1. business and industrial
2. business operations
3. human resources

The Capabilities, Convenience & Cost of
Federal Talent Acquisition Systems
Federal HR analyst and technology consultant, Adam Davidson, looks into how and why one HR
technology has managed to dominate the Federal talent acquisition market despite increasing numbers
of competitors, their superior capabilities, and the Economy Act.
The US Federal Government’s recruitment processes have been supported by HR technologies more
than any other HR function. They have become indispensable tools to help federal agency recruiters
sort through hundreds and thousands of applicants for every single open job.
For at least 50% of all federal jobs (the “competitive service” positions), the recruitment and selection
process is quite rigid and complex. War vets, former feds, and some disadvantaged groups of people
are provided preference in the selection process. The “excepted service” positions, however, require
a faster and less complex selection process more in parallel with private sector’s candidate attraction
and selection strategies. All federal talent acquisition systems must accommodate both types of
selection workflows. Initially, very few HR tech vendors mastered the art. But over the past decade,
the technical capabilities of human resource technology industry has come a long way.
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015
To illustrate this point, at the end of 2004, there were just four recruitment applicant tracking system
vendors linked to the federal government’s job board, USAJOBS.gov. Today, eleven vendors have
their systems integrated to it and active.
After having worked within the Federal Government marketplace over this time directly for or in
partnership with all but one of the private sector vendors, I can assert that HR technologies have
reached the stage where there are no real significant capability advantages that one vendor offers
over any other in the federal recruiting and selection process.
This assertion was backed up by about 50 HR and HRIT leaders I interviewed this past month. There
was no doubt that the offered federal recruitment systems have mastered the art of posting federal
vacancy announcements, assessing the candidates, and the rating and ranking selection processes for
Titles 5, 10, 32 & 38 positions.
But Federal HR noted two significant remaining gaps.
The first is at the front end of the recruitment process - the position classification process. The
second, at the tail end of the recruitment process – in the onboarding processes like automated data
form filling, filing, and the provisioning of the workers' tools of trade. HR leaders need the command
of both in order to measure and reduce the overall time it takes to hire and retain a federal
employee. And hiring managers need automated onboarding functionalities to help get new
employees more productive faster. These are the immediate next battlegrounds for talent acquisition
technology vendors. And price is a much bigger competitive factor in all technology acquisition
decisions now.
The Growing Number of Fed HR Technology Vendors
Back in 2004, when I was marketing applicant tracking software for Monster Government Solutions
(MGS), the stiff competition included Avue and the sector’s federal recruitment regulator - the Office
of Personnel Management (OPM). The forth system which did not compete was an old unsupported
version of Resumix, abandoned by its owner Yahoo!, but modified by DOD techies for the recruitment
of Defense civilian personnel.
Today, the applicant tracking software vendors now integrated to USAJOBS.gov also include: Oracle
Taleo; NGA.NET; and Economic Systems Inc. (EconSys). IBM Kenexa has been integrated, but is
currently inactive. The four other vendors with active integrations are: Northrop Grumman - who
manage an old modified version of PeopleSoft eRecruit for the DIA called “ezHR”; Oracle PeopleSoft who provide “eRecruit” for the Marine Corps; and the FAA and NASA who each maintain their own
home-made recruitment systems (named “Swift,” and “Stars,” respectively) – but these four vendors
are unable to provide position classification or onboarding capabilities for their users and not
considered competitors in the market.
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015
Vendor Market Share
In 2005, the market share commanded by MGS’, Avue’s and OPM’s applicant tracking systems was
pretty evenly split 25-25-20 respectively – with Resumix’s DOD service accounting for about 30.
Fast forward to 2015, and OPM’s USA Staffing applicant tracking system has captured an 80% share
of the available market.
Wait! What? How did that happen? And why?
