Presidential Management Fellows Program to Get a Tune-up from OPM

As the PSLawNet Blog has noted before, the federal Office of Personnel Management has been busy this year, tackling a large-scale federal hiring reform project.  Now, at the behest of OPM director John Berry, the popular and highly competitive Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program will undergo a facelift of sorts.  Initial goals seem centered on improving outreach to schools and shoring up the fellow placement infrastructure.  From a recent Berry memo:

…I am taking steps to reinvigorate the PMF Program.  As we build a 21st century workforce, the PMF Program will play a vital role in attracting men and women from a variety of academic disciplines and career paths who have a clear interest in, and commitment to, excellence in the leadership and management of public policies and programs.

…I am creating Power Packs to bring together several small teams of PMFs to work on projects as part of the reinvigoration effort.

…The initial Power Packs will focus on the following projects:  1) increasing outreach to deepen and broaden the PMF applicant pool; 2) revamping future orientation sessions; 3) developing a job-matching process to connect Finalists to jobs; 4) reenergizing the PMF Alumni Program; and 5) planning and executing the assessment center interview that we are restoring for the Class of 2011.  

We have no earthly idea what a “Power Pack” is, although from context we suspect it just means “group of people tasked with achieving a goal”, i.e. a work group.  It smacks of corporate management-speak to us.  Anyway, for aspiring fellows, here is more info about the PMF program.

[Tip of cap to the Government Executive website’s FedBlog, which posted on these developments late last week.]