OPM announces program to make it easier for former interns to land full-time federal employment

The Office of Personnel Management announced Wednesday that it has launched two new programs designed to boost agencies’ recruitment of federal interns for early-career jobs.

Under the Biden administration, OPM has made improving how the federal government recruits young workers a priority, and particularly revitalizing federal internship programs, which have seen declining use — and conversions from internships to full-time positions — over the past decade. The agency has finalized regulations revising the Pathways Program, which includes provisions that expand eligibility for recent graduates to include non-college post-secondary education and reduce the minimum number of work hours required for an intern to become eligible for permanent employment, in April last year.

In a memo to agency leaders Wednesday, OPM Associate Director for Policy and Workplace Innovation Veronica Hinton announced the creation of two new tools — the Pathways Internal Talent Program and the Recent Graduate Talent Program — that are now accessible to agencies through the USAJOBS platform. Similar to shared certifications, another recent hiring innovation that allows multiple agencies to hire from the same list of candidates deemed qualified for a job, these programs allow agencies to reach out to interns and recent graduates across government.

“The Pathways Intern Talent Program connects Pathways interns who meet the program’s requirements for conversion to permanent or term-time public service employment, but cannot be converted at their employing agency, with other federal agencies,” Hinton wrote. “The Recent Graduate Talent Program has the same goal, except it connects recent graduates with other federal agencies. These talent programs allow agencies to reach promising individuals eager to advance their federal careers.”

Hinton said the measures are another tool to help agencies meet a priority in President Biden’s management agenda to improve federal agencies’ hiring capacity and speed and reduce barriers to joining the federal workforce.

“They facilitate a way for agencies to effectively identify Pathways trainees or recent graduates to give them the option of being considered for conversion to other agencies,” she wrote. “It also speeds up the hiring time for agencies that can fill vacancies non-competitively with Pathways interns or recent graduates who have already met Pathways Program requirements and been found qualified.”

The Pathways Intern Talent program was officially launched under USAJOBS in March 2024, while the program covering recent graduates was implemented in July. OPM said it will demonstrate the new functionality to agency HR leaders in the near future.

“The purpose of this ‘soft release’ was to give agencies sufficient time to identify agency touchpoints and inform hiring managers and HR practitioners of appropriate use,” Hinton wrote. “Following the revised Pathways Program regulations released in April 2024, OPM continues to assist agencies with any functional or policy questions or issues. We encourage agencies to consult with the designated USAJOBS Agency Talent Portal point of contact for agency-specific instructions before using the talent programs.”