Somewhere between a Help Wanted ad and a 39-page job announcement -- complete with special requirements, screening questionnaire, duties, qualifications, and benefits -- there's an optimal message to attract the perfect candidate. The challenge to recruiters has been to determine that critical balance of crisp, concise language understood by all potential candidates while meeting the comprehensive legal and policy requirements of your agency.

For the past 8 months a task force of OPM, agency leaders and Monster Government Solutions has been attacking this problem and designing a solution that provides you with the capability to deliver clean, market-oriented messages, which are attractive to job seekers and include all the required job details. The task force was challenged to design a solution that will:

• Dramatically improve the way the Federal Government advertises positions
• Shift the emphasis from a document that merely satisfies public posting requirements to a recruitment tool that helps agencies attract top talent into public service.

Introducing the New USAJOBS Job Announcement Display

On November 22, 2003, USAJOBS launched the new Job Announcement enabling technology -- the razor's edge in online job postings. You can see the new tabbed display through December 31, 2003 by viewing the IRS Criminal Investigator position. Click here to view the job announcement display.

Joann Sokol and Frank Stipe of the IRS have played an active role in designing the new format and have worked with IRS recruiters to rewrite their vacancies to take full advantage of the new job announcement format. The IRS has the distinction of being the first agency to post an announcement in the new display format.

The New Job Announcement Display - Exposed

So lets take a quick tour of the new format and see what’s new:

When Can I Post My Announcements in the New Format?

The IRS posting was manually constructed to show the new display format. There are two ways that you can get your job announcements to appear on USAJOBS in the new format:

1. If you use USAJOBS' Job Builder to create and post your jobs, the new display will be available to you in early 2004 when the new Job Announcement Builder is released. Job Announcements created using the new builder will automatically post in the new display format.



2. If your agency uses a staffing automation system -- such as QuickHire, USA Staffing, Resumix, etc. -- modifications need to be made to that system to post jobs using the new XML gateway. You should contact your staffing automation vendor to learn when they will support the new vacancy format. We are working with numerous third-party vendors and homegrown systems to integrate them into USAJOBS. The first systems posting in the new format should appear in December 2003, with others joining early in 2004.

How Can I Prepare to Take Full Advantage of the New Announcement Display?

There are several steps you can take now:

1. Review and become familiar with the IRS job announcement in the new format.



2. Communicate the new display opportunity to your colleagues and peers so everyone is aware and informed.



3. Develop a strategy to encourage your agency's recruiters to adjust the writing of job announcements to easily integrate and take full advantage of this new display.



4. Rearchitect your existing job announcement templates so they'll be prepared for the new display



5. If you're using an agency staffing system, discuss implementation plans with your staffing system vendor and volunteer to help.

For more information about the new job announcement format and how you can prepare for them, please contact Dan DeMaioNewton at dan.demaionewton@monster.com.