Calling Federal IT Workers

If you're a federal information technology worker with less than five years of experience, the Partnership for Public Service wants to talk to you about your recruitment, hiring and onboarding experiences.

On Feb. 17, the Partnership will host a focus group discussion with a diverse group of federal IT professionals to help gain a better perspective of the challenges and successes within the federal IT community.

Tim McManus, vice president of education and outreach at the Partnership, said on Thursday that the focus group is part of the Partnership's FedRecruit: IT pilot program, which is designed to help agencies meet the need to fill what the Partnership estimates will be about 11,000 federal IT job openings during the next three years. "We'll be working with three agencies to look at what they're currently doing, and then we'll look at new innovative ways to improve and enhance their capacity to attract and retain top entry level IT talent," McManus said.

Next month's focus group will look to entry-level federal IT professionals across various agencies to gauge how they were recruited and hired, what made them choose government versus other opportunities, and what incentives have caused them to stay in their job, McManus said. The Partnership will use the focus group session to form some leading practices for federal agencies as they develop and refine college and university recruitment, improve application, hiring and onboarding applications, and develop metrics for recruitment and hiring efforts, he added.

"We think a very important part of driving recruitment within federal agencies is to get direct feedback from the stakeholders, whether they be potential employees or those who are currently in those positions," McManus said. "This focus group is really a way for us to get that direct feedback and get the pulse of those who have already gone through the process and are now in the jobs."

For more information on how to participate in the focus group session, contact Alex Schual-Berke at aschual-berke@ourpublicservice.org.