On Monday, December 27, 2010, President Obama established three new career development programs for the government, replacing the Federal Career Internship Program (FCIP) — and hoping to attract and recruit more recent college and trade-school graduates into the federal workforce. (We gave him our two cents about this move.)
The “Pathways Program” aims to attract more recent graduates by accepting applications directly from candidates, instead of requiring nominations as the FCIP did previously. The program will be launched within a year and will be overseen by the Office of Personnel Management to evaluate agencies’ progress.
The three-track program will offer more mentoring and training, government officials said. It is also open to recent graduates within two years of completing their degree (six years for veterans).
President Obama wrote the following in the order:
“The existing competitive hiring process for the Federal civil service … is structured in a manner that, even at the entry level, favors job applicants who have significant previous work experience. To compete effectively for students and recent graduates, the [government] must improve its recruiting efforts; offer clear paths to Federal internships for students from high school through post-graduate school … and provide meaningful training, mentoring and career-development opportunities.”
Although the Washington Post article did not specify other details of the program that we suggested earlier this week, such as recruitment strategies, networking, recognition or work samples, it appears this internship program is on the right track to creating great opportunities for recent college graduates.
Do you think you’ll be interested in this new government internship program?
