It’s no secret that federal recruitment is undergoing a fundamental shift — but for agencies to truly implement changes for the better, they’ll have to rethink their overall approach to hiring. And as agencies work to reform their recruitment processes to meet new and heightened expectations, they’ll face further challenges without the right technology and data to support them.

“Change is never an easy thing to overcome, and any kind of shift from a traditional process is a lot, but technology can help aid that change,” Jon Newman, director of federal programs at Yello, said in an interview with Federal News Network. “Technology allows for opportunities to input evaluations or review forms in one system, so it’s all centralized into one place. You have end-to-end visibility. You’re tracking all your touch points from a candidate throughout the hiring process, from when they apply to when they’re onboarded. Allowing technology to really aid that change is going to enable organizations to position themselves as an employer of choice.”

New guidance this year from the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget set significantly higher expectations for agencies to broaden their applicant pools and more efficiently hire employees, while still meeting their most critical skills needs. Using technology and leveraging data will be essential to helping agencies navigate those major changes in expectations, Newman said.

“To get a clear-cut picture of recruitment and hiring, it speaks to the necessity of having everything in one centralized system,” Newman said.

Although many agencies already have hiring data at their disposal, streamlining that data can take them to the next level of truly using the information to change their approach to recruitment. With the right technology, agencies can better manage hiring events, while tracking both the quantity and quality of candidates.

Tailoring agencies’ recruitment strategies

While agencies will typically host or attend recruitment events throughout the year, working with limited resources makes it essential to pinpoint which events have the most return on investment, and which should be swapped out for a different approach.

“At the end of the day, agencies need to answer questions of, how many candidates are we meeting? How many are ultimately being converted into hires? Where are our top-quality candidates coming from? Yello can help tell that story and bring all that together,” Newman said.

By analyzing recruitment data acquired across various events, agencies can gain deeper insights, and tailor their approach to recruitment events for the long term.

“Now you can say, ‘we went to these 10 events, but seven of them were more successful than the other three,’” Newman said. “Instead of allocating those resources next year to those same three that didn’t work for us, let’s turn that into hosting more webinars or info sessions in the future, or creating more genuine connections on campus.”

According to Newman, employers that engage with candidates seven to 10 times, before they even apply for an opening, will see much better payoff in the long run. They’ll be able to connect with higher quality candidates and ultimately reach better retention rates. Having the right technology underpins agencies’ ability to form those more frequent connections with candidates.

“You have to have ways to automate all that, because it’s creating a higher amount of touch points,” Newman said. “With the lack of resources that are currently available in these types of positions in the first place, you have to have a way to build those campaigns in an automated fashion. Tools like Yello can help do that throughout the entire candidate journey.”

Addressing time-to-hire challenges

Using a centralized system for recruitment data can also aid agencies as they try to reduce their time-to-hire — a common pain point governmentwide. For some agencies, using that type of one-stop-shop system has already paid off significantly.

In one example, Newman said a Yello customer within the Department of Defense was able to reduce their average time-to-hire from 180 days, down to fewer than 40 days, by building a customized workflow, as well as shifting to using a direct hire authority.

“From when you immediately source a candidate, to entering them into a pipeline, to all engagement touch points, to the application process, through the selection process, and up to an onboarding date — when you can leverage technology and build those customized workflows, it’s helping to not only gain visibility in that time-to-hire, but ultimately bring it down,” Newman said.

In the case of the DoD customer, using technology not only made the recruitment process more efficient for the agency’s HR staff, but also dramatically improved the experience of job candidates, Newman added.

Connecting with Gen Z and the right candidates

Positioning an agency as an employer of choice, and attracting candidates through a better recruitment experience, is especially critical as the job market has become more competitive. But with the tools agencies currently have, such as OPM’s agency talent portal, agencies may not be reaching as broad a range of candidates as they need. Merging agencies’ existing resources with other technologies can expand the recruitment pool “beyond what’s already at our fingertips,” Newman said.

“There is a newer challenge of, how are we getting these net-new candidates to even familiarize themselves with the federal government, let alone understand how to navigate USA Jobs or the actual application process, regardless of the agency? And when you have that challenge of attracting new talent without a strategy, it just puts you back to square one,” Newman said. “When sourcing from Yello’s database of millions of early career candidates, recruiters can position their agency as an employer of choice and genuinely connect with these candidates earlier on in the process, even long before they’re actually applying, it only helps boost that ultimate result of hiring better quality candidates.”

Newman said a significant part of that involves creating real connections with candidates — something that Gen Z employees in particular have come to expect as a baseline. With a much larger pool of potential applicants, though, it also becomes imperative for agencies to shift to a more long-term, customized recruitment strategy.

“Part of that is engaging with candidates in a different way than they have ever engaged with candidates before. It’s leveraging social media, even using things like TikTok or Instagram. These candidates, especially Gen Z candidates, expect high amounts of touch points,” Newman said. “It’s different than just sending them a job description, having them read it, hoping they are a fit for the job and having them apply. It’s a lot more conversational — let’s genuinely connect with this candidate so that when they are ready to apply, they know who I am as an individual, as a recruiter for this organization, and they truly understand everything the organization is about. That’s how you’re going to set yourself apart.”

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