency and accountability into the system; and six,

finally, changing the organization’s culture.

Now, second, in regards to OPM and agencies working together,

at the subcommittee’s hearing on hiring in June, Deputy Director

Blair identified a wide range of efforts that OPM has undertaken

to assist agencies. Since that hearing, as Mr. Blair discussed this

morning, OPM has taken further action to assist agencies in taking

full advantage of the flexibilities.

In the report we issued in May and underscored at the subcommittee’s hearing in Chicago last month, we discussed OPM’s

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role in helping agencies use these flexibilities and recommended

that OPM work with and through the new Chief Human Capital

Officers Council to more thoroughly research, compile and analyze

information on the effective and innovative use of flexibilities. We

noted that sharing information about when and where and how the

broad range of personnel authorities are being used and should be

used could help agencies meet their pressing human capital challenges.

As we recently testified, OPM and agencies need to continue to

work together to improve the hiring process. There is joint responsibility here and ample opportunities for shared learning. And the

Chief Human Capital Officers Council should be a key vehicle for

this needed collaboration. We are all fortunate that Dr. Chu chairs

the CHCO subcommittee on improving hiring, and I was especially

glad to hear that the report that was in draft at your May hearing

has now been out, and I look forward to getting that and reading

that.

In conclusion, the Federal Government is now facing one of its

most transformational changes into the civil service in probably

over half a century. Federal agencies need effective hiring processes to compete for talented people in a highly competitive job

market. Given that the executive branch hired nearly 95,000 new

employees in fiscal year 2003 and may continue significant hiring

over the coming years, improving the Federal Government’s process

is absolutely critical. We must build on the progress that has already been made, and cooperative relationships between the agencies and OPM using the Chief Human Capital Officers Council as

a vehicle is, in our view, really is the way to go. I would be happy

to answer any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mihm follows:]

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you very much.

And thank all of you for being patient with us today and giving

us all great opening statements.

We will now move to our question-and-answer segment, and I

will begin with our ranking member, Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.

Mr. Mihm, in your statement, you mentioned things like working

cooperatively together, putting more emphasis on your own—and

creating, I guess, the atmosphere where OPM works with specific

agencies to improve output. Are there any examples of what OPM

perhaps could do that would be more directive in terms of what

might assist agencies to move along?

Mr. MIHM. There are a couple of areas, Mr. Davis. We are very

fortunate with this Chief Financial Officers Council and the Chief

Information Officers Council that we have a couple of very good

models out there for how agencies can work together and with the

Central Management Agency in order to share information, build

joint expertise and that these councils can be good vehicles both for

keying up new ideas and new approaches as well as testing in either pilots or pilot projects that was a particular concern of yours,

using these as good vehicles for being able to pilot new and different approaches before and gather lessons learned before they are

disseminated Government-wide. In direct answer to your question,

there are a number of areas that we think OPM in this particular

issue on hiring could work with the Chief Human Capital Officers

Council, and that is to continue to look at agencies that are making

effective use of the flexibilities that OPM or that the legislation

provided, both on category ranking and in direct hire, and use

those as concrete examples that can be shared around Government

as to how we can do this, what is the appropriate use, how they

can be done in a merit-based way so agencies can see themselves

in that picture and say, now I can understand and have a concrete

view of how I can use that flexibility.

I know, through the Chief Human Capital Officers Council and

the Subcommittee on Hiring in particular, this particular thinking

is going on, and we think it should be encouraged and augmented.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Dr. Chu, what resources have you found

most useful in recruiting minorities and women, especially in technical areas?

Mr. CHU. I think the most important resource, sir, is outreach to

interested professional organizations where you have a gathering of

candidates or people who influence candidate decisions in terms of

Federal employment. We make a real effort, both for our military

recruiting purposes and also for civil service, to visit with these organizations, particularly those that have significant numbers of African Americans and Hispanic members. And I think that is one of

the most effective tools, because we need to persuade people from

these different communities that, indeed, a Federal position is

something they might find interesting.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I know that many of these organizations

and groups actually have caucuses within the organization. And do

you go directly to the mainline organization or do you go after the

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caucuses where the minorities may feel that they have more input,

more of a relationship and actually spend more of their time?

