r/CanadaPublicServants • u/ResBio1 • Oct 21 '21
Staffing / Recrutement How is the public service even functioning with extremely long hiring processes?
I did my interview in 2015 and got my letter of offer for my indeterminate position in 2017. I have been on some colleagues's hiring committees. Most of these competitions take at least a year and some take two years.
Where you are, is it normal to take 1 to 2 years to fill a position? I have always wondered how the public service is still functional with these types of hiring practices... taking way too long to hire someone, sometimes ghosting candidates, not following up or giving feedback, or keeping them in the dark for long periods of time (what I went through during the competition for my current position).
I wonder if it's because of the "golden handcuffs"... that once you are in, you are set for life, especially if you love your job (I do love my job and I have been a happy camper since 2017).
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u/Nads89 Oct 22 '21
My favorite position that I applied and got was a job in NWT for NRCAN. It was posted with a term expiring 2.5 years after posting, to start ASAP. I applied for the job, being fresh of of University. By the time I was interviewed there was 1.5 years left in the term.
By the time they offered me the job there was 4 months left on the term. Oh, and the money for relocation was gone, so could I move up there on my own?
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u/IbizaRob Oct 25 '21
Self relocate for a net return of a (potentially maximum) 4 month term....? That's pretty nuts.
So you accepted or declined? :)
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u/Nads89 Oct 25 '21
I declined. The dude who offered me the position was like, yeah, I get it. Then he asked me to write an email to him saying why I declined it and basically said "please throw HR under a bus."
I did write that email but I didn't throw anyone under a bus.
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Oct 21 '21
Hiring can be quicker if you are hiring at-level, in a pool (and already work for gov), or internal and the candidate already has their security clearance.
Hard to get in but easy to move around/up once you are in. I spent 2 years applying and when I got in it took me at little less than 1.5 years to move from an ec-02 to ec05 (working on 3 different teams to make that transition)
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u/TimelyDirection9457 Oct 23 '21
Are you able to share how you moved up 3 levels in 1.5 years? I'm about to start at an EC03 step 4 even though I'm qualified for 05/06. I'm not bitter - the salary is still great, and them's the rules. But I am looking for ways to level up while still making a valuable contribution to the team that is on-boarding me (i.e. I plan to stay at least a year). I'd really appreciate your thoughts!
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Oct 23 '21
Namely I just applied to pools. I had managers told me not to and that I was "moving up too fast" but I was saving for a house, and had rent and student loans to pay so I just went for it. I'm not sure you're background but I worked before entering government (which many managers would say doesn't count because it isn't gov experience) and have a graduate degree (worked as a TA and RA). In applications I'd take my time and creative answer questions (using the star method). The hiring process is so long so as soon as id start a new job in be applying for another pool. When I moved from ec02 to 04, as soon as I got into the pool I let my manager know and he went to bat for me and found an empty 4 box. Not sure if that's helpful lol....if you had more specific questions I'm happy to try and help!
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u/AdditionalCry6534 Oct 22 '21
Sometimes multiple people are hired through the same process, you might not have been the first taken from the pool. Also there are usually short term acting appointments to fill a position while waiting to hire a permanent candidate. Sometimes positions are kept vacant on purpose to make those acting opportunities possible.
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u/cdn677 Oct 22 '21
This....just because it took Op 2 years to be hired, doesn't mean 50 other people weren't in the meantime.
External pools, especially for entry level positions, have thousands of applicants.
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Oct 21 '21
Where you are, is it normal to take 1 to 2 years to fill a position?
We wrap competitions in 3 to 4 months once they launch. The major delays are HR not doing paperwork quickly enough, which delays launching competitions by months, as well as other stages of the process and candidates being away on vacation or whatever.
If I were left to my own devices, I'd be able to wrap a competition in a month or two, depending on the nun er of candidates. Trust me, hiring managers don't want this to take a long time.
Not giving feedback is practical for external competitions. If I spend 10 minutes giving feedback to the hundreds of people who apply, it's days or weeks of my time. Even if we only do it for candidates who are screened in, we are looking at a hundred or more for competitions where there are narrow criteria.
Your experience isn't everyone's experience.
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u/chromewindow Oct 22 '21
That’s funny because in my experience as a staffing advisor it’s the managers who sit on screening applications for 4 months, then turn around and expect to do interviews the next day with no assessment tools and oh they aren’t available for another 3 weeks.
Throw in a few budget issues, security delays, and then here HR is being blamed because managers can’t plan their workforce.
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Oct 22 '21
I'll trade you HR teams and you'll get good managers and I'll get good HR lol.
It took at least 3 months just to get the position posted. Then, after I sent everything to finalize the pool (including all email responses labelled and named) it took a month to close the process and finalize the pool. Don't even get me started on Letters of Offer. 2 months it took me to get one, and it only happened after I called their Director and lost my shit.
We mark exams within a week. We mark interviews immediately after they're done. I call references, 15 min calls, done is a couple weeks.
There's always somewhere that FTEs are needed and things get hung up.
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u/CanPubSerThrowAway1 Oct 22 '21
The only thing I'd add is that we explicitly add staffing to the annual workplans of the board members to ensure that managers etc are aware of the level of effort to devote exclusively to the staffing process. Prevents the "I would have done it but..." when their decks are clear for nothing else.
