The purpose of this memo is to inform you of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) FY 09 plans for the Career Patterns Initiative.

Career Patterns was introduced in 2006 to change the way the Government thinks about recruiting, hiring and keeping talented employees. It is a strategic program that informs all of the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework systems. OPM has seen tremendous results; agencies have expanded workforce planning efforts, implemented new recruitment programs, designed new branding and marketing initiatives, created new websites, and improved job announcements.

We will continue to work with agencies to interweave Career Patterns concepts in their practices for human capital management. The End-to-End initiative is a perfect example of how Career Patterns informs all aspects of talent management. In the months to come, as you learn more about OPM’s End-to End Hiring initiative, you will see how Career Patterns is a strategic thread running through the entire process.

To keep the focus on Career Pattern’s strategic value, OPM has changed Proud to Be (PTB) 6 plans. Last month I issued the following instructions to my Human Capital Officers (HCO):

• OPM will no longer ask agencies to provide “quality of applicant” ratio data. There is no future agency deliverable for this metric. 
• PTB 6 guidance for the Governmentwide deliverables for Career Patterns has been restated to: “Align agency job announcements with Career Patterns strategic initiative.” Your HCO will collect samples of your agency’s improved job announcements.
• There is no Career Patterns deliverable for this current PTB 6 quarter.
• OPM will pull results from the Manager’s Survey and the new Applicant Survey to monitor agencies’ progress on hiring process improvements. We recommend you encourage survey participation.

Since April 2008, OPM has been piloting the use of Career Patterns in USAJOBS tools. A revised Job Builder template provided by Employer Services and USA Staffing allows staffers to identify potential applicant pools. The template invokes Career Patterns icons on the job announcements. The pilot has an internal goal to focus HR staffers on writing job announcements geared to attract targeted applicant pools. As an external goal, the pilot will make it easier for applicants to search for jobs matching their requirements. Because of technical issues with back-end systems compatibility with the USAJOBS changes, our current position on the pilot is:

• The pilot, for the time being, will continue but with a focus on the internal goal only.
• Until we have enough information about agencies’ intent to upgrade back-end systems, which will ensure more job announcements identified by icons, we will postpone implementation of the external applicant component of the pilot.
• Agencies that are not a part of the pilot do not have to use the new Career Patterns section of the USAJOBS Job Builder template or invoke icons.

As soon as we are able to collect the data required for further decisions, I will be letting you know what path we will take with the Career Patterns/USAJOBS Pilot.

If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to call me or Patsy Stevens at (202) 606-1574.

cc: Human Resources Directors