Way back in 2009, it looked like Millennials could solve the "Baby
Boomer brain drain." For years, the impending retirement of half of the
Federal workforce had cast doubts on the ability of agencies to meet
their mission. Now the so-called "Civic Generation," born in 1980 and
nurtured on networks, was showing great interest in Federal employment.
Agencies were rivaling private sector stars as great places to work
for current college graduates. The new president openly talked about
making government cool again. Yes, the procedures of government hiring
might throw up obstacles. But for one brief shining moment, young people
appeared to offer a long-term solution to succession planning and the
ability of agencies to fulfill their mission as Boomers retired.
Then national and global economic woes seeped into the public sector,
from local and state to the Federal government. Suddenly there were
two-for-one, three-for-two and even total hiring freezes. Internship
and co-operative programs seemed to dissolve. Salary freezes made
advancement difficult and reduced yet another recruiter bargaining chip.
No wonder agencies began re-evaluating their job fair schedules, social
network expansions and ad placements. But before you hit the panic
button, TMP Government has some timely points for you to consider.
After the election of 2004, a U.S. News & World Report article sounded an alarm. Under the heading "Brain drain," the author asked, "Half of all federal workers can retire in five years, will government be able to replace them?"
He further noted, "The graying extends across the board and transcends
political debate about how much government should do." Seven years
later, has anything really changed?
Well, the political debate about the size of government certainly
hasn't ended. It is now front and center with hiring freezes and
billions of program cuts looming. Yet, According to the U.S. Office of
Personnel Management, the average age of the Federal workforce remains
over 47 years, and only a little over a quarter are under 40. Hence, we
have a potential brain drain meeting a succession nightmare.
Agencies must continue to leverage experience via mentoring,
knowledge management and consultants. Yet simultaneously, they must
court the leaders of America's future at a moment when they can't extend
a plethora of offers. The alternative: Lose the attention of Gen Ys
when graduation time is around the corner and retirements could happen.
That's why TMP Government believes that you need new ways to stay in
front of your audience frequently and powerfully.
College recruitment: Out of sight = out of mind
Before you start cutting your college road trips and job fair
schedules, you might want to consider the implications of losing
visibility on campuses. For starters, the chances are your footprint
among students may be far smaller than the corporate recruiters. Walk
through an engineering department and see whose posters are up 365 days a
year, offering scholarships and sponsoring technical competitions. See
who has the big booths and the most advance appointments. In other
words, most government recruiters are already at a disadvantage. Your
task is to create awareness of your opportunities before students begin
making job decisions. So what happens if you decide to ease up on your
campus schedule? Well most students will think that you're no longer
interested in them. If they're aware of freezes, they may even put two
and two together and reach an obvious conclusion: You're out of the
hiring game.
On the other hand, you can take a more strategic approach. Accepting
the limitations of your ability to extend offers, you can build a
pipeline. Think of the precise competencies that you will need to meet
your changing mission in the years ahead. How do you get on the radar of
those people, while in high school or earlier years of college? How do
you show your relevance to this audience's aspirations?
Brand availability: "Being there" builds "memory links"
At some point recently, you have probably come across a company or
product and thought, "I didn't know they were still in business." Or
conversely, you sought a business and were surprised to discover it had
closed. Or worse, you found that you had to jump through online and
offline hoops to find out if you could purchase the product. Such
thoughts are natural in tough times.
Byron Sharp and the researchers of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute have a
term for this phenomenon: "physical and mental availability." In their How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know
(Oxford University Press: 2011), they say, "The key marketing task is
to make a brand easy to buy: this requires building mental and physical
availability."
In recruitment, physical and mental availability translate into job
seekers knowing that you meet their need when you need them. That can be
tricky even in the best of circumstances because most communications
are "a-situational," i.e. you may receive them at any time, whether or
not we're shopping. For this reason, Sharp has changed the metrics for
awareness. He focuses on "brand salience," which is the state of being
prominent in one's memory. Salience, in turn, depends on the quantity
and quality of memory links to and from the brand.
Quantity is relatively simple: How many associations does the job
seeker have with your brand name? If you're NASA or the FBI, the chances
are they have many. Similarly, the corporations through their physical
availability on campus and in the media likely have more than a typical
government agency. Conversely, if you're a no show at job fairs, you
obviously can't increase the amount of memory links. In simple terms,
you can be forgotten.
Quality is more subtle: How strong are the memory links? How relevant
are they to job seeking? Your goal is to build strong, relevant
associations that let job candidates know your value to them. If those
associations are relevant and strong enough, they can even take you
through difficult periods. For example, NASA still ranks number nine in
the 2011 Universum Study of the top ten places where young professionals
wish to work. Considering that the agency has had its last manned
spaceflight for the foreseeable future, that's a testimony to the power
of associations. Can you build a more indelible memory structure than
putting a human on the moon even if it happened 11 years before you were
born?
The moral: Hiring cycles may come and go. But most government
missions are rooted in societal needs that can't be jobbed out to
commercial enterprise. Your mission requires that at the minimum you be
physically and mentally available, ready and relevant for when you hire
the next generation.
For more information on how TMP can help build your brand salience in tough times, please contact John Bersentes at john.bersentes@TMPGovernment.com or call him at 703-269-0092.
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