To answer these questions, a quick competitive analysis of the technical capabilities, buying
convenience, and price comparisons has needed to be done. So I did it, and here it is:
Facts about OPM
The USA Staffing owner, OPM, is also the federal regulator and enforcer of Human Resources
Management law policy and practice. OPM’s authority over the Federal workforce is limited to
assisting agencies with their Competitive Service positions only (which accounts for half of all federal
positions, or two-thirds when excepting the US Postal Service), and USA Staffing helps the unique
public announcement requirements, and recruitment selection workflow processes of Competitive
Service positions. Also, OPM is a self-funding agency. To survive, revenue has become its primary
focus, operating with the same P&L consequences as a private company. It competes for federal
agency customers. It exchanges HR services for about $2.1 billion in revenues each year. (See: The
Federal Times report of the problems and issues this approach has caused.) Some HR services are
delivered by private contractors via the contract vehicles it manages, while some are delivered by
OPM itself – as it does with the USA Staffing recruitment software - directly competing with the
private sector.
Facts about OPM’s “USA Staffing” Talent Acquisition System
Has USA Staffing had advanced capabilities that all private sector firms can’t or don’t provide? No.
To the contrary. It's slow. While it may be adequate in helping agencies post vacancies to
USAJOBS.gov, and manage the recruitment and selection process of competitive service positions, it
posts vacancies and manages recruitment and selection of excepted services positions much the
same way – choking any possible efficiency gains, and contributes to slowing the hiring process down
for both competitive and excepted service positions. And posting all jobs to USAJOBS.gov exclusively
forces agencies to risk losing the better talent to other agencies. To date, USA Staffing lacks HR
workflow management of the position classification process up front, and the onboarding data
collection and provisioning functions at the end of the recruitment process. Also, it has had limited
capabilities to report and analyze its data traffic during the end-to-end hiring process.
Does USA Staffing improve time to hire metrics or improve the government’s 2010 hiring reform
agenda for its agency clients? That’s a double NO. First: While there is no discernible difference
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015
noted by any particular OPM client agency, the fact that it has lacked the initial position classification
function and the onboarding function, makes it incapable of tracking reliable time-to-hire
metrics. Second: The Q1 2015 update to Performance.gov, evidences that: fewer and fewer hiring
managers are getting involved in the recruitment process; and fewer and fewer employees perceive
that the skill levels of the newly hired are improving. - See slide 18 of the People & Culture Progress
Update.
Does USA Staffing improve the quality of hires made? No. Six of the past eight annual Federal
Employee Viewpoint Surveys evidence the fact that less than half of OPM’s internal staff are positive
about OPM’s ability to hire quality people for OPM itself – let alone OPM’s ability to hire quality
people for other agencies. - See FVPS Q14 in 2007 & ‘08; Q47 in 2009; and Q21 in 2010 to ‘14.
Has USA Staffing proven to be a more secure and reliable recruitment platform than MGS, Avue,
NGA.NET, EconSys or Oracle Taleo? No. For a period of at least three years within the past decade,
audits of OPM’s IT systems and the protection of data privacy failed to meet NIST regulations with
respect to the FISMA law. - Read the OPM OIG report.
Is USA Staffing promising future functionality free of charge? No. OPM has announced that USA
Staffing may soon be able to deliver position classification and onboarding capabilities. However, to
get those capabilities, the existing version of USA Staffing being used by an agency needs to be
removed and a new version re-implemented. That costs money. HR specialists will need to be
trained on each new system function, and that costs money too.
The need to re-implement USA Staffing in each client agency and roll out new
training schedules may be cause enough to force agencies to re-compete all
USA Staffing agreements currently in place.
OK...so the Economy Act prohibits federal agencies from ignoring private sector COTS solutions and
then procure services from other agencies unless it is “more convenient or cheaper” to do so.
Therefore, the only two remaining questions are...
Is USA Staffing a more convenient system to buy than buying any other system? No. Any agency
can enter into an interagency agreement with any other agency (like GSA) for the purposes of using a
contract vehicle to use services offered by a contracted private sector vendor. - See FAR Subpart 17.5
Is USA Staffing cheaper to buy than the technologies provided by all other vendors? Let's find out!
