Letter: The federal workforce has two big problems

A reader shares his observations of what ails the federal workforce.

Regarding "Obama wants changes to federal workforce"

Two major problems I have observed in the federal workforce and in places such as the World Bank and Global Environment Facility:

1. The retiring executives and senior officers come back almost immediately to the workforce as contractors/consultants and shut out younger people who should be able to take up these tasks/positions to
grow in the career. This [creates] a major bottleneck in the workforce.

2. You can beat your brains out applying religiously to advertised positions which are a perfect fit with your skills and experience but the problem: The "candidate" has already been identified. If you are lucky to be short-listed, you are merely "escorting" the pre-selected candidate to justify their employment process as being "competitive" when it was not.

Difficult to prove but this is happening. 

Anonymous

What do you think? Paste a comment in the box below (registration required), or send your comment to letters@fcw.com (subject line: Blog comment) and we'll post it.