Remarks of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta

Pathways Program Day

National Institutes of Health

November 17, 2014

As prepared for delivery

Good morning everyone! I am so excited to be here for our first Pathways Program Day.

Thank you, Kim and your whole team for putting together a really terrific comprehensive program. I know it will be a great opportunity for all of you to get some advice, share some stories about your experiences in the Pathways program and help you begin to think about what’s next. I also want to thank the National Institutes of Health for providing such a wonderful space for us to hold this inaugural event.

I love the theme for this day: From Student to Civil Servant, Your Time is Now. That is so true. During my first year as Director of the Office of Personnel Management, I have been traveling the country talking to young people just like you. I’ve urged them to consider doing what you made the choice to do – give public service a try.

For me, and I suspect for many of you, public service is a mission, a purpose-driven mission. Federal employees make a difference every day in people’s lives. You make sure that the water we drink every day is clean. You keep our skies safe. You help students apply for and get college loans. You protect the environment.

The studies that have been done about your generation – the millennials – all say that young people want to make a difference. And they say you believe government can be a force for good.

We recently did a government-wide survey of our employees to find out what they think about their jobs. We broke out the data from our Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey for workers under the age of 33. I was thrilled with what the data showed. Our Federal millennial employees – who number more than 336,000 – told us they strongly believe the work they do is important. They believe they are given real opportunities to improve their skills. They are very satisfied with their jobs and they would recommend Federal service to their peers.

So would I. It makes me so happy that all of you decided to try Federal service for your internship or for your first job after getting your degree. I hope you are enjoying your experience and that the tips you will get today- from resume-writing to learning how to improve your networking skills – will help you all along your career.

We also looked at the educational levels of our Federal workers. In that report, we learned that many Federal employees are looking for opportunities to improve their skills by continuing their education while they build their careers in public service.

Something else we know about millennials is that you don’t like to stay in one place for very long. When I was your age, it was pretty common for someone to get a job after school and retire from the same place they started. Now, millennials spend an average of two years at one position.

The great thing about working for the Federal government is that you can have many, many careers and still be a Federal employee. You can have a variety of different jobs at one agency or move between departments. Or, you can try out Federal service, build your resume and move on to something else. And when you are in the middle of your career, you may decide to come back.

Either way, your participation in the Pathways internship, recent graduate program or our Presidential Management Fellows program will, I hope, give you the tools you need to have a successful and fulfilling career. And maybe leave you inspired about a career in public service.

Every day the work you do inspires managers and supervisors in agencies across the government to want more interns, more fellows, and more recent graduates to come work for them.

We are looking closely at all of our Pathways programs and working to educate hiring managers, human resource professionals about how they can make better use of Pathways. And, we are partnering with colleges and universities all across the country to help them encourage their students to give Pathways a try.

For our hiring managers, we’re putting together videos to explain about specific aspects of the Pathways program. We’re creating tool kits for them to use to help them navigate the process. And we’re creating a handbook for Pathways program officers. We’re also changing the way we tell young people about the opportunities in Pathways. We are no longer waiting for you to come to us. We are reaching out through LinkedIn, through Twitter, through Facebook. We will be telling the story of Federal service and marketing our Pathways programs on the platforms that you use every day.

We’re also enhancing USAJOBS, the main portal for looking for internships and permanent jobs in the Federal government. We’ve assembled focus groups, including one with college students. We’ve talked one-on-one with people who have used USAJOBS.gov. What we have found out is that we need to make USAJOBS more interactive. We need to better match people’s skills with the available jobs. And we must give you answers to your questions without you having to click through several pages to find what you need. We also learned that we need to put job announcements in plain English. We are doing that. And soon our announcements will also be available in plain Spanish.

I’m also here to ask for your help. You are going to hear today from some former interns, former PMF’s. You’ll also hear from some people who started out as interns and are now part of the Senior Executive Service, the highest level of Federal leadership. They’ll tell you how their first experience in Federal service shaped their career and why they decided to continue on the path they did.

I hope someday some of you might be sitting on similar OPM panels, telling future interns and PMFs about how you got your start in Federal service and how the Pathways programs influenced your professional life.

So enjoy today’s conference. Let us know how we did. And thank you for the great service you are providing each and every day to the American people.

Thank you.