GovernmentExecutive.com

Here's a pop quiz on federal hiring:

• How old would you guess the average entry-level federal hire is?
• What's the most common way entry-level employees find out about federal jobs?
• How long do most new employees plan to work for the federal government?

One might imagine the typical applicant to be a 24-year-old fresh out of college who surfed the Web to find a federal job just until a lucrative private sector offer comes in. The Merit Systems Protection Board recently surveyed 1,000 new federal employees to see whether such common assumptions held up. In fact, they don't.

Here are the answers to the pop quiz:

• The average new hire is 33, and ages ranged from 21 to 84. The median age was 29, meaning half were under 29 and half were over.
• Friends and relatives are the most common way new employees find out about federal jobs. The Internet comes in second for new hires 30 or older. For the under-30 set, the second most common source of job information is a college fair or a school placement office.
• Most new employees plan to work for the government until they retire. That means nearly half the 20-somethings entering the federal workforce are looking out three decades into the future and still see themselves working for Uncle Sam.

The MSPB survey responses from new hires blow holes in some of the common generational stereotypes. The survey suggests that Generation Xers and millennials want the same things baby boomers want - good, stable federal jobs in which they can make a difference for their country (another common refrain among respondents). They use their personal connections to find jobs the same way other generations have. And many work in the private sector before they seek employment with Uncle Sam, meaning they view the government as a destination employer, not as a stop along their journey to a hefty private sector paycheck.

Indeed, almost one in four new hires were willing to wait six months or more to land a federal job. Many were waiting for jobs that were filled not through the government's traditional competitive service hiring process, but through so-called excepted service processes that allow hiring managers to bypass many of the rules that usually slow the hiring process. Federal hiring managers now use those streamlined processes more often than the traditional ones. Critics say, however, excepted services processes can narrow the pool of applicants under consideration. If that's true, then it's notable that so many hiring managers are using them anyway. It suggests they're getting more than enough applicants for jobs, dispelling the myth that no one wants to work for the federal government.

The truth is, lots of people do. Attracted by meaningful missions, generous benefits and job security, a diverse group of recent college grads and experienced workers are banging on Uncle Sam's door for employment. Is your office struggling to get new workers? Then yours is an anomaly. What are other federal offices doing that yours is not?

Brian Friel covered management and human resources at Government Executive for six years and is now a National Journal staff correspondent.

COMMENTS

• What ever happened to the young people of today being future leaders? All you boomers want to do is criticize us when you're the ones who raised the generation!!!! I'm dumb founded. Have you ever heard of the saying the apple doesn't fall to far from the tree? You boomers just want to find any excuse to take food out of our mouths even though you have more money then we'll ever be able to earn. Thank god my parents don't think like you. Katie Posted April 11, 2008 6:31 PM
• Because of the glut of interns in this agency, there are no opportunities for long-time employees to be upgraded. We've worked long and hard years learning everything about the agency and how it works. The interns come in with NO experience, make quarterly presentations, do very little substantive results-oriented work and are promoted like clockwork. It is disheartening to come to work every day, clean up the problems they create because they don't have sense enough to ask a question and complete the assignments they avoid. The interns move up and around, to better jobs with higher grades after two or three years. They look at the long time employees and say "I am a GS-12 and you can't tell me anything, I'm (or was) an Intern!." I agree they should be brought in a decent grades, but serve as those grades until they can exhibit that they know what they are doing, can complete assignments timely and correctly, speak properly on the phones, greet people and answer their question appropriately and not be used for "fluff stuff" to make current supervisors look good. There are enough reasons to leave or retire when careers are "over", but as long as the older career workforce has capabilities and the interest in performing the assignments and missions of the office, then give them the promotions and opportunities they have earned. The interns of five years ago in our agency are not interested in the Congressional legislation that created the program they are tasked with running. The interns have been catapulted via career ladders and promotions into leadership roles they have no preparation for and now look for ways around the legal reasons for doing tasks a certain way with certain delegated responsiblities. There is no recourse for older employees to compete against these interns, because "there have to be new employees for the future". Ok, and when the agency is tied up in legislative hearings, audits, criminal investigations because the interns and former interns have caused the agency to be investigated, who will "clean" up that mess??? Not us, we will be long gone. longtime government employee Posted April 4, 2008 3:21 PM
• Personally, I can't think of a private sector job that would allow folks like you all and myself to sit at our desks on gov't time to read and write worthless commentary on an even more worthless survet. Go Gov.... Scptt Posted April 3, 2008 5:55 PM