RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Air Force Personnel Center officials recently changed how civilian job announcements are listed to improve the civilian hiring process.

"AFPC is improving our civilian hiring process and reducing the time it takes to fill civilian position vacancies. Changing the way we list our civilian job openings is one of the many initiatives we're implementing to help improve our processes," said Maj. Gen. K.C. McClain, AFPC commander.

To meet its objective, AFPC turned to its customers--job applicants and managers--to find ways to improve the application and hiring process.

"By listening to our customers, we heard applicants were having a hard time finding the jobs they wanted to apply for on USA Jobs, and managers were having a hard time finding their advertised positions," said Ms. Jamie Beattie, the technical operations and training chief at AFPC's Civilian Force Integration directorate.

As a result of customer feedback, AFPC changed the way jobs were listed on USA Jobs.

"By doing this, we effectively reduced the number of civilian announcements listed from 77,000 down to 7,500," General McClain said. "This helps enable us to meet our goal of filling a civilian vacancy within 120 days or less," the general added.

Previously, almost all civilian positions were posted as an "open continuous" announcement--meaning the job was always "open" to accept applications, even if a vacancy didn't exist during the time of application. The intent was to allow staffing officials to immediately pull a list of applicants as soon as a vacancy request was received.

However, due to the abundance of Air Force civilian job listings, feedback came in from both applicants and hiring officials of the difficulty in finding and monitoring specific positions. Job announcements listed as "open continuous" unintentionally led applicants to believe a current, vacant position existed.

In October 2008, AFPC changed the criteria for when jobs would be posted as "open continuous" to reduce confusion.

"Originally, AFPC's 'open continuous' announcement process was created to facilitate faster filling of civilian job openings," said Ms. Beattie. "But we didn't want to keep giving applicants an unrealistic picture there were open positions available, when in reality, there weren't."

"So, we re-looked at our processes and assessed criteria to determine which job announcements should actually remain listed as 'open continuous'," Ms. Beattie added.

Now, for a job announcement to be listed as "open continuous," it requires the same position, pay plan, series and grade to have been filled more than twenty times within a twelve-month period.

"Most of the announcements still listed as 'open continuous' are for high-fill rate jobs, such as childcare workers and administrative positions," Ms. Beattie said.

Part of the new process improves communication through automatic e-mail notifications sent to hiring officials and the local civilian personnel offices, notifying them of the actual vacancy identification number of the position for which they are recruiting. This allows managers to provide information, like the vacancy ID number, to applicants as questions arise.

"The policy change provides faster and quicker service to hiring officials and applicants by helping managers better identify their open positions and by greatly lowering the number of Air Force job listings to sift through on USA jobs--AFPC went from 14,000 'open continuous' positions down to about 250," Ms. Beattie said.

"However, this new criteria is simply a tool to minimize confusion. We work with our customers to do what's best for them and the position they want filled. We often work with managers for jobs that--although it may meet the requirements to be listed as 'open continuous'--because of unique requirements, it's better to list the announcement individually...or vice versa," Ms. Beattie added.

Changing the criteria for when 'open continuous' job announcements are listed is one of many AFPC initiatives to expedite the civilian hiring process and position fill time. For more information about civilian hiring initiatives or employment opportunities, visit the "AF Civilian Employment" tab at www.afpc.randolph.af.mil.