34 



National Resources Corwmittee 



Recruitment of Personnel 



Scientific positions are filled by selection from among 

 the first three eligibles on the civil service register for 

 the particular class and grade of position, eligibility be- 

 ing determined by competitive examination. Vetci-an's 

 preference may influence relative standings, and the re- 

 quirement that all positions be apportioned among the 

 States may restrict the choice still further; but a more 

 serious criticism lies in the method of grading itself. 

 As expressed by one bureau chief in the Department of 

 Agriculture, 



The most important diflSculty inheres in the gross fallacy that 

 anyone earning a rating of 70 is good enough for Government 

 employment. This seems to carry forward from tlie system of 

 grading that is followed throughout our educational system. 

 A rating of 70 means mediocrity, and yet a restricted list of 

 eligibles, a few declinations from the top, and preferences of 

 one kind or another from the bottom frequently necessitate 

 either appointing an individual with a low rating or leaving the 

 position open. The civil service procedures should be modi- 

 fied so as to reject a much larger proportion of applicants 

 than at present is the case. 



The system is particularly obnoxious in its current adminis- 

 tration in that lists of eligibles when established are continued 

 unduly long. Thus, when the one. two. or three outstanding 

 folks have been picked from a list of eligibles, or have declined 

 appointment, the register remains active under present practice 

 and one must elect either to take the less capable or leave the 

 po.sition vacant, even though other capable people might be 

 included in a new list. If the Federal Government wishes really 

 high-grade personnel, the passing grade should be raised from 

 70 to SO or even S5, or a much stricter grading should be fol- 

 lowed to give an equivalent result. 



The difficulties experienced in recruiting competent 

 personnel through the civil service procedure affect the 

 scientific bureaus in various ways, but differences are 

 of degree rather than of kind. The older agencies, such 

 as the Geological Survey, seem to have less difficulty 

 than the more recent ones in this respect, probably in 

 part because of greater experience in drafting job speci- 

 fications, and in part because of a prestige and oppor- 

 tunity which attracts desirable candidates. Another 

 type of agency, exemplified by the Bureau of Entomol- 

 ogy and Plant Quarantine, has comparatively little 

 trouble with civil service appointments because the 

 agency is the largest and most important employer of 

 research workers in the particular field. 



The recruitment problem is most acute in those agen- 

 cies which must compete with industry for personnel. 

 Even in the lower grades, where Government salaries 

 compare favorably with those on the outside, the long 

 lapse between the giving of an examination and the 

 making up of a list of eligibles — a lapse often of 6 

 months to a year, and in some cases even longer — means 

 that the more desirable candidates have already ac- 

 cepted industrial positions by the time Government ap- 

 pointments may be offered them. Since 1929 the prob- 



lem has been intensified bj- general unemplo}'ment 

 which has led unusual numbers to take civil service ex- 

 aminations, many of them the less competent who were 

 first released wlien industrial staffs were cut down. As 

 expressed by the Bureau of Mines : 



Present eligible lists are made up largely of applicants that 

 are below the average qualifications desired for Bureau of 

 Mines work. The Civil Service Commission staff is inadequate 

 to handle the increased needs of the Government and conse- 

 quently they are unable to give new examinations and discard 

 the old "picked over" lists of eligibles. Too commonly the eli- 

 gibles available on a civil service register are the residuum of 

 an examination given years previously; * * • in the mean- 

 time a steady stream of desirable competent men seeking work 

 but who are not on a civil service register and are unable to get 

 on because no examinations have been called, leads any bureau 

 to seek its new employees through transfer or promotion from 

 other bureaus where competence and desirability are already 

 demonstrated. Examinations for civil service are held only in- 

 frequently and do not always attract a representative list of 

 technical men of the higher characteristics with respect to in- 

 telligence. A portion of this difficulty can be remedied by a 

 better distribution of information about civil service and more 

 frequent examinations, properly advertised. 



Another source of difficulty under the civil service 

 recruitment system is most in evidence in those agen- 

 cies in which administrative functions are indistin- 

 guishable from scientific functions. To some extent 

 this is true in such regulatory agencies as the Food 

 and Drug Administration, but the best example is the 

 Office of Experiment Stations. The effectiveness of 

 the Office depends on its ability to maintain satisfac- 

 tory personal relationships with those who are con- 

 ducting research in Washington and in the field — that 

 is to say, on a factor of personality which is not dis- 

 coverable by competitive examination. 



Suggested improvements in the recruitment pro- 

 cedure all tend in the direction of greater latitude in 

 selection on the part of the appointing agency; and 

 there is general agreement that higher salaries should 

 be paid in the more advanced positions. An important 

 drawback in connection with the latter proposition is 

 the popular attitude that public employees are unpro- 

 ductive tax-consumers, to be tolerated but not en- 

 couraged. It is worthy of note, however, that the 

 salaries paid by the Federal Government are lower for 

 similar classifications than those paid by New York 

 City. Some advantages might also be gained by filling 

 a larger number of positions in the higher grades by 

 original appointment rather than by promotion within 

 the given agency, though the same result might be 

 achieved by a more liberal use of consulting specialists 

 on personal service contracts. 



Classification of Personnel 



Although some improvements have been made, classi- 

 fication of scientific personnel still follows too closely 