Mr. CHU. Our emphasis in this regard has been visiting with

those organizations where there is a significant minority membership. Often, they are organized along specific minority lines. And

so it is a mixture of what you have outlined in your question.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you.

Mr. Blair, what is the current status of the Senior Executive

Service Candidate Development Program?

Mr. BLAIR. I know that has been under extensive review for quite

some time, and I think we are getting close to finalizing it at this

point. We have the SESCDP, and we have the Senior Management

Fellows Program and the Revised Presidential Management Fellows Program, and all of those are being designed with an eye toward bringing in top quality talent into the Federal work force.

These are going to be programs that will be a conduit for reaching out to groups, and we anticipate that all these programs will

be ways of improving not only Federal hiring but the quality of

hires and helping Federal agencies attract and retain good workers.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I know OPM has developed a 45-day hiring model that is used to hire senior executives. How long does it

take the manager to hire a professional staff person?

Mr. BLAIR. I didn’t understand your question.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. You have a 45-day model for hiring senior

executives.

Mr. BLAIR. We have a 30-day model for hiring. And 45 would be

for rank-and-file employees.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. It takes 45 days for them to hire?

Mr. BLAIR. That’s a goal.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you very much, Madam

Chairwoman.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Blair, the hearing in Chicago, we had a couple of witnesses who—one in particular—who

applied to the Federal Government and, to that date, still had not

heard a word as to whether or not her application was received or

where it was, had it fallen into some black hole or what. When

they apply—and we hear it quite often, and I hear it in my district,

it can be months before they receive a response and sometimes

never receive a response. Is anything being done by OPM or the

agencies to notify the applicants when they apply to let them know

that yeah, we have received it, this is where it is, or do they just

stay in limbo?

Mr. BLAIR. It is across the board. And to be completely honest,

you have some positions, some agencies, some offices, that reply almost immediately and let applicants know where they stand in the

process, and others never get back. It is probably due to a whole

host of factors, the number of applicants, the critical nature of the

job. Those aren’t excuses, those are just the playing fields which we

encounter.

What we are trying to do at OPM is to encourage agencies to get

back and let them know. A couple of years ago, we engaged the

Partnership For Public Service in what we call the call to serve,

and we re-engaged a number of college campuses and universities

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in making sure that college graduates were interested in public

service. We also unveiled a pledge to applicants, and we urged all

agencies adopt this pledge to applicants, saying we will get back to

people on a timely manner.

Unfortunately, many of those that pledged—it isn’t followed as

strictly as we would like to see, but it is a continuing work in process.

I am frustrated when you hear those things, too, because I take

those quite personally. The one witness you mentioned and her

frustration with getting her application online was something we

went back and looked at, and we are going to continually strive to

make our Web site and our application process much more userfriendly. And we need to do more to make it that way.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Did you look at not having the

Social Security number on that application?

Mr. BLAIR. We were looking at that. We were trying to make

sure that there could be some kind of identifying factor, and I think

that is something that we can do.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I don’t know how many applications you get, but in my office, everybody who applies gets a form

letter back, if nothing else, saying, thank you, the job has been

filled or what have you.

Mr. BLAIR. One of the reasons we are hearing that you need to

have a Social security number is if you are going to do a background check, but that may be able to be tailored to specific job applications or you may not need that information until the job is actually offered.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Do you do background checks

on every applicant or only on those——

Mr. BLAIR. I don’t think it is done on every applicant. There may

be a time and place.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It may be better to wait and

ask for a Social Security Number at that point. During the July 1,

2004 OPM press conference, Doris Houser, OPM’s Chief Human

Capital Officer noted that a survey of attendees at a job fair in

New York City this past spring did not address the frequent complaints that the hiring process is long and cumbersome. What effort

has OPM made to hear from individual applicants to identify their

experience and criticism of the hiring process, other than the hearing that we had in Chicago?

