50,000 Job Opps and 5 reasons to consider a federal career

Photo from Zharth via Flickr with Creative Commons License

Over the next year, the federal government hopes to attract between 50,000 and 60,000 new employees to fill entry-level jobs. It will be the largest burst in federal employment since the Kennedy Era. One of the ways they're making this happen is through hiring reform. Starting in November, it will easier for federal agencies to connect qualified talent with available jobs.

Here is an excerpt from the Washington Post's story, A new batch of younger employees finding their place in federal workforce:

"A new movement is shaking up the federal bureaucracy, as an expanding pool of idealistic, results-oriented Gen X and Yers challenges the predictability and authority-driven rules of the World War II generation and the pay-your-dues baby boomers who followed."

I have spent my entire career in public relations and public information working for local, state and federal government organizations. Here are five reasons federal employment rocks!

1. You get unprecendented amounts of training. It was during the years I worked for the federal government that I had access to the most sophisticated training available to individuals in my career field. The lessons and information I learned have carried me through my career and I still benefit from them today.

2. You have the opportunity to travel to a variety of locations to access that training. During my time working for the federal government and/or federal programs for local government, I traveled to 12 different states. I saw places I would have otherwise not seen and I met interesting experts in my career field. There is much to be gained from being in the presence of like-minds and developing a network across the United States. It's especially beneficial when you need to bounce ideas off someone or commiserate when projects loom larger than life or when things go down.

3. You make decent money. When I left federal employment in 1995, I was making $39,000 a year. This was not bad money for a 26-year-old PR practitioner.

4. You have acces to the latest innovations. The federal government, through public-private partnerships often serves as the test bed for innovative ideas and projects. I had significant, daily exposure to the latest management principles and technological innovations. It stuns me now when I see organizations adopting practices and implementing programs the federal government was testing and advancing more than 15 years ago.

5. You have a mission.  I was always aware of my purpose when I worked for the federal government, and I developed a strong sense of duty to my country. I worked in public affairs for the military. Our business was defense, war. I was not a mechanical engineer and I did not perform depot maintenance on aircraft. I did what PR people do. I organized meetings and events; I wrote a lot of speeches, papers and reports. I told a lot of stories. Every day, I felt like I was doing my part to keep the B1, the F16, the AWACS flying.

If you're interested in learning more about working for the federal government, check out GovLoop, a social network for government. I've been following this site for a long time and was so happy to see it garner a mention in the Washington Post story.