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An Open Letter to President Obama: Your Job Creation Forecasts Could be a Myth

By Lou Adler, March 18, 2009

Dear President Obama,

Once the banking crisis gets solved, the next bottleneck that needs to be addressed is the woeful state of the government hiring process. If not addressed properly, it will cripple the economic stimulus package by putting a lid on job creation in both the public and private sectors.

Despite record unemployment, there is a severe supply shortage of skilled workers at the technical and trade levels. These are the jobs that drive the economy, allow the middle class to prosper, and minimize the swings in every economic cycle. Overall, it's estimated that $200 to $300 billion of government financed programs will be short-circuited by this hiring problem.

Not only is the government hiring process inefficient, invalid, and costly, it also prevents some of the very best people available from getting hired. Most of these people are woman, minorities, military vets, those who are physically challenged, and people who have great potential, but have somewhat different than the so-called "required" experiences.

As your own election demonstrates, identical and proven experience isn't the best predictor of on-the-job success, yet this is the core prerequisite of every government contractor position now available. It doesn't take much to identify the problems. Here they are in a nutshell:

1. There is an overreliance on requiring specific skills and years of experiences when bidding government contracts. Since there are a limited number of these people available, government contractors must aggressively "recruit" them from other contractors. The result is wage inflation, cost overruns, and a focus on filling seats with who's available, rather than who's best.
   
   
2. The people who are making the hiring decisions don't know how. The person doing the recruiting for these people is so far removed from the actual hiring manager, that as long as the candidate has the skills, can fog a mirror, and complete a compound sentence, the person will be pushed forward. Then someone will make the yes/no hiring decision based on likeability, desperation, or some prime or sub-contractor driven political decision.
   
   
3. The security clearance requirement offers a great excuse for not doing anything. The requirements for security clearances, while essential, stranglehold the problem and prevents superbly qualified, but uncleared, people from even being considered.
   
   
4. The closed community prohibits outsiders from consideration. Even if you could break the security clearance logjam, the insular nature of the government contractor industry precludes those with comparable experience from applying. And even if they did apply it wouldn't matter – they'd be filtered out since they don't possess the skills and experience requirements.
   
   
5. The EEO/OFCCP reporting process is onerous and ill-conceived. Rather than opening up jobs to qualified diverse candidates, the current process actually prevents them from being considered.
   
   
6. Recruitment advertising is second rate. The advertising approaches government contractors take to fill their open positions is based on out-dated, inefficient, and costly processes. It's based on a model where supply exceeds demand and potential candidates are treated like fodder.

Of course, identifying problems is the easy part, coming up with practical solutions is a bit harder. These can be categorized into two big buckets: expanding the candidate pool and improving the process. Here are some ideas on how to address both issues:

1. Stop using outdated and incorrect job descriptions to bid and cost government contracts. Possessing skills, experiences and a security clearance doesn't predict success. Yet this is the focus of every recruiting and assessment process. Overlooked are those high potential people with less experience and those in the private sector who have done exceptional and comparable work.
   
   
2. Start using performance profiles to describe the job instead of skills and experiences. A performance profile defines what a person needs to do, rather than what a person needs to have. For example, rather than saying a person needs to have 5-7 years of J2EE/Java development experience and then list a bunch of generic activities, say that the person will lead the development of the architecture for a new inventory management system. Then describe the scope of the project (size, complexity, number of people, budget, etc.) and some critical sub-tasks. Use the interview to compare the person's comparable achievements to the work that needs to be done. The real benefit here is that using performance profiles opens up the pool to a broader group of candidates without compromising quality.
   
   
3. Use a multi-stakeholder job analysis to get everyone involved in the hiring process onto the same page. At every step in the process someone is making a decision. Those at the tail end of the process – the recruiters – are the front end of the sourcing, screening, and recruiting process, and have little understanding of real job needs. The best candidates make decisions on the impact they can make, the work that's involved, the people they'll be working with and for, and the chance to grow and learn. Hiring managers should be making decisions about the candidate's competency and motivation to do the work. Nothing currently exists that ties all of these informational needs together. A multi-stakeholder job analysis, however, gives everyone involved in the hiring process the information they need to attract the best and accurately assess competency.
   
   
4. Stop advertising individual requisitions. The odds are worse than Vegas that a perfectly qualified top person will stumble upon, and apply to, a poorly written ad that emphasizes skills and experiences. Instead, companies should group similar jobs and advertise all of these jobs on a talent hub (a micro site consisting of 3-4 web pages). As long as these sites are creatively written and search engine optimized, they'll be easier to find by the right people and have higher click-through rates.
   
   
5. Review the government reporting process. In order to ensure equal opportunity, the government has implemented reporting requirements that exacerbate the problem by screening on skills and experience rather than past performance. There are plenty of great people in protected classes who have similar, but not identical, experience to what's written on the job description, but are never given the chance. Using a multi-stakeholder job analysis and performance profile to define the work, instead of outdated and flawed criteria, will open up these opportunities to a broader group of people.
   
   
6. Rethink the whole security clearance process. It's clear that appropriate security clearances are essential, but unless this bottleneck is broken, none of these process improvement programs will have much effect. Part of the problem is lack of resources, inefficient systems, and poorly designed workflow. One idea worth considering is to extract lower security tasks from high-clearance jobs and bundle these into other positions. Preparing performance profiles can readily identify these tasks.

Creating three million Wal-Mart jobs is not economic revival. Without job mobility at the skilled and professional level, the job creation component of the stimulus package will be compromised. Pulling this off is not rocket science, but it does require a systems-level perspective in combination with hiring czar-like leadership. Getting your own house in order – in this case, government contractors – might be the best place to start.