Obama Wants Federal Agencies To Hit The Gas On Hiring

By Joe Davidson and Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 11, 2010

If you've spent months trying to get a job with the federal government, things are about to get easier.

President Obama plans to instruct federal agencies to radically overhaul the process now used to hire government workers. The change is expected to cut in half the time it takes to fill vacancies and allow the government to better compete with the private sector for top talent.

It's been a long time coming. The Government Accountability Office has been calling for changes since 2001, and a host of outside voices have criticized the byzantine nature of federal hiring, with its stacks of paperwork and endless rounds of interviews that can keep an applicant hanging for months.

"You want to pull your hair out, you want to scream, you want to shout," said Stephanie Jones, 32, of Hyattsville, who lamented that she is only "killing trees" with her 75 federal job applications over the past three years.

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