Mr. BLAIR. The hearing in Chicago highlighted, I think, or was

representative of what a number of people out there feel. And

again, we take that very personally, and we want to make sure we

have a much more user-friendly process.

Every time we hear something like this, we take it back and say,

how can we make it easier and quicker and how can we make it

fairer? So I think shedding light on this subject produces the kind

of heat and results that this subcommittee and that this administration expects in delivering goods and services by Government.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And don’t take it personally, I

am not picking on OPM. I am trying to fix a problem here.

Mr. BLAIR. It is personal, because you really want to do the right

thing. And if you have a high-level commitment to public service,

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derstand that genuine commitment. So when you hear about something like that, it is not personal from you, but I take it personally

because I want to make sure the process is easier and quicker.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. How long, generally, does it

take for someone to be hired in the private sector?

Mr. MIHM. Dan and I were talking about that. I think OPM has

information on that.

Mr. BLAIR. According to—and I hope I get this right, but information we have from the Society of Human Resource Managers

show that it takes about 45 calendar days in the private sector.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I will have to do some math on

that.

Ms. Blackburn left.

Let me go to Mr. Davis for a second round, and then I will come

back with some others.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Sontag, you expressed some concern

about the ability to reach out at entry level for professionals given

the way job descriptions are sometimes written and advertised that

weigh heavily on experience. And what would you recommend that

be done to alter that?

Mr. SONTAG. I certainly would like to see us develop alternative

assessment instruments themselves so that we do have the ability

to focus on people who are entering the job force for the first time.

We really want those. As we balance our work force, I think we

need an infusion of recent college graduates. We don’t necessarily

have to have people who have lots of experience before they come

to us in all jobs. And I think the major vehicle that would assist

us would be the changing of the assessment instruments themselves.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Sort of mix those, experience and/or

training, education whether it is some mix that perhaps arrives at

the kind of person that you are seeking?

Mr. SONTAG. To elaborate a little bit, I think the more that we

can reach out to the recent graduates, the more we are going to be

able to expand the diversity of the work force. In some areas, it is

very hard for minority status to have the kind of work experience

that would enable them to compete. By equalizing that, I think we

will be able to expand our diversity in the work force.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Ms. Cross, what tools or what have you

seen that you would describe as being most effective at recruiting

minorities and women, especially in technical areas?

Ms. CROSS. I think a lot of the student programs and intern programs where there is some easy way to get in and some programmatic way to advance. Many times, students are interested in

a general broad field, but they still haven’t figured out what they

want to be when they grow up, and these types of programs allow

them the experience, a cooperative education program that, while

they’re still students, they can get into an agency and get some experience, figure out what they want to be and then pursue some

more narrow opportunities as they gain that experience.

From our point of view and from a diversity point of view, it has

been extremely important to have those student employment programs. There is some assistance available that we can provide students for their education. And so it really makes a big difference

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in changing the culture, too, of the agency to have students from

all walks of life, all types of backgrounds as part of the work force.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Would you highly recommend—and I

share that. It seems to me that I run into many individuals who,

if you asked them how they got their start, where they are, or how

did they get into where they are, they had an internship or went

to work there as part of a college work study program, and they

ended up staying. Would you highly recommend that perhaps we

increase and look a bit more at the creation of more formalized internship programs?

I know there are some people who manage to get the places, they

get lucky and they get there, but sometimes they don’t know how

they got there. We don’t know how many internship opportunities

exist within certain agencies. There are no relationships with colleges and universities that can send students when they are approaching the end of college, are in their senior year. Would you

say we look very seriously at perhaps formalizing in greater detail

internship programs as a real way of doing recruitment?

Ms. CROSS. Absolutely. And I think, from some of the recent conversations that we’ve had at the Chief Human Capital Officers

Council with OPM, OPM has already taken a lot of strides in that

area to look at more flexibilities in some of the student programs,

to allow a broader range of applicants to participate, looking at

some Government-wide intern type approaches. So I think we are

starting to move in that direction, and I would appreciate any assistance you could provide in that area.

