Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
Beat your talent competitors by being the first to implement a federal employee recruitment program. And take advantage of the huge federal employee exodus that is just beginning (in response to the “efficiency committee’s” announced massive position cuts). Be grateful that this mass influx of available talent is coming after many long months of candidate shortages.
Three Factors That Are Driving Federal Employees Into Civilian Jobs
In order to successfully recruit federal employees, you will need to be able to assure them that your new civilian job opportunity doesn’t contain any of the three negative factors driving many of the 2.3 million federal employees away from federal employment. Those three powerful drivers are:
Uncertainty over which jobs will be cut –There are currently real uncertainties over precisely where (in which jobs) the position eliminations promised by the efficiency committee will actually occur. Because no one knows whether their job is safe, this uncertainty will drive most federal employees to at least consider a new civilian job until it is cleared up.
Their dream of making a substantial impact will fade – Even if a federal employee gets to keep their job, massive budget cuts and dramatic shifts in agency leadership, direction, and priorities will mean that employees who dream of having a substantial impact and making a difference will likely find these opportunities unreachable during the next few years.
If they stay, they may be continually attacked and treated harshly – And the final push factor will be the fact that if they stay, their new anti-government leaders will likely continuously attack them and treat them harshly because these leaders will, unfortunately, consider career employees to be “members of the deep state.”
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The Many Benefits From A “Federal Employee Recruiting Program” (FERP)
If you expect to convince your skeptical executives about the need for this (or any new recruiting program), you must be able to provide them with a list of the economic benefits that will give this program a high ROI. Note: In the following summary of benefits, the most impactful ones appear at the beginning of the list.
The size of this talent pool is record-breaking – This potential federal employee recruiting pool contains a whopping 2.3 million potential job seekers. And because they will come from many agencies and job families. That breadth of talent should be able to positively impact each of your talent needs.
The training and experience of the candidates will be up-to-date – Over the last few years, many organizations have been forced to hire the unemployed. Whose training and experience were out-of-date, so they needed time to upskill. Fortunately, the currently employed members of this federal talent pool won’t need much time to get up to speed. I would also note that your targeted federal employees have remained in government through numerous government shutdowns, changes in direction, and budget cuts. You will quickly learn that these candidates are highly resilient.
Targets will be easy to find and communicate with – Because almost all federal workers will soon face a real possibility of losing their jobs because of the efficiency committee, massive budget cuts, or both. Many in this federal talent pool will quickly become active candidates. That means they will be easy to find with job posts on large job boards and the same popular social media sites that civilian job seekers frequent. And with so many active candidates looking, your recruiting function is most likely to face a “sorting problem” rather than a “finding problem.”
Attracting them might only require offering stability, security, and respect – This latest job trauma will shift the career focus of most federal employees toward career stability. Fortunately, that means that to land them all you will need to do is convince them that, as your employee, they will be treated with respect. And that your organization offers more stability and a higher level of job security than they would have experienced had they stayed. And incidentally, because corporate pay is generally higher than federal pay, compensation won’t likely be a major issue.
Federal employees can be found in most geographic locations – Because government agencies and contractors can be found working and living in almost every major city. Finding government workers to fill your talent needs in almost all geographic areas will be relatively easy.
You will find an abundance of diverse candidates – Because government agencies have been leaders for years in attracting and promoting a higher-than-average percentage of diverse professional and hourly employees. Utilizing this source will likely help you meet your diversity goals.
These new hires may help you deal with the government – Because most corporations are now heavily regulated. If you specifically target federal employees from the federal agencies your organization frequently deals with, these new hires may provide your corporation with valuable information and even some insight on how to work effectively with this and other agencies. You may also find their existing network of colleagues back at their former agency extremely helpful.
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Implementation Tips For A Federal Employee Recruiting Program (FERP)
If you’re interested in learning more about how to implement this type of recruiting program, here are a few of my implementation recommendations.
- Standardize the process – Every large organization should develop a standalone ‘Federal Employee Recruiting Process’ that can be activated as soon as the latest threat to government stability appears.
- It will be easy to get your jobs in front of them – Fortunately, most federal employees learn about new government and civilian jobs the same way the rest of us learn about new jobs. And many of them will be actively looking. So they will see your civilian job posts on large job boards. For example, there are over 2.4M federal employees on LinkedIn, and Glassdoor.com rates many federal agencies. You can also get your jobs in front of them on popular social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. As always, employee referrals will work extremely well. Especially if you inform your employees that you are specifically asking for the referral of federal workers. In the same light, a LinkedIn search for government employees who are “open to work” will also work extremely well. And when they allow it, use federal employee unions (e.g., the American Federation of Government Employees) to spread the word about your open jobs. Finally, it also makes sense to include an attention-getting phrase like “Applications from federal employees are welcome” on your corporation’s career site and even in your job posts.
- Make your recruiting process data-driven – Like all modern recruiting processes, this one must be data-driven in order to be successful. So, it’s essential that you develop performance metrics. Eventually, use these performance metrics to demonstrate to your executives that, after they join your organization, these federal new hires perform above average in productivity, leadership, teamwork, and retention.
- Prepare for interviewees who are “out of practice” – Because there aren’t many promotional opportunities in many agencies, many of your federal candidates will have been long-term employees in the same job classification. They will not have spent much time interviewing for jobs. So be warned that many of these candidates might appear rusty and nervous during their interviews. Your interviewers should also be aware of and tolerant of the fact that federal employees will initially overuse government acronyms throughout their conversations and interviews.
- Forward-looking employees can be caught early – The best in this federal talent pool are forward-looking. They will quickly see the writing on the wall and be among the first to begin job searching. So, if you launch an early recruiting effort, you will capture these federal employees who routinely plan ahead.
- Consider offering a sign-on bonus – With high inflation rates and the absence of raises for federal employees before September of this year, many of your federal recruiting targets will have been living paycheck to paycheck. So, offering them a sign-on bonus will make it much easier to recruit and get them to say yes.
You can find more details about recruiting federal employees here.
| If you only do one thing – conduct a quick search on LinkedIn of federal employees who currently work in the General Services Administration (GSA). Then, track the percentage of them who have labeled themselves as “open to work.” Use this percentage as an indicator of the size of the “actively looking” federal talent pool. |
Final Thoughts
The smartest talent leaders see recruiting opportunities long before their talent competitors. And when they see an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage, they act quickly. So, if you are a talent leader, I ask you…
Have you acted on this largest recruiting opportunity in the last decade?
If not, I suggest you might benefit from following me on LinkedIn.
Note to the reader
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