Agencies have a new way to connect with qualified early-career workers and move them from the Pathways Program into full-time federal jobs.
Two new “talent programs” on USAJobs, which the Office of Personnel Management launched this week, aim to connect agency hiring managers with Pathways Program graduates eligible to transfer to a different agency once completing the program.
Hiring managers can use the new platform to find lists of both interns and recent graduates who have finished the Pathways Program and are now looking for a permanent federal position. The lists of candidates are available to federal HR staff once they log in to the agency talent portal on USAJobs.
“These talent programs allow agencies to reach out to promising individuals eager to advance their federal careers,” OPM Associate Director for Workforce Policy and Innovation Veronica Hinton wrote Wednesday in a memo to agency HR directors. “They facilitate a way for agencies to effectively identify Pathways interns or recent graduates to provide them with the option to be considered for conversion at other agencies.”
The online rosters of early-career talent may also speed up the time it takes to hire a candidate, Hinton said. By using the “talent programs,” agencies will be able to connect with Pathways graduates who are already deemed qualified for full-time positions.
The flexibility of transferring a Pathways participant to a different agency is a new option in Pathways, which OPM added to the program earlier this year in updated program regulations. Pathways interns and recent graduates are eligible to transfer to a term or permanent federal job at a different agency, only if their current agency doesn’t have any openings available. Interns and recent graduates in that situation can now opt in to the “talent program” platform and become viewable by hiring managers at other agencies. Agencies can then search through available candidates and non-competitively appoint them to an open role.
“We encourage agencies to take advantage of this readily available pool of early-career talent when filling vacancies,” Hinton wrote.
The two “talent program” platforms are now available more broadly, after OPM “soft launched” each of the platforms earlier this year. OPM said it first briefed agencies and offered demos of the platforms to give agencies time to help their HR staff get up to speed on how to use the new tools. The goal was also to help agencies figure out the best points of contact to begin transferring eligible candidates from one agency to another.
Once logged in to the new platform, HR staff will be able to use a “talent search” tool to sift through currently available candidates who have completed the Pathways Program requirements and are eligible to transfer to a different agency. HR employees will be able to filter down by home agency, location, grade and resume to look more closely at the candidates.
From there, hiring mangers will be able to directly contact a candidate, or the candidate’s agency, to set up a hiring assessment and interview the individual for an opening.
Pathways Program officers at each agency should invite eligible candidates to put their information into the talent program platform, OPM said, to become searchable by other agencies for open, non-competitive appointments.
OPM’s final regulations for the Pathways Program earlier this year marked the first major update to the early-career program since it was created in 2012. The new regulations officially took effect in June, and agencies have another deadline this December to put a policy in place for using the Pathways Program under the new regulations. Previously, agencies had to establish a memorandum of understanding with OPM to be able to use the program.
Though it’s still early on, Latonia Page, OPM’s deputy associate director for talent acquisition, classification and veterans programs, recently said the changes to the program are starting to take root at agencies.
Along with opening the doors for Pathways graduates to transfer to different agencies, the new regulations also eased some other requirements for completing the program, and broadened eligibility for entering Pathways, all with the end goal of improving the government’s early-career hiring efforts.
In other work to push forward on early-career recruitment, OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver has been making stops at universities across the country to meet with current students and university staff members to share information about beginning a career in public service.
On USAJobs, OPM also launched an internship portal earlier this year, aiming to make it easier for younger individuals interested in federal jobs to find positions that are suited to their qualifications and interests. Currently, there are 183 federal openings listed on the USAJobs intern portal.
“We’ve made federal careers more accessible for early career talent, more competitive with pay and benefits and more rewarding for anyone who wants to make an impact,” Shriver said in a statement earlier this month. “My message to jobseekers is: we need you. We need your passion, your talents and your skills. And the good news is, whatever your dream job, there’s a version of it in the federal government.”
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