I, too, started as an intern. It is one of those things that you need

to have a little bit of structure around you when you are coming

out of college and you are entering any large corporation. It comes

with a prepackaged type of mentoring, so you have somebody that

can help show you the way. If you apply for a single job and get

selected, sometimes you feel like a very little fish in a very big sea,

and it can be scarry, and you can get stuck. So I think these types

of programs are really important for our ability to retain those

young people once we do get them in.

Mr. BLAIR. One of the things I would point out to the subcommittee is that, at OPM, we are exploring ways to make it more flexible

to bring interns on board and into the career work force. Right

now, we have seen an increase in the number of intern hires by

the agencies. We want to do more to make sure that, if you intern

for the Federal Government—I understand in the private sector

about half of those that intern at a company go to work for that

company. We would like to aim for a similar goal. One of the things

we can do, in the Federal Government, you have a fair number of

outside organizations that hire interns that work in the Federal

Government, and we want to be able to give those interns the same

type of hourly credit that regular Government interns receive as

well. So we are working on that. We see the value in bringing interns in and we see the value of making sure that it is an easier

process to get them on as permanent hires.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

In the last hearing we had in Chicago, we asked the question

why an agency wouldn’t want to reduce their overall hiring time

to 30 days, and Mr. Blair answered that by saying that would be

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best answered by agency heads. I want to ask Dr. Chu, Mr. Sontag

and Ms. Cross, with all that being said, why is it even necessary

for OPM to have to establish a 45-day hiring timeline? And apart

from the direct-hire authority, could HHS or DOE or DOD hire an

employee within the 30 days? I know you have told me, and I don’t

think I caught it, Ms. Cross. Have you done it in 35 days or less?

Ms. CROSS. Yeah. We have groups that we are tracking, is 31

days.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Maybe you could shed light on

why an agency wouldn’t want to lower the time to hire so you can

hire the most talented.

Mr. CHU. We have interest, Madam Chairwoman, in the hiring

process being as expeditious as possible. One of the important tools

in that regard is our move some years ago now to Resumix, which

is the automated resume system so that you can evaluate the resume quickly to see if this person is going to qualify.

Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Do you respond back when you

get resumes through that computer program?

Mr. CHU. People can get a response back, feedback. And I think

getting the process steps honed so it doesn’t take as long to do the

routine things is a critical component of getting these timelines

down. You want to be prompt, because if you aren’t prompt, you

are going to lose a good candidate to somebody else.

Mr. SONTAG. Again, like my colleague, Dr. Chu, I certainly fully

support the goal and I think it’s important to have it out there. But

I also think it’s important that we realize that in some cases, that

the timeline is not functional for a variety of reasons: complex reference checks, people’s unavailability. All of which I would rather

pursue vigorously than meet a time line. And that, essentially, has

been our policy at HHS, that the most important thing is to hire

qualified people as soon as possible, in that order.

Ms. CROSS. Quality is a big issue for us as well, and I think our

experience in applying a couple of years ago the first kind of technology—we use ‘‘Quick Hire’’ at the Department of Energy—was

that it is if you don’t take the time up front, you will not get quality at the end. It will be a fast process, but then you have to start

over again, and that didn’t seem to be a good thing to do.

So spending a little bit of time up front to craft the competency

questions or what—however methodology you are using—to make

sure that this filter that you are using is going to be providing

quality is really important. So I would agree with it; it’s a balance

that we are trying to reach.

Another comment on the 45 days is that’s not a magic number.

In fact, it’s too long for some types of appointment authorities. You

can do it much faster. Other types of positions and appointment

authorities take a little bit longer, so it is really a model to look

at for the vast number of types of appointment types, but it

shouldn’t be a hard-and-fast rule for some of those appointments

because you can get them filled faster than that.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, help me understand this, then. We

have three folks from agencies here who say they want to do it

quickly. Where’s the holdup? Why does it take 45 days?

