OPM's hiring registers: What do you think?

Berry has promised to "dive deep" into the hiring register program to find out why it's underperforming.

OPM’s centralized hiring registers, which were unveiled earlier this year as one aspect of the overall push to reform the government’s hiring process, are falling flat so far. Their performance is so underwhelming — only 71 hires made so far out of 106,000 candidates — that there apparently has been some discussion in the administration about possibly canceling the program.

OPM Director John Berry called me earlier today to say that he’s not giving up on the registers, but acknowledged that they’re not living up to his expectations and need to be improved. But aside from a growing consensus within OPM that the agency hasn’t gotten the word out to enough front-line hiring managers and HR officials, nobody seems quite sure what’s holding hiring registers back. Even Berry’s stumped.

What do you think? Have you passed on using the hiring registers, and if so, why? Do you agree with one of our commenters that managers are skipping the registers because they already have someone specific in mind for certain jobs, and don’t want to yield to OPM’s choices? Are the quality of candidates on the registers lacking? Or is something else at play?

Feel free to comment below and share your thoughts, or e-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com.