This story was updated Monday evening with additional comments.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration is expanding its pitch to recruit early-career job seekers, now attempting to connect agencies with much-needed talent in job fields beyond the tech sector<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Office of Personnel Management on Monday launched a new \u201cearly-career talent network,\u201d an online portal where individuals interested in public service can sign up to receive announcements of job openings and upcoming hiring events from federal recruiters. The job network pertains specifically to younger, less experienced workers \u2014 a demographic that agencies have struggled to recruit and retain for years.<\/p>\n OPM\u2019s new talent website<\/a> consolidates links to various sections of USAJOBS.gov<\/a>, highlighting early-career job openings in \u201ccritical mission roles\u201d across five job fields \u2014 human resources, finance, technology, project management and contracting \u2014 many of which have faced longstanding skills shortages in the federal sector.<\/p>\n Those five areas are \u201cwhere we see current demand for early-career talent,\u201d OPM Director Scott Kupor wrote Monday in a blog post<\/a>. Through the new talent network, he explained that federal job seekers can stay informed of, express interest in, and apply for openings, while agencies can more easily connect with candidates at \u201cthe top of the funnel.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n \u201cThe ultimate goal here is very simple, but audacious: Make it really simple to match the best talent with the best opportunities,\u201d Kupor said. \u201cThe single-user mode of the past \u2014 where a single applicant applied to a single job opportunity as a single agency \u2014 doesn\u2019t accomplish that goal. But a network model will.\u201d<\/p>\n The recruitment effort comes after a year of sweeping reductions across the federal workforce, which disproportionately affected<\/a> younger employees. Less experienced workers were targeted as part of the governmentwide probationary terminations<\/a> the Trump administration undertook last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThat sent almost all of the federal government\u2019s recent employees heading for the doors and in turn made it hard for career advisors to recommend federal employment, if individuals could find themselves instantly jobless,\u201d said Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland\u2019s school of public policy.<\/p>\n Since President Donald Trump took office, the share of federal employees under age 30 has declined from about 9% in 2024 to about 8%, OPM\u2019s workforce data shows. In part, that includes a loss of employees through probationary firings, as well as the shuttering of the Presidential Management Fellows program<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kettl said the new early-career talent network is a positive and much-needed effort, but added that the outsized loss of younger employees over the last year means agencies will have a harder time attracting and retaining that talent going forward. Considering other workforce overhauls, such as the finalization of the Schedule Policy\/Career<\/a> employment classification, Kettl argued there is deep uncertainty in the long-term prospects of federal employment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good to see OPM taking a strong role here,\u201d Kettl said. \u201cHowever, the federal government has a long, long way to go in making federal employment attractive to younger workers again. Kupor\u2019s announcement isn\u2019t likely to counter the tsunami of bad news that has surrounded recruitment for federal positions over the last 14 months.\u201d<\/p>\n Three of the areas OPM is targeting in its new recruitment pitch \u2014 contracting, HR and IT \u2014 are among the federal job series hit the hardest<\/a> by recent employee separations, according to data from OPM<\/a>.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Nearly 7,600 federal HR managers in the 0201 job series have separated from their positions, either voluntarily or involuntarily, since January 2025. Just 928 employees were hired into a federal HR management role in that same time.<\/p>\n Contracting roles in the 1102 job series have faced the separation of more than 6,700 federal employees since January 2025, while agencies made just over 1,100 new hires.<\/p>\n And close to 20,200 federal employees left jobs in the tech fields OPM is now highlighting for early-career job candidates. The tech-related separations mostly stem from the 2210 job series for IT managers, with over 18,000 employee separations in that category. In that same time, agencies made about 2,300 new IT hires.<\/p>\n \u201cThe federal government has not proven itself in the last 14 months to be a reliable and trustworthy employer,\u201d Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Monday. \u201cI encourage the administration to think carefully about incentives and the message it sends to young people when it indiscriminately fires, maligns and maltreats its people, and what that means for the American people whom they would serve.\u201d<\/p>\n During a House subcommittee hearing last week, Kupor pushed back against Democrats\u2019 concerns<\/a> of agencies\u2019 abilities to send a positive message to early-career job seekers, considering the outsized impacts of the Trump administration\u2019s pitch to reduce the size of the federal workforce.<\/p>\n Instead, the OPM director argued that that job stability is not \u201cthe most compelling message\u201d for early-career employees.<\/p>\n \u201cWe may disagree on this, but I think what young people want is to build their careers. They want to learn. They want to be surrounded by smart people. They want to be in an environment where they can actually progress and be recognized for that,\u201d Kupor said during the March 25 hearing. \u201cThat\u2019s why the early-career push is exactly consistent with our push around performance management culture.\u201d<\/p>\n