I am trying to go back to when I had my own business and I was

hiring people. I would get the resumes in, granted; I was a small

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business, but you have a lot of people doing this, and I was one

person. I would get the resumes in, I would go over them, and, you

know, I would have a time line, maybe a week or two to get the

resumes in and review them and then bring the people in and then

hire somebody.

So why do I hear so much from constituents and other folks that

it’s cumbersome and takes too long and so why bother to apply to

the Federal Government? And why do I hear from agencies, it

takes too long, we can’t get people in here? What am I missing?

Mr. BLAIR. I think one of the things, that when we went out to

the agencies to ask them what would you identify as barriers to accelerated hiring, they responded to us that slow officials spend too

much time reviewing the resumes and interviewing selected candidates before making the selection.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, who sets that time line?

Mr. BLAIR. The individual office.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. The agency?

Mr. BLAIR. Uh-huh.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK.

Mr. BLAIR. And so that’s what we would say, 45-day rule isn’t a

hard-and-fast rule, it certainly is a target. If our current time to

hire now is 100-and-something days, 45 days is a substantial improvement over the current—over the status quo.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thirty-five sounded better, and a couple

of these guys did that.

Mr. BLAIR. Well, 35 does sound better; 30 even sounds better.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I will take that.

Mr. BLAIR. But we don’t want to be the perfect enemy of the government, and so we’ll settle for substantial progress in this. And

I think that the steps that we need to take here, first, we need to

make sure the agencies track it. I think most agencies do track the

time to hire; a number, a substantial number—12 out of the 25

that we surveyed—of large agencies and the departments actually

track it. And so that’s the first step, making sure that you track

that time, because what get’s measured, what gets done.

Then we want to see substantial improvement in making that

goal. That’s what we are looking at from an OPM perspective. But

I think what you have also heard from the panel here today is that

there’s a lot of—you know, this is a big government, and it’s a big

government and hire structure for thousands of different kinds of

occupations and thousands of different of positions.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But you have thousands of people doing

the hiring.

Mr. BLAIR. Exactly.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So it is all irrelevant.

Mr. BLAIR. But there is a complexity, and I think that complexity

can be overcome. But I think that what I am trying to do is just

explain the playing field which we enter. And when you understand that playing field, then you can negotiate it better. We are

hearing that one size doesn’t fit all for the agencies involved, and

we recognize that. And we are also hearing that substantial

progress is made and, in fact, is being made in this area. So I think

that you are hearing some good news today.

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Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I heard some great news from these

guys, but is bureaucracy our problem?

Mr. CHU. I don’t think so, Ma’am. We have a dedication to these

numbers being expeditious in character. As I indicated, our average

for the interval process that the OPM is starting to describe is not

actually the whole process, but it’s close of announcement to tentative offer extension. So the announcement period is up there at

the start point, and then I think it’s part of the constituent issue

from a constituent’s perspective.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Nine months.

Mr. CHU. When you read the announcement to when you get an

answer.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Yes. So how long, how long are you

talking from the time the announcement came out, then, to the

time you tentatively made the offer?

Mr. CHU. I think we are proud of getting the 35 days. We would

like to be more specious.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Yes.

Mr. CHU. I do think—and I would emphasize this, and the OPM

has been good about the requests we have sent from Defense. That

direct-hire authority in shortage fields, critical areas, is another instrument that I think, as Ms. Cross indicated, there’s going to be

a range of outcomes here in some areas. With direct-hire authority,

you can make this right away, to get down to very, very short periods of time.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Why don’t more agencies use direct-hire

authority?

Mr. CHU. Excuse me?

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Why aren’t more of the agencies using

the direct-hire authority?

Mr. CHU. I will leave that to Mr. Mihm. We find it helpful. There

are restrictions in terms of what OPM can grant that are statutory

in their foundation.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Do the agencies understand that?

Mr. BLAIR. I think the agencies understand that. Direct hire is

not the standard mode of bringing people into the Federal Government. It’s for shortage situations and for critical hires, and that’s

why Congress wrote that legislation. One of the reasons that they

wrote it that way is that you bypass certain procedures such as applications of veterans’ preference. And so if you are going to grant

this limited authority, we will make sure that it’s being granted in

the right way and under the right circumstances.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I guess this is to you, Mr. Mihm—Ms.

