Federal careers have their perks, but the application process is certainly not one of them.
A connection of mine recently noted that, “USAJOBS is broken, and it will destroy the DoD’s (and our military’s) ability to recruit the next generation of tech talent.” Through a convoluted, lengthy, and redundant form, the platform is the official site for federal hiring. But no one is surprised that the government may be missing out on talent that could definitely perform the job they are advertising.
IRS Going on a Hiring Spree
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is preparing for a hiring spree, but USAJOBS may not be their only problem. Enter the private sector to the rescue scene.
GovExec recently reported that the organization signed two contracts to support with recruiting and onboarding of thousands of new employees as they forecast hiring over the next decade. “The first, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, will task the vendor with preparing and posting job announcements, determining a list of qualified candidates and making tentative offers. The second will require the contractor to assist with background investigations, similar to IRS’ own personnel security employees.”
As a part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS should be receiving $80 billion by 2031, which funding could be allocated to hire as many as 87,000 employees.
A Bigger Problem
The larger issues at hand for federal hiring at the agency can be learned through what hiring efforts looked like last year. Almost 600,000 people applied for jobs, and the organization was only able to sift through potential candidates and extend offers 46,000 of those individuals. When all was said and done for 2022, only 3% of the original 600,000 applicants accepted their offer and engaged in the onboarding process to become IRS employees.
3% of 87,000 is just over 2,500 employees if history were to repeat itself and the IRS did not have support.
But the private sector working with the agency to help with hiring efforts could be the magic the organization needs to streamline its recruiting process.
