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Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Personnel Essay

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Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Personnel

INTRODUCTION

One of the most critical challenges facing public administration is the recruitment and retention of qualified personnel. While the problem of attracting talent into public service is not new, the introduction and rapid expansion of the high technology and Internet industry, the problem has reached crisis proportions. Both the public and private sector have embraced the Information Age with increasing dependence on a skilled and versatile workforce. Private industry responded by developing greater versatility in expanding and contracting their workforce to compliment the strategic requirements and goals of the organization. Public administration did not adequately …show more content…

The need to incorporate similar flexibility in public administration has been recognized and addressed by congressional committees, public agencies, human resources professionals, and public administration academicians. This research paper focuses on the issues, recommendations and recent initiatives to address competitive recruitment and retention in contemporary public administration.

Understanding the Shortfalls

The crisis in recruiting and retaining talented personnel has multiple fronts. Public service has become increasingly less attractive to college graduates, more and more long term employees are seeking early retirement, and retaining mid level employees from enticing positions in the private sector are major reasons the government has severe shortages in qualified and talented management. In his testimony before the House Committee on Government Reform, Steven Kellman, a professor of Public Management at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, points out disturbing trends in the hiring rate of college graduates from institutions specializing in public management and administration. “Twenty years ago, about three quarters of the graduates from our two year master’s program took their first job with government. Now that figure is down to about one-third. These figures are similar to those of other major graduate programs in public policy around the

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