According to The Wall Street Journal’s Federal Jobs: Easy to Spot, Hard to Get, the US Federal Government expects to hire more than 250,000 people over the next three years. These projected hiring needs are listed by skill and agency at Where the Jobs Are 2009: Mission-Critical Opportunities for America.

While the private sector lost employees over the last three years, the number of federal government employees has risen during the same period.

And although the USAJobs hiring process as described in the article clearly had bumps in the road for some applicants, several agencies are making great strides in automating recruiting.

FEDERALTIMES.com’s DHS plans hiring overhaul article outlines how the Homeland Security Department has adopted a unified hiring system strategy that will:

• Provide process metrics for the hiring process.
• Enable managers to create online job postings.
• Market vacancies to targeted populations.
• Enhance the applicant experience.
• Help HR review, rate, and track applicants
• Assist managers with interviews and job offers.

Jeffrey Neal, the personnel chief for the Homeland Security Department, will rely on talent metrics and analytics to drive the culture change he needs to achieve success:

"Hiring managers who are told, ‘You're the problem and here's the data that shows it,' start making decisions quicker. It's amazing how that works."