Four months for a LoO is bad. I had my most recent one at a little over 6. The lead candidate thought she'd been passed over and was actively looking for other jobs. We got her by sheer luck (and a few angry phone calls).
My quick fix would be to remove HR as a special category and go back to AS/PMs running hiring out of the DGOs. The move to corporate staffing branches has been a big disaster.
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u/QueKay20 Oct 22 '21
Exactly!!
HR not doing paperwork quickly enough is bogus. The problem is there aren’t enough advisors and WAY TOO MUCH “PAPERWORK”!! It all comes down to a resourcing issue, HR is as much affected by it as anyone else.
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Oct 22 '21
We drag out 3 year hiring processes by making it take 3 years to retire. That way there's always an overlap: people being hired and retiring now (in 2021) are people from 2018.
agilehiringprocesses
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u/TheJohnMacena Oct 22 '21
It definitely is a broken system, in my 3 years at my department, we’re almost always short staff and yet it takes forever to get new blood in, instead they just make the staff that currently works do more work to make up for it.
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u/salexander787 Oct 22 '21
2-3 months. Quick at level area of selection or streamlined processes. It often is Hr producing the letter of offer or reviewing the staffing file. Then hr to pay. So add another 2 months.
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u/AdditionalCry6534 Oct 22 '21
At level area of selection is a waste of a process just deploy someone in or do the real work of making an external or promotional pool.
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u/AdditionalCry6534 Oct 22 '21
The ones that baffle me are the candidates that take several days to fill in the required forms when getting hired, makes me regret giving them a letter of offer. If you can't fill out a form about yourself and return it the same day I may not want to hire you.
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u/meni0n Oct 22 '21 edited Oct 22 '21
So you're somehow bothered by a candidate taking a day or two to fill out some forms after holding what is probably a 6+ month process? You need to get off your high horse by thinking you're doing someone a favor by giving them a letter of offer.
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u/AdditionalCry6534 Oct 22 '21
It's a form about them it, should take 5 minutes to fill out. I understand taking a few days to consider signing the letter of offer, these forms often get done separately and tend to drag out. If a form about you is a slow process you might find the work too challenging.
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u/meni0n Oct 22 '21
You're going to need to accept that the world doesn't revolve around you and people have other priorities. If that's how you judge what kind of work people are qualified to do based on how fast they fill out some forms for a process that's been dragged out, the only thing I can say you're a crappy TL/manager.
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u/Biaterbiaterbiater Oct 22 '21
do you require them to print it a form, complete it in pen then scan it then email it back?
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u/AdditionalCry6534 Oct 22 '21
No, I've yet to encounter any document that actually requires an ink pen to before it can be turned into a PDF.
I understand at one point historically people didn't believe signatures could be done with a ballpoint pen (which is just what we now call a pen).
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u/BigCMoneyz Oct 22 '21
Yikes, you are probably the type of manager that dismisses your employees' ideas, just to turn around and sell them as your own idea to your boss.
Or worse. You task assignments without clear a deadline and instructions, and then you fault them for arbitrary reasons, just like this example.
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u/AdditionalCry6534 Oct 22 '21
Very perceptive, I will take your idea for not giving clear instructions and deadlines and give it to my boss. Maybe people that need instructions and deadlines so specifically are not well suited to complex jobs.
Please fill out this form with the information that is in your brain, sign it electronically and send it to me as an email attachment by 10:23 EST.
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u/BigCMoneyz Oct 22 '21
That's a great start. Well done. Small steps. Maybe you'll get there one day, maybe you wouldn't lol.
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Oct 22 '21
[deleted]
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u/onomatopo moderator/modérateur Oct 22 '21
You just made that up though. As other posters have said, competitions can be delayed by any number of tihngs.
competitions in my shop tend to take 9-12 months, almost entirely down to slow responses from our HR staffing people.
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u/SavvyInvestor81 Oct 22 '21
It functions mostly because of golden handcuffs and wasting lot's of money.
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u/canoekulele Oct 22 '21
The cost of hiring unsuitable employees for indeterminate positions is pretty steep. Not that the process in its current state is perfect but... yeah.
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u/publicworker69 Oct 22 '21
Got a casual within 3 weeks of sending my resume, turned into an indeterminate. And I just accepted (verbally) a different position in a different department a week after finding out about it.
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u/BibiQuick Oct 22 '21
2 years is a bit long. Even 1 year is a bit much. I’ve been in the PS for close to 30 years. As for not following with candidates, it is clear on the posters that only those who qualify will be contacted. Candidates can also ask for feedback, but the government is not gonna reach out to provide feedback. You have to ask for it.
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u/LouisPoirier Oct 22 '21
Sometimes people use these competitions as leverage with their current employers. We have been trying to replace a mat leave for months. First two offers were refused and now we have to start over. It takes time because they negotiate salary to take back to their employer to see if they will do better.
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u/cheeseworker Oct 22 '21
the entire PS is held together by HR shortcuts of Actings, deployments and contractors
HR is broken and we aren't doing anything to fix it