Cross, did you have something to say?

Ms. CROSS. Yes. I wanted to mention something that Mr. Mihm

had raised before, and that is succession planning. If an agency or

ifsupervisor waits until Joe or Susie leaves to start worrying about

filling that job, it’s going to create its own drama because there will

be a panic, and no one is in that job, and then everything seems

a lot more harder to fill, and things sometimes take longer when

you are in a drama mode.

If you really as an agency focus on looking ahead and managing

your work force, as many of us are now really focused on doing, you

have the potential of recruiting for anticipated competencies and

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skills. When Joe or Susie leaves, you have some pipeline there, so

that you don’t have the delay in the vacant desk. And that I think

is a big part of the solution, the potential solution, is combining

those issues and the art that is figuring out what flexibilities you

can use most effectively for the type of position that you are trying

to fill, with managing your work force and anticipating what your

needs are going to be so you don’t wind up in a deficit mode to

start with.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Ms. Cross.

Mr. Mihm, we have talked a lot about direct-hire authority, and

I don’t know if it’s been used enough for you to even know—but do

you have any evidence to indicate that there’s been a negative impact on the diversity of the Federal service work force by using the

direct-hire authority? You prompted me on that one when he reminded me that you do away with veterans’ preference, which

bothers me to begin with.

Mr. MIHM. We haven’t seen that, but I need to be careful here,

Madam Chairwoman, we haven’t looked at it directly. I mean, it’s

certainly something that we would be open to if you were interested in working with OPM to get that data.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Yes, I think I would like to know that,

because we don’t want to do—and I think somebody said you don’t

want the cure to end up causing another problem, and we definitely don’t want to cause that problem.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, Ma’am. The key thing to keep in mind here—and

your questions are getting to this—is that there’s direct-hire authority that is to be used in very specialized circumstances where

there is extreme hiring shortages. And the reason, at least the conceptual reason veterans’ preference does not apply, is that the applicant pool is considered not to be large.

Hence, that’s why you get direct-hire authority, you will take

anyone that’s qualified, that’s good, so there’s less concern about

discriminating against veterans.

So there’s direct-hire authority on the one hand. On the other

hand, there’s the whole separate and larger issue that you have

been discussing, which is we need to streamline the entire hiring

process——

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Right.

Mr. MIHM. For everyone at all levels, at all places, at all times.

And to just underscore Dr. Chu’s point is the example that you

were using from your personal experience about looking at the applicant, or sending out a vacancy announcement and getting those

applicants in, and all the rest, that is not part of the 45-day hiring

model.

I mean, that is considered outside of the model. The model starts

at the closing date of the announcement. In other words, you know,

when you would say, all right, I now have all the applicants and

I am now beginning to start culling through those. The major driver of time there that we have fairly consistently found just getting

together the panels internally within agencies to—and because people obviously have very busy operational responsibilities that they

have to undertake, getting the panels together, scheduling and conducting interviews, getting line officials then to give back their selections to the HR office so that they can do the final steps of due

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diligence, that’s one of the major of drivers of time that we have

seen.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And is that a problem in the agencies?

I mean——

Mr. MIHM. Well, what it gets to is that—Ms. Cross was, you

know, raising this point quite eloquently with her talking about

bringing on its own drama—is that the unfortunate thing is that

we have a tendency to create action, forcing events, and that if

there is an imminent crisis of we have to fill this position, then we

can get everyone around the table to do it.

It gets a little bit more difficult, to kind of the urgent driving out

the important. If it’s we are filling a position that we know we will

need to fill a position at some point in the next couple of months,

let’s start getting everyone together and reviewing applications and

all that, just the crush of events has the tendency to push those

types of decisions aside.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So it sounds like the mode of management is considered crisis management; is that what you are telling

me?

