The data is compelling. Nearly half of the Federal workforce is eligible for retirement within the next five years. Only 10 percent of Federal employees are under 30 years of age. Regardless of hiring and pay freezes, and even delayed retirement, an estimated 1 million jobs will be opening over the next five years. That means Federal agencies need to attract young new talent.
That talent is online and using social networks. In fact, Washington DC was named the #1 most socially networked city in America. Use of social media can benefit both agency branding and sourcing. Agencies can use websites and social networks, through videos, blog entries, Twitter and more, to show the public service opportunities that they have available.
Source: Social HR (Thomson-Reuters 2011), CareerifyTM 2011
The broad reach of social networking can:
- Broadcast jobs vacancies to both target an audience and cast a wider net.
- Provide connections to passive candidates.
- Get referrals from employees with valuable contacts.
- Lower sourcing costs.
As agencies embrace social networking tools and interact with candidates, they need a single, unified platform from which job postings can be distributed and candidate information received into a centralized talent pool database. Using social networks effectively in this way fits the mission of garnering top talent for the Federal workforce of the future.
