Careers in International Affairs, Eighth Edition

6 The United States Government - Careers in the U.S. Government

6 The United States Government Careers in the U.S. Government Matthew McManus Matthew McManus is a 1990 graduate of the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University. He joined the U.S. Department of State as a Presidential Management Fellow and is currently the division chief for energy producer country affairs. The views presented here are his own. GOVERNMENT SERVICE should be irresistible. It offers a chance for personal and professional growth, and these days it is well paid. But most of all, it offers the opportunity to have an impact on your country and your fellow citizens. You can make a difference in government service . It remains as true in both your job search and your life that ‘‘timing is everything.’’ Given demographics, there has never been a better time to look for work in the federal government! As one makes the long-awaited transition from student to twenty-first century knowledge worker, many catchphrases come to mind. In the movie The Graduate, ‘‘plastics’’ was the future, and indeed that was good advice in the 1960s. Today’s advice might be ‘‘energy’’—careers in biofuels ; or, more soberly, biowarfare or avian flu epidemiology, energy, national and homeland security, genetically modified agriculture, international trade, the Internet, or nanotechnology. Globalization is no longer a buzzword; it is here, and all federal agencies, no matter how domestic their mandate, are approaching their issues with an international dimension and with cadres of international staff to guide them. No matter what your educational background, expertise, or interests, the U.S. 53 54 • The United States Government government can offer you a wealth of experience, responsibility, and job satisfaction as it seeks to promote, regulate, enforce, or shape the future of our economy and the safety and well-being of our citizenry. You will work on key issues and participate in policy debates central to our nation and its ideals. All this is available in an employment sector that is changing rapidly. The ‘‘new normal’’ for the twenty-first century workforce will bear little resemblance to that of the late twentieth century, in which many current federal managers spent the majority of their careers. This is being exacerbated by several compelling trends that are converging to make immediate planning and action imperative, including: • A significant retirement wave among current federal employees has begun—40 percent of the government workforce is expected to retire between now and 2015. • Competition for talent is increasing throughout the national economy. • Differing expectations among applicants need to be accommodated; their needs and interests have shifted from past generations, which means government must offer a wider variety of employer–employee relationships. One interesting result of all this is the potential for rapid promotion! Consider the traditional view of a federal career: An entry-level employee joins an agency and spends the next thirty-plus years coming to work five days a week, in an agency office, on a traditional schedule to provide valuable public service and meet that agency’s mission. That view will continue to describe many positions. However, more and more of the needed and available talent will be interested in something other than this traditional arrangement. To compete successfully for those potential employees, the government is adapting to their expectations to create an environment that will support their success. The federal government must cultivate, accommodate, and advertise the broad range of opportunities and arrangements that will characterize federal careers in the future. In short, it is developing a new mindset. It is dealing with a twenty-firstcentury challenge that requires a twenty-first-century approach. The Office of Personnel Management’s ‘‘Career Patterns Approach’’ Creating the environments to attract a wider range of potential employees will require planning and investment in equipment and training. Among Careers in the U.S. Government • 55 other things, the government is working to make sure that managers and leaders have the specific competencies to supervise and manage in nontraditional work settings. That is where the Career Patterns initiative comes in. Using this new approach, federal human capital managers will be able to shape their workforce planning efforts to build and operate in a broad range of employer–employee arrangements where, for example: • Retirees from private-sector firms bring their skills to a federal agency as a commitment to public service. • Recent graduates form a cadre of mobile talent that deploys to wherever...