美国公务员：岗位虽多不易得
The federal government's 'help wanted' sign is up. The problem, applicants are finding, is getting in the door.

联邦政府举起了“虚位以待”的牌子。求职者发现，问题是很难坐到这些位子上去。

More than a quarter-million federal workers are expected to be hired in the next three years, which makes the government attractive to job seekers at a time of 9.8% unemployment and shrinking private payrolls. But the government, it turns out, isn't very good at hiring. Its screening process has been making it hard for applicants, particularly young ones with less work experience and fewer government contacts, to move into federal jobs.

预计在接下来三年，联邦政府将招聘超过二十五万的员工。在一个失业率高达9.8%、私营部门就业岗位不断缩减的时期，这让政府职位在求职者当中显示出诱惑力。但人们发现，政府并不擅长于招聘。其筛选流程让申请人很难获得在联邦政府的职位，特别是那些相对缺乏工作经验和政府人脉的年轻人。

And internships, often a direct route to employment in the private sector, rarely yield full-time government positions. Only 7% of government interns are hired, compared with more than 50% in the private sector, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit watchdog group.

实习通常是在私营部门找到工作的捷径，但通过实习获得全职政府职位却是很少的。非盈利监督组织“公务员合作组织(Partnership for Public Service)”数据显示，只有7%的政府实习生获得聘用，相比之下私营部门这一比率超过了50%。

USAJobs.gov, the government's primary vehicle for listing open positions and receiving applications, is known for its lengthy application process -- and for not responding to most applicants, according to public-policy organizations and the applicants themselves.

公共政策组织和求职者自己都说，作为政府发布职位、接受申请首要工具的USAJobs.gov网站，申请程序出了名的冗长，而且众所周知的是不对多数求职者给个回音。

Officials acknowledge that in the past, many applicants haven't received a reply, but said they are in the process of ensuring that each applicant is notified, repeatedly, about the status of the application.

官员们承认，过去很多求职者是收不到回复的，但他们表示，正在设法保证让求职者不断获得有关申请状态的通知。

'Things may be working OK now for the agencies . . . but an entire generation is due to retire,' said Steven Erickson, 25 years old, who has been searching for a government job for 10 months. He likened the hiring process to 'throwing resumes into an abyss.'

25岁的埃里克森（Steven Erickson）说，现在政府机构的运作可能一切照常……但整整一代人马上就要退休了。10个月以来，埃里克森一直在寻找政府职位。他把政府的招聘过程比作是“往深渊里投简历”。

Of course, a lot of job seekers feel that way these days, as employers report sifting through hordes of overqualified applicants for the few available jobs.

当然，这些天很多求职者的感觉并无不同。雇主们反映说，他们筛选出大量条件过高的申请人，而空缺岗位就那么几个。

But a dearth of jobs isn't the government's problem. It's finding a quick and fair way to wade through the resumes. In the past six months, each job posting (which may actually be multiple jobs, such as the same job in various locations) on USAJobs drew about 170 applications -- up from about 25 in 2007.

但岗位缺乏不是政府的问题。政府正在寻找一种又快又公平的办法来筛选简历。在过去六个月，USAJobs网站发布的每一个岗位（实际上可能是多个岗位，比如是设在多个地点的同一个岗位）有大约170个人申请──2007年大约只有25人申请。

On Sunday, more than 30,000 jobs were posted on USAJobs, the Web site on which nearly every available government job must be posted. The Partnership for Public Service estimates that the government will need to add as many as 273,000 workers in the next three years -- 41% higher than in the prior two years.

周日USAJobs网站发布了3万多岗位（基本上每一个空缺政府职位都必须在这个网站上发布）。公务员合作组织估计，未来三年政府将需要增加273,000名工作人员──比前两年多出41%。

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which runs USAJobs, has said it is trying to ease the bottlenecks. 'Now is the time we must recruit and hire the best,' OPM Director John Berry said at a conference in July. 'To achieve this, we are going to fix hiring and recruitment so that it is fair, simple and fast, and only based on merit.'

USAJobs人事管理办公室(Office of Personnel Management，简称OPM)曾表示，正在努力疏通各种瓶颈。OPM总监贝瑞(John Berry)7月份在一次会议上说，我们必须招募和招聘最优秀人才的时候到了。为招到最优秀的人才，我们将完善招聘和招募，使之公平、快捷，而且只看申请人是否优秀。