Nixing Federal Job Registers?

The Office of Personnel Management is considering ending its centralized hiring register program due to a lack of interest among federal agencies. Federal Times reports that in the seven months since OPM launched its hiring register program, agencies have only hired 71 of about 106,000 qualified job candidates from the registers.

OPM announced the launch of the job registers in April. The shared registers are designed to help agencies more quickly hire qualified workers for 12 of the 14 top hiring areas, including information technology. Once an agency identifies a critical hiring need, its HR director submits a request to OPM, upon which OPM will filter through the 100,000-plus certified applicants for the appropriate location and grade, apply veterans preference and determine who is in the highest category. The process takes OPM only two to three business days and saves agencies about three weeks in the hiring process.

But since OPM pays for the shared job registers out of pocket, their lack of use among agencies may result in their cancellation. Ted Cuneo, chief of staff for Angela Bailey, OPM's director for recruitment and diversity, said Wednesday that both OPM and agency leadership must get better at educating hiring officials that the shared registers even exist.

It seems like use of the shared job registers is a no-brainer, particularly when it comes to finding and hiring qualified, in-demand IT professionals more quickly. Should OPM give agencies another chance to use the job registers? And could their lack of use mean that other elements of federal hiring reform may not be as successful, meaning agencies will stick to their old ways?