Feds reach out to IBM retirees

If you ran the government and had trouble recruiting young computer department grads to come work for the government, what would you do? Well, you could do worse than offering a second career to IBM retirees. That's the latest initiative launched by the Partnership for Public Service, IBM and the Treasury Department, reports the Post.

"We are fully behind the notion that we need to reach out to the corporate sector to people who are ending their careers there and looking for ways to engage and who particularly value at that point the opportunity for public service," civil service boss Linda Springer said yesterday.

The biggest blockade for senior recruitment might be that fact that the retirees don't want to put up with a lot of bureaucratic BS.

A survey and focus groups conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the report found that many older Americans do not hold the government in high regard. In the survey, 61 percent cited "too much bureaucracy" and "too hard to accomplish anything" as reasons not to work for Uncle Sam. Stier said 66 percent of the survey respondents thought the government was ineffective in solving problems and helping people.