Let’s do a competitive analysis. Let’s run the actual USA Staffing annual revenue receipts on some of
its clients against the 2015 scheduled government prices publicly listed by private sector vendors on
the GSA Schedule.
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015
The Cost Analysis:
USA Staffing Costs - vs - Private Vendors’ Listed Government Pricing
The table below has a shortened list of USA Staffing clients from 2011. The next column includes
each agency’s workforce population served by the USA Staffing system. The annual cost per head of
workforce population for USA Staffing is calculated from annual software licensing revenue data
found on max.gov. It was necessary to interpret cost per head because USA Staffing is priced and
sold in per recruiter user licenses, while all other vendors’ applicant tracking software is priced per
head of workforce population.
Subsequent columns include the publicly listed scheduled prices (per head) of vendors systems
integrated to USAJOBS.gov, and which are capable of providing:


FedRAMP’d hosting or equivalently Federally Firewalled & FISMA approved hosting.
Talent Acquisitions Software licensing with functional capabilities in: opening job requisitions; position
description; posting to USAJOBS.gov (at the least); assessments; rating & ranking (and cert generation);
and reporting & analytics. Plus automated onboarding data collection and management.
Please note: the position classification functional capabilities are built into the prices listed by the
talent acquisition bundles for Avue and EconSys.
Prices shown cover hosting
and licensing for software
only. Does not include set-up,
implementation, and
integration. In some instances,
licensing may include support.
Selected USA
Staffing Clients
Defense
Veterans Affairs
Homeland Sec
(except TSA)
Interior
(+ IBC Clients*)
Health & Human
Services
Social Security
Admin
Justice
(MS+EOUSA only)
OPM
(+ HRS clients)
HUD (except Ofc
of Snr Co-ords)
Small Business
Administration
Wkfce
Populi
OPM
EconSys
Monster
Gov Sols
NGA.NET
NTIS/
NGA.NET/
HRworx
– USA
Staffing
- FHR
Navigator
- Hiring
Manager
- eRecruit &
Onboarding
- eRecruit &
EODonline
- RRS
Cloud
Approx'd List
Price/Annum
Approx'd List
Price/Annum
Approx'd List
Price/Annum
Approx'd List
Price/Annum
Approx'd List
Price/Annum
Approx'd List
Price/Annum
Actual
Annual
Cost/Head
Avue
Digital
Services
Oracle
- Taleo
Recruitment
721K
$15.49
$11.50*
$19.14
$24.64
Unknown
$29.04*
$65.52
323K
$19.55
$11.50*
$19.14
$27.76
Unknown
$46.85*
$65.55
129K
$18.29
$11.50*
$19.14
$27.08
Unknown
$55.75*
$65.61
128K
$26.47
$11.50*
$19.14
$27.31
$42.00
$48.26*
$65.61
75K
$39.57
$11.50*
$27.20
$25.70
Unknown
$68.75*
$65.68
63K
$18.55
$11.50*
$27.20
$26.66
Unknown
$78.42*
$65.71
14.1K
$78.41
$11.50*
$35.26
$32.09
Unknown
$132.87*
$66.45
13.7K
$14.30
$11.50*
$35.26
$32.83
Unknown
$135.68*
$66.47
4.4K
$23.28
$11.50*
Not Listed
$34.21
Unknown
$177.83*
$68.53
3.3K
$57.04
$11.50*
Not Listed
$46.06
Unknown
$234.27*
$69.58
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015
Government
Publishing Ofc
B’cast Board of
Govs
Executive Office
of the President
Admin Ofc of US
Courts
Supreme Court
NCPC
Sources:
1.9K
$76.14
$11.50*
Not Listed
$31.68
Unknown
$200.34*
$72.51
1.7K
$56.61
$11.50*
Not Listed
$34.67
Unknown
$218.16*
$73.17
1.4K
$39.54
$11.50*
Not Listed
$41.51
Unknown
$258.89*
$74.69
1.2K
$32.76
$11.50*
Not Listed
$48.15
Unknown
$298.44*
$76.15
0.5K
$49.04
$14.47*
Not Listed
$120.14
Unknown
Not Listed
$92.08
0.3K
$240.88
$213.24*
Not Listed
$1,770.29
Unknown
Not Listed
$457.06
GS-35F-269BA
GS-35F-269BA;
GS-35F-255BA;
& est. NTIS
Hosting Costs
GS-02F-0028N &
GS-35F-0119Y
GS-35F0265X
Fedscope
max.gov
GS-02F0092T
GS-35F-0609V
* Pricing includes Position Classification functionality
The pink column of cells shows the cost per head for USA Staffing. The green cells show which
vendors are more price competitive than USA Staffing while also providing more functional
capabilities.
