Are you taking full advantage of the upsurge in government hiring? When the president says he wants to make federal employment "cool again," do you feel like he's talking about someone else or about another agency?

You're not alone. Research has shown that only a few agencies have a head start in the image category. As NASA celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Landing, it's easy to see why they're one of the government's most highly rated employer brands. After all, as then President Richard M. Nixon said to the returning astronauts, "This is the greatest week in history since creation."

But even the grandest triumphs hardly do justice to the vast opportunities within the federal government. No other employer comes close to presenting the career choices and options available. Each department and subcomponent has a story to tell. And with the tools of Government 2.0, they can convey this uniqueness accurately and quickly.

Cool medium and message

Government HR has been rapidly picking up on Web 2.0: social networking, blogs, video, etc. The interactive nature of these tools signals a dramatic shift from push (one-way) to pull (two-way-communications).

A recent tweet from the IRS' jobdog59 Twitter career site, succinctly expresses this difference: [the site owner – jobdog59], "thinks Twitter is like a river I throw bones into. They float along and if anybody wants one they are free to have as many as they want."

A free-flowing river, offering helpful career hints, doesn't conjure the old image of the IRS as a faceless fiscal fortress. That's why the advent of "Government 2.0" means much more than a technical change-over. The very use of these tools carries a powerful message:

Rather than being formidable bureaucracies with labyrinthine hiring processes, federal agencies are emerging as responsive, accessible venues, open to those who wish to serve.

Ennobling the federal employee

Of course, flexibility and transparency alone are not sufficient to overcome inertia. Many young people are wary that working for the fed will land them in dead-end, boring job, a secure job perhaps, but without an upwardly mobile path.

That's where branding federal employment brings vitality. For instance, when the EPA needed to "fine tune" its workforce and "hire for commitment," TMP introduced an employer brand emphasizing balance: "Something good for myself. Something good for the world around me." We then wove an offline and online eco-system around the anchor career site, expressing the connection between balance in work-life and the environment.

Similarly, for the Missile Defense Agency, the branded website parallels the "work" with the greatest technological achievements of our time. Reinforcing the uniqueness of the technical accomplishments, the site uses Government 2.0 tools from an interactive timeline with video to an action game.

Both of these examples help a candidate feel assured that they are doing the right thing for their personal and professional goals.

Recently at a TMP-sponsored gathering, put on by Government Executive magazine, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) commented that when he was growing up in Boston, President John F. Kennedy projected that kind of stature for government employees. At that time, many young people heeded the call to "do what they could do for their country." JFK expressed the confidence that public servants could dare the impossible, whether landing men on the moon or trekking to serve in far-off villages.

Connolly said that we need to "ennoble" the federal employee again. That approach, abetted by the president's Call to Serve, may even go beyond parity with the private sector. For the infrastructure of government as well as its regulations make possible an innovative free market. As brand advocates in touch with citizens, public servants also set the tone for civic life. And isn't that "way cool?"

For more examples of Government 2.0 in action, check out our TMP Government Portfolio.

You’ve certainly seen Best Places to Work lists in business magazines like Fortune, and maybe in the niche publications that publish their own rankings for narrower constituencies. What you might not know is that Washington’s Partnership for Public Service regularly produces a similar government-wide ranking of federal departments and agencies (http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/index).

It’s all based on what a couple hundred thousand government workers tell the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in its bi-annual survey. The Partnership, in concert with American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI) and The Hay Group--and with support from TMP Government--collates and submits OPM’s independently gathered results to strict statistical analysis. The outcome is a detailed side-by-side comparison of how federal organizations rate with their own employees across a range of criteria, from teamwork to training to perceived leadership competencies. The rankings also compare OPM’s employee responses—again agency by agency--by demographic segments, including gender, ethnicity, and age.

A benchmarking tool for agencies. If you’re looking for insight into your agency’s authentic employment value proposition, this compilation is a remarkable source, provided you’re willing to spend some time exploring its capabilities.

Both OPM’s own survey report (www.fhcs.opm.gov/) and the Partnership/ISPPI rankings allow you to see how your agency measures up in the eyes of your own workforce. But the Partnership/ISPPI compilation makes it easy to compare your results directly with those of virtually every other government agency. What’s more, the Best Places comparisons provide you with a statistically sound benchmarking tool for improving or refining key attributes in your own workplace culture. It can help immeasurably in refining your programs for employee engagement, inclusion, organizational development, succession planning, retention, and a host of other human capital focal points.

And when it comes to recruiting, is there a more resonant and authentic jumping off point for your agency’s employment brand than the characteristics where your own workforce tells you that you excel?

A resource for job seekers. For the federal job seeker, these rankings are indispensable, cutting through the recruiting noise to core workplace characteristics. While this certainly should not be the only comparative tool a candidate uses, it does represent a marvelous starting point and useful set of job search benchmarks for federal candidates at all levels of experience.

So...which agencies are the leaders of the pack? I leave that to you to discover. If you’re serious about how your team’s collective view of your workplace stacks up against other agencies, go here: http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/index.

Because American government has been assigned a nearly unprecedented role in spurring economic recovery, many agencies are expanding their mission responsibilities. And as missions are extended into new realms of activity, Federal workers in many agencies are effectively in the hot seat. Their performance—and that of the teams they’re assembling-- will tell the tale on the government’s readiness to shepherd us all out of this crisis. Many a Department with a recovery-related mission—including Treasury, Energy, Commerce, HHS, and a long roster of other agencies--is poised to ramp up efforts to recruit new employees at all levels.

