U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

E-Gov
Recruitment One Stop (ROS)

Introduction

The United States Federal Government faces a potentially staggering recruitment challenge, with 60% of its workforce eligible to retire in the next ten years. Exacerbating this problem was the government's realization that its processes and systems for posting vacancies and recruiting candidates were slow, cumbersome, inconsistent, and not user friendly. This created a significant barrier to recruiting highly qualified and talented individuals in a timely manner. Qualified candidates were frequently finding jobs outside the Federal Government as a result of the difficulties experienced with the government's recruitment process. In 2001, President Bush identified Recruitment One-Stop (ROS) as one of his top e-Government initiatives to attract the best and brightest candidates to the Federal workforce, requiring a complete re-engineering of the existing online recruitment system.

The result is the creation of the USAJOBs website: http://www.usajobs.gov

Overview

The Recruitment One-Stop (ROS) initiative has simplified the process of locating and applying for Federal jobs. Through a series of enhancements to USAJOBS, the Federal Government's official one-stop source for jobs and employment information, ROS delivers many new job seeker focused features including improved job searching; clean, concise, understandable and attractive job announcements; a "create once, use many" basic job resume that can be used to apply to multiple vacancies, agencies and systems; a resume mining feature that allows fast, cost efficient candidate sourcing by Federal managers and HR specialists; and online, real-time application status tracking.

The key to understanding Recruitment One-Stop lies in the word "one". ROS has created one job search engine for competitive service Federal job postings that powers searching on more than 100 agency sites; one standard display for job announcements; and one resume builder to create the basic application document. This integrated process benefits citizens by providing a more efficient process to locate and apply for jobs, and assists Federal agencies in hiring top talent in a competitive marketplace. The Recruitment One-Stop initiative has increased job seeker satisfaction with the Federal job application process and is helping Federal agencies locate highly-qualified candidates and improve response times.

Description

Each year, millions of Americans seek information about employment opportunities with the Federal Government. Recruitment One-Stop improves the process of locating and applying for Federal jobs, and expands the functionality of the OPM USAJOBS automated employment information system. Recruitment One-Stop benefits job seekers by offering:

• A consolidated jobs database for all competitive service Federal job postings;
• A Federal Government branded web presence that delivers a fast and responsive experience;
• A job search routine that is clear, easy to use, and helps job seekers identify jobs that match both their skills and interests;
• An improved, intelligent, and efficient process for building on-line job applications;
• On-line application status tracking; and,
• Seamless integration with agency automated assessment systems.

Through these services, Recruitment One-Stop has positioned the Federal Government as the first stop for job seekers. The improved front-end process for job applicants is helping increase the quality level of new hires and reducing the amount of time it takes Federal agencies to source candidates. There are now over 1.15 million active accounts on the site. Since its revamp in August, 2003, USAJOBS has logged over 221 million visits from job seekers.

The improved USAJOBS site became operational in August 2003 and enhancements continue through 2006. The ROS redesign brings significant enhancements for both the job seeker and the recruiter. The system, for the first time, allows job seekers to access a single database to locate all public positions in the Federal Government, utilize a single resume to apply for positions across the government, and have an online experience that surpasses that of private job sites. In addition, USAJOBS provides managers with a state-of-the-market website that not only attracts more qualified candidates, but also allows the managers to better identify the best available candidates. Industry leading candidate sourcing tools allow recruiters to rapidly identify high-potential candidates, saving days, if not weeks, in the recruitment process.

During the last year, USAJOBS has implemented numerous enhancements for job seekers and recruiters, including:

• Improved job search options;
• Installation of agency branding in job announcements;
• Development of new agency branded search pages;
• User interface upgrade;
• New job search layout;
• Spell check in resume builder and job builder;
• New job announcement builder tool;
• New job announcement template tool;
• Resume builder and resume mining search enhancements;
• Upgraded search agent registration options and search agent display;
• Implementation of integrated job application and application status tracking with automated staffing and hiring systems in use by Federal agencies; and,
• Added a link to the HireVetsFirst website and a link to a report on "Where the Jobs Are" containing hiring projections for the Federal work force during the next several years.