First, let’s acknowledge that, except for the annual per head rates for USA Staffing in 2011 which did
NOT include onboarding functionality, the prices derived from each vendor’s current 2015 referenced
GSA Schedule do include onboarding functionality. Second, we also need to acknowledge that the
listed prices would be the highest annual amount any agency would be expected to pay for licensing
if a buying agency failed to negotiate a better price with the vendor.
The analysis shows that for a better price there is at least one vendor that offers more workflow
automation functionality than USA Staffing does for each of OPM’s clients. The table of pricing also
shows that in some instances, there are two, three or four other more cost effective applicant
tracking systems available to USA Staffing clients.
So in answer to the question… “Is USA Staffing cheaper to buy than the technologies provided by all
other vendors?”
The answer is also a BIG NO!
Myths? What MYTHS exist for agencies to buy USA Staffing? Perhaps the purchase of USA Staffing
from OPM is thought to secure a "quid pro quo" guarantee from OPM for the buying agency’s
continued authority to operate its own Delegated Examining Unit (DEU). But when asking any auditor
which recruitment system most contributes to agencies failing a DEU audit, it’s USA Staffing. When a
DEU authority is terminated, that agency has to pay OPM to manage its recruitment services on the
agency’s behalf, without any net revenue impact on OPM's revenue focus.
Is there a negative perception of the private sector venders which plays against
them?
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015
MGS staffers have commented that the rumors since 2011 about a possible sale of Monster
Worldwide may have detrimentally affected MGS business. But MGS’ “Hiring Manager” applicant
tracking system is the system of choice for the Treasury’s HRLOB unit serving all Treasury agencies
and many other HRConnect customers that choose it. MGS is also channeled through the IBC HRLOB,
and has gallantly served the TSA and the Dept. of State for over ten years. Monster’s price above also
includes its GSA price for its government Onboarding module, which is yet to gain any traction. (The
Treasury’s HRLOB went ahead with developing their own Onboarding technology, but it too lacks any
capability to automate provisioning and no one outside of the Treasury’s Departmental Offices care
to use it.)
The issues with using Avue’s Recruitment Retention and Staffing module centers around the
apparent high price and in who owns the data. But Avue goes to great lengths to show how its robust
hiring process capabilities offset the published price. The Avue website points to several studies
showing how its systems enable the average HR Specialist to serve almost ten times the number of
employees than they would otherwise. Avue possesses one of the most robust systems and has gone
to great expense to preload their systems with proprietary data and content to enable agencies to hit
the ground running on the go-live date. When the Resumix system eventually died within DOD, Avue
was awarded the work. However, after an investigation by the DOD OIG, the decision was reversed
and USA Staffing stepped in. Same story at HHS where Avue displaced Monster, until the HHS OIG
forced HHS to seek another alternative which then lead to USA Staffing.