As I’ve said before, this year has provided us with an unmatched opportunity to recharge the government’s working talent—provided agencies can get 2009’s “windfall” of candidates on board expeditiously. Weakness in the general economy has brought thousands of qualified recruits to the government’s doorstep: likewise the widespread surge in enthusiasm for government careers among recent and imminent grads. And now many agencies are retooling for recovery-support responsibilities, which will in turn create more demand for qualified workers.

The key is life-cycle talent management, not just recruiting. But bringing a wealth of new talent onboard is just the beginning. Keeping employees productively engaged and enthusiastic about their work is the real key to sustained human capital success. The dispiriting truth today is that most agencies don’t devote enough attention to matching talent to task, and to keeping productive teams and individuals engaged and inspired by their work.

Recruiting programs, no matter how successful, aren’t meant to address the underlying challenge here. All employers have to respond creatively to evolving workforce needs throughout the full employment life-cycle. Otherwise, attrition drains away any human capital advantage the organization has gained while its available supply of talent was deep.

Senior leadership has to step up. If government is going to address this issue squarely, senior agency and Department executives (and not just Chief Human Capital Officers) need to step forward as vocal and proactive champions of strategic talent management. This means mandating comprehensive talent management programs at the heart of every human capital initiative, coupling life-cycle talent management with all Department or agency strategic planning, and fostering a pervasive talent “consciousness” among their key subordinates and agency populations.

If government is to gain any traction in our economic recovery, Federal executives have to take the lead in shaping realistic, long-term strategies to engage, retain, and reward the talented individuals who will sustain their newly expanded missions in the months and years to come.

They can’t fall short here. There’s just too much at stake.

There were two sour notes amid all the apparent good news in the national research that I reported in my last post. Washington’s Partnership for Public Service, which mounted the survey, found an unnervingly unrealistic element among all undergraduate respondents. On average the students anticipated a starting salary that approached $50,000. The Partnership’s survey also exposed a comparative lack of enthusiasm for public service when it polled undergraduates studying engineering and information technology.

It’s an open question whether this widespread salary expectation—as much as five figures higher than the norm for Federal starting pay—is a real deal-breaker, or merely a naïve misconception. In the first place, the employment picture for new grads in the private sector is pretty dismal; so competitive forces make government positions comparatively attractive, even if starting salaries fall short of expectations.

At the same time, the “lifestyle” advantages of Federal employment—from relative job security to work-life balance—can tip the balance for many candidates. It’s all in how you present the employment value proposition for your agency. For the candidate motivated by other than a financial agenda, the gap in anticipated vs. real salaries may not be an insurmountable barrier if you tell your tale authentically.

The other sour note is much more disconcerting. All agencies need technologists, and particularly IT specialists. It’s difficult to imagine a single cluster of expertise that’s more critical to the government than tech talent. They’re mission-critical skills essential not just to the nation’s defense and intelligence missions, but also to the efficient operation of every agency in the federal establishment.

With the exception of NASA, the perception that government technology offers less interesting challenges appears to be widespread. I don’t have the magic bullet that will dispel these attitudes, but part of the answer may be embedded in your agency’s technical “lore” and the cognitive habits of the people you need to engage.

Think about framing your most interesting tech operations and responsibilities as narrative case studies highlighting real-world challenges and the activities of your own high-performing technologists. Use all available outreach resources--from print and online to events and ads--to tell your story concretely, featuring real people. Engineering and IT students tend to be grounded in practical, here-and-now realms. Show them role models in authentic, interesting, problem-solving environments. If you do this creatively, you should engage their initial interest.

Following up is more complex. It goes a long way if you can offer high-prestige internships and/or put your own agency technologists into relationships with promising candidates through email or even as avatars in virtual worlds. And once techies are on the job, high-responsibility assignments and proactive mentoring are valuable tools in keeping them onboard when higher salaries beckon from the private sector.

Responding to either of the survey’s big “downer” revelations won’t be easy, but the stakes are pretty high if you don’t.

A newly issued report about attitudes toward Federal employment among American undergraduate students brings some very good news for anyone in the business of government recruiting.

The report was issued by the Washington-based Partnership for Public Service (www.ourpublicservice.org)--one of TMP Government’s regular allies in initiatives to encourage public sector employment—and Universum (www.universumglobal.com), a global employer branding company.

Great Expectations: What Students Want and How Federal Agencies Can Deliver It summarizes results from a survey of 30,000 American students. Among its most encouraging findings: students view five agencies—the State Department, Peace Corps, NASA, CIA, and FBI—nearly as favorably as they view Google, Walt Disney, and Apple Computer, the top three in their rankings.

But wait…there’s more. Government and public service are ranked by the survey population as the most ideal “industry” for a first job, beating out health care, education, marketing/advertising, and 42 other industry categories. For most of our readers I’d venture that this is a significant discovery. But take a moment to look beyond the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives you.

Doesn’t this finding point to a deeper population of potential recruits than many agencies imagine are out there? Certainly this research can support a case for scaling up outreach to so-called “passive” targets in America’s colleges and universities. Today many agencies are uncomfortable with this approach, which smacks of direct marketing. If you’re among this number, maybe it’s time to reevaluate.

The survey supplies equally encouraging info when it turns to the career attributes and rewards that American students value most. The top three: work/life balance, job security, and the conviction that you are serving “a greater good”. Again the news for government agencies couldn’t be better. These are authentic themes of value for government recruiting. For the vast majority of agencies, there’s no need to exaggerate the value proposition here. Play these cards freely and honestly; at the least they comprise an evocative thematic backdrop for the specific points of value that make up your agency’s brand.

Now for the bad news. There are two sour notes in the survey findings: the relative lack of enthusiasm among science and technology undergrads for government employment, and, among all respondents, starting salary expectations that are unreasonably high. I’ll discuss these results in a subsequent post.