AGA Today
Drive to Steer Graduates to Public Sector
By Anushka Asthana,
Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, July 27, 2006; A23
Scott Galla, a recent
graduate from the University of Wisconsin, was the first to arrive -- at
9 a.m. By the time the doors opened more than two hours later, the line
was wrapped around the building, nearly two blocks long. Two thousand
interns had descended on Washington's Warner Theater to answer a simple
call: "Uncle Sam needs you."
The government has
joined the talent war, and sent representatives yesterday to a town hall
meeting for Washington interns. The goal was to persuade top graduates
to throw aside ambitions of high pay in the private sector, and think
instead of high power in the public sector.
It is a much-needed
recruitment drive.
"The federal workforce
is graying at a very fast rate -- nearly half will be eligible to retire
in five years, and there is not sufficient interest or knowledge from
top talent," said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the
Partnership for Public Service, which organized the event.
One necessity is a
modern-day inspirational leader, Stier said, such as the one many of
today's workers had when they heard President John F. Kennedy say: "Ask
not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your
country."
Yesterday, they had
one: Barack Obama,
the charismatic freshman senator from Illinois. There were more young
people crammed into the theater to witness Obama talk about the joys of
public service than had turned up for singer Ashlee Simpson a few weeks
earlier. They jumped to their feet, clapping and yelling, as the
Democrat took the stage.
"The possibility for
us to engage in the process -- not of perfecting the world, but
improving it, pushing that boulder up the hill -- so that at the end of
our lifetimes we can look back and say, 'We made a difference,' " Obama
said to the audience of 2,000. "I can't imagine a more worthy project.
You don't have to be in government to do it, but government is one of
the most important vehicles by which you can do it."
In an interview before
the event, Obama said the heavy weight of university debt has deterred
young people from government jobs because they felt they could not
afford to pay back their loans on a public service salary. However, he
added, the rewards of a federal job are huge: "At Capitol Hill, 20- or
30-year-olds are making extraordinary decisions about the life of the
country and getting leadership experience that would take them another
decade to get if they were in the private sector."
For the Partnership
for Public Service, the pitch was simple. Stier told the interns why
working for the government matters: "Hurricane Katrina is why it
matters, the Iraq war is why it matters, health care is why it matters,
globalization is why it matters, poverty is why it matters, and the list
goes on and on."
Many were already
convinced, but they said their friends needed more persuasion. Galla,
23, who has been an intern at the Department of Health and Human
Services, said he wants to pursue a government career but that the
Wisconsin students he knows are not aware of the options in the public
sector, or that they see public service as a pay cut.
Katusia Lundi, from
Emory University's School of Law, said she wants to be a lawyer in a
government agency, but that debt is an issue. "The main thing that turns
people off the government is that they come out with $120,000 worth of
loans to repay," she said. "In a New York or D.C. firm, you could start
on $120,000 to $135,000; in the government, I think the highest starting
pay is $77,000." Still, Lundi noted that even if the goal were a career
in the private sector, a few years inside a government agency could be
invaluable.
Others talked about
being put off by the red tape of a federal job -- and the idea that
talent is not rewarded.
After the speakers
finished, Lundi, Galla and the other interns headed to a career fair to
hear about job prospects and to get advice on how to land a good
government job.
The room was full of
people crowded around stalls, which advertised agencies including NASA
and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At some stalls, lines of people
strained to hear what was said.
Next to a stand for
the Energy Department, Mary Cummings, a program analyst who has worked
there a year, told interns why she had chosen to work in the government.
"I used to work in nonprofit at a women's shelter," she said. "But I got
out because I wanted to impact on a larger number of people, and you can
only do that through the federal government."
Nearby, Aileen Del
Cid, an intern at the Department of the Army, was distributing a leaflet
to encourage others to consider the Army. It read: "Where you will find
responsibility, opportunity and stability."
Del Cid, Cummings,
Stier, Obama and Tim Russert of NBC News (who moderated the town hall
meeting) are all part of the same campaign -- to get the best to
dedicate their skills to their country.
Stier said the
Partnership for Public Service is working with government agencies to
improve their hiring process, and conducting market research at nearly
600 schools to figure out ways to persuade graduates to work for the
government.
"Any smart institution
would be investing now, because this is the future," Stier said.
© 2006 The Washington
Post Company