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OPM revamps USAJobs website for 20th anniversary

The Office of Personnel Management capped off a yearlong series of enhancements to its USAJobs.gov Monday to coincide with the website's 20th anniversary.
(USAJobs.gov screenshot)

The Office of Personnel Management capped off a yearlong series of enhancements to its USAJobs.gov Monday to coincide with the website’s 20th anniversary.

USAJobs.gov, long criticized for lacking user-friendliness and detracting from the federal government’s ability to recruit and hire talented applicants, received a spate of improvements in the past year, including a new and more inviting landing page, a responsive mobile-friendly website to replace its prior app, a cleaner application process, a help center, and more, all based on user-centered research.

[Read more: OPM Innovation Lab leads USAJobs rebuild with agile.]

“I’m really excited about all of the progress we have made with USAJobs,” OPM acting Director Beth Cobert said in a release. “But this doesn’t mean our work is done. The USAJobs team here at OPM will continue to solicit user feedback and make continuous enhancements to the website to improve the experience for applicants interested in Federal service.”

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When USAJobs.gov was launched in 1996, it was a very basic website with only current job openings, general information and the ability to fill out an online application, according to OPM. Prior to that, federal hiring was paper-based with listings physically posted to bulletin boards and left in reading rooms.

OPM says the website today hosts 11 million accounts with 16 million resumes, and facilitates one billion job searches and 22 million applications annually. Moving forward, the agency hopes to better match those users with the 14,000 job listing posted each month.

“Our goal for USAJobs is to provide relevant tools and resources to support job seekers in their quest for employment,” USAJobs Program Manager Michelle Earley said in a statement. “In order to realize this vision, our team is leveraging data to its fullest potential to inform iterative design efforts that will result in connecting talented individuals to the right jobs.”

Billy Mitchell

Written by Billy Mitchell

Billy Mitchell is Senior Vice President and Executive Editor of Scoop News Group's editorial brands. He oversees operations, strategy and growth of SNG's award-winning tech publications, FedScoop, StateScoop, CyberScoop, EdScoop and DefenseScoop. After earning his degree at Virginia Tech and winning the school's Excellence in Print Journalism award, Billy received his master's degree from New York University in magazine writing.

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