Mr. MIHM. Well, there’s always that tendency. As you and Mr.

Blair were discussing, there’s the notion of an organization, what

gets measured gets managed. In Washington, what gets overseen

gets managed.

And so things like this hearing and the oversight that you are

conducting send unmistakable messages back to agencies about,

hey, we are serious here about streamlining the time. And we can

quibble over 40, 30 days, 35 days, you know, and all the rest, but

the 102-day model is obsolete. And that’s the message that’s obviously being sent.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. How about let’s get to the problem that

Mr. Sontag mentioned in his opening statement when he said the

problem is with the entry-level positions, the GS–5s, GS–7s. What

can you tell me on that? Is that——

Mr. MIHM. Well, that’s certainly an issue, and it’s been an issue

now for a number of years. I mean, not to go back to all the history

on this, but the Lavada consent decree from the early 1980’s, basically throughout, because it was agreed to having disparate impact

on African Americans and Hispanics, the previous assessment or

testing tool there.

It was supposed to be a temporary period where OPM and agencies would work together to put in place validated assessment tools

for these types of entry-level candidates that Mr. Sontag was talking about. We are still using, you know, a jerry-rigged process here

of the Outstanding Scholars program, of other assessment tests.

As you know from the work that we’ve done at your request, we

believe that there needs to be continued work—and there are efforts in this regard—but really augmented work in developing sets

of validated assessment tests that agencies can use in order to

bring on these highlyqualified candidates that Mr. Sontag and others are talking about. OPM has been doing that, and the agencies

have been doing an awful lot of that.

We think the next step, and this is just to keep on the CHCO

Council theme here, we think the next step could be for the Chief

Human Capital Officers Council to look across agencies and say,

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hey, you are interested in developing an assessment tool that gets

at this particular entry-level position. This other agency has the

same type of need for an assessment tool. Why don’t you two work

together? These things can be very time consuming, technical, and

expensive to do. This is exactly an opportunity for shared efforts

across agencies.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, it sounds like, you know, you said

it’s a problem that’s going on for years. I mean, I am trying to fix

a hiring process in 102 days, so let’s fix a problem that’s gone on

for years.

Dr. Chu, if you could sort of take that and go with it with the

CHCO Council, that would be wonderful.

Mr. CHU. Delighted to, Ma’am. Thank you.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, sir. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Well, I appreciate, Madam Chair, your holding this

hearing, and regret that I was ranking member on a subcommittee

that required me not to be here, because I do want to say when

I compare how quickly we in the Congress can hire folks with what

I know agencies go through, because I ran such an agency, my

sympathies are with the agency.

I would have liked to have been here to hear more about why the

authority that hasn’t been granted has not been more often used,

and I understand that in a bureaucracy as complicated as ours is,

that giving such authority still means that there are a lot of bumps

in the road that you are going to have to go through.

So I appreciate the desire, Madam Chair, to, you know, press the

agencies to move more quickly. My concern continues to be that we

are behind, really, in the competition with the private sector. We

are—probably been doing better; indeed, we have been doing better

in the last few years when the economy has not been at its best.

But when you consider a bright young whippersnapper who

comes to apply to an agency because they have heard some great

things that the agency just did, and then goes to some place in the

private sector, he may end up even taking a job that is less desirable, maybe even at less pay, because it comes forward quickly.

You know, that’s a bird in the hand.

So I continue to be concerned, because we are losing any day

now, already beginning to lose large sections of our most experienced work force. And even with a smaller work force, getting the

best and the brightest, which has been the hallmark of the Federal

sector since the Great Depression, is an enormous challenge in this

market where the, quote, sexiest jobs tend to be in the private sector.

So I appreciate all the work you are doing and thank you very

much, Madam Chair.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

I am sure that there will probably some additional questions for

our witnesses today. So if I could get you to agree to submit the

answers for the record if we send you questions in writing, I would

certainly appreciate it.

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And I would again like to thank each and every one of you for

being here. Those of you that I keep calling back, I appreciate your

patience with me. And with that, the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:24 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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