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United States
Office of Personnel Management
Guide to Recruiting and Retaining Women in the Federal Government
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Outreach
The Key to Successful Recruitment
OPM, in conjunction with other agencies, plans to expand outreach efforts.
OPM plans to work with professional organizations like Executive Women in Government,
Women in Science, Federally Employed Women and others to enhance the Federal Government's
ability to recruit and retain highly-skilled and qualified women and prepare them to be
future government executives. This will be accomplished by identifying conferences
targeted for women and encouraging Federal departments and agencies to participate at
these conferences. Participation will include presentations, seminars and workshops on
Federal employment and other issues of interest to women.
One way of targeting colleges and universities is to have the OPM
Director, along with other agency heads, expand their visits to universities and colleges
to include those with a high enrollment of women. Visits with administrators, faculty, and
students would aim to promote public service careers. Women would be encouraged to apply
to the Presidential Management Intern Program and other student employment and intern
programs. (These programs are described in USAJOBS.)
OPM will assist agencies as they seek to hire graduate and undergraduate
students in the excepted service under the Student Educational Employment Program. There
are two components of this program: the Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP) and
Student Career Experience Program (SCEP). These programs operate under special provisions
whereby agencies can appoint students who are enrolled or have been accepted for at least
part-time enrollment at an accredited institution. Appointment in the STEP program is not
to exceed 1 year and may not be converted to permanent status. Individuals in the SCEP
program may be non-competitively converted to career/career-conditional appointments
within 120 days of completing academic requirements. The hiring agency may grant tuition
assistance to the students hired under the SCEP program.
An agency, at its discretion, and pursuant to appropriate Federal rules
and regulations, may pay the travel or transportation expenses of any individual candidate
for a pre-employment interview, or pay travel and transportation expenses for a new
appointee to the first post of duty. For either payment, a decision made for one vacancy
does not require a like decision for any similar future vacancies. Before authorizing any
payments, the agency must consider factors such as availability of funds, desirability of
conducting interviews, and feasibility of offering a recruiting incentive.
Page created 9 September 1998 |