While new entrant NGA.NET also has perceived cost issues, its ease of use and reporting and
analytics functions are highly regarded. Already, midway through an enterprise wide implementation
at USDA, the USDA HR leadership considers the NTIS Team, which includes both NGA.NET’s “eRecruit”
system and HRworx’s “EODonline” onboarding system, as having already provided great value to
USDA's recruitment process and the quality of their selected hires. When NGA.NET won the USDA
business, it was the first to knock out all three incumbent applicant tracking system vendors (MGS,
Avue & OPM) with one shot. It is listed twice on the pricing table - alone with its own recruiting and
onboarding pricing, and also with NTIS and HRworx. Its native onboarding system, working quite well
in the Australian public sector, is still yet to be tested in the US federal space.
Taleo’s current Federal clients bought the Taleo Recruiting system prior to its acquisition by Oracle at
much better rates than those now published under Oracle’s care. But Taleo has two problems, and
an emerging third. While still tarred with the DHS brush when its enterprise wide contract was
terminated early in 2010, the Oracle Taleo Recruitment Cloud pricing is listed at a relatively higher list
price to cover hosting the Taleo software securely within the Federal Cloud. Even its fiercest
competitor in the private sector, Kenexa (now owned by IBM) has prices on par with the Oracle Taleo
list prices. Note: the Federal prices for IBM Kenexa are not listed in the table because it has no active
connections to USAJOBS.gov. And this brings up a third problem for both Oracle’s and IBM’s
respective future business in the private sector. Once word gets out into the private sector about
how much cheaper and more robust the enclave of public sector recruitment technologies are, both
Oracle Taleo and IBM Kenexa (and SAP’s SuccessFactors) may find business or margins or both quickly
wither as demand pulls these public sector vendors into serving recruitment and onboarding needs of
private sector organizations.
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015
But the biggest question that the table of prices provokes is this: Why did those USA Staffing agencies
overlook the capabilities and financial advantages of the EconSys suite of Fed HR recruitment and
onboarding modules? While well known within the federal HR benefits management units, it is
evident that federal HR recruitment leaders are completely unaware of it. Its competitive prices in
the table even include the position classification module; recruiting module; and its automated
onboarding functions – data collection, form filling, form distribution, and the automation of
provisioning - configured at implementation. Economic Systems is a thriving company that offers
personnel management consulting services and technologies across the Fed HR spectrum. It also has
over 100 federal HR departments using its benefits software and federal retirement calculator. In my
opinion, all government agencies, all systems integrators, and all other Fed HR technology
competitors need to put Economic Systems on their radar.
Except for an accident of ignorance, I’m struggling to find a reasonable
explanation to justify USA Staffing's huge market share.
Can agencies make a legally acceptable “Economy Act” business case to buy USA Staffing? They
simply can’t. Economy Act orders must be supported by a Determinations and Findings (D&F) that the
use of interagency support capabilities is in the best interest of the government and that the required
goods, supplies or services cannot be obtained as conveniently or economically by contracting
directly with a private source.
The last time I checked, the revised OMB Circular A-130 regarding the Government’s Planning and
Management of IT Services was still in force. Perhaps Section 8 Part B.1.(b) and the “MUST DO” list
from (i) – (xiii) [under “What must an agency do as part of the selection component of the capital
planning process?”] needs another look.
Hopefully this analysis will help agencies make more informed decisions.
_______________
The author: Adam Davidson has over 25 years of sales and management consulting experience with clients in the USA
Federal Government, Australian Federal & NSW State Governments, the IT and telecommunications industries, the media,
international industry associations, NGOs, the UN System. He is a citizen of countries on both sides of the equator, and has
worked in organizations in both the private and public sectors. Before becoming a consultant and analyst in HR and HCM
technologies, Adam also spent 15 years in sales and management roles in broadcast production of sport, music &
entertainment, and information & documentary programs on radio and television. He also owned and operated the first
non-English media advertising agency servicing private and public sector clients in the Australian, New Zealand and South
Pacific market. Today, Adam owns Advocation LLC, a consulting business assisting HR technology vendors and the US
Federal Government bridge their knowledge gaps.
Author: Adam Davidson | Industry Analyst & Government Consultant | Advocation LLC
April 2015