Anyone who has ever applied for a federal job knows how challenging the process can be. The first step, determining how your education and skills align with federal jobs, is possibly the most important and most difficult part of the process. Once you figure out where to apply, you then face another slew of challenges to navigate, which can damper the enthusiasm of even the most die-hard, wanna-be public servant.

This week the Council for Excellence in Government, Young Government Leaders, Partnership for Public Service, and American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation co-sponsored an event called FedPitch 2008 as part of Public Service Recognition Week. At this event, 16 finalists pitched ideas for attracting the Gen Y generation to public service. The winning idea: create a website that will help them determine which federal jobs fit their education and experience.

Clearly, this strategy will offer tremendous benefits to job seekers because it addresses a fundamental gap in the process. Other ideas made sense as well: using wikis to collect the institutional knowledge of retiring workers, holding virtual job fairs, and launching a marketing campaign to strengthen the government brand. What is compelling about this event is that it shines a very bright spotlight on just how far behind the private sector the government lags. These strategies are all great ideas that can be used as effective tools for addressing government's workforce challenges, but they seem to be Basic Recruiting and Retention 101 within industry. The fact that these ideas floated to the top as innovative for government underlines just how much work needs to be done.

The federal workforce numbers are not promising. The overall workforce declined 2% between 2003 and 2007. Hiring is picking up, but we're in an election year when many senior employees decide to retire (OPM expects retirements to be between 2% and 4%). There are shortages in the IT and acquisition occupations, which exacerbate the problem.

Human capital managers face a daunting challenge, and there is wisdom in starting with the basics. However, the lure of the public sector will require government to develop more aggressive and innovative strategies for capturing the talent and enthusiasm of the younger generation.