Today in the Washington Post, Columnist Stephen Barr, laid out some survey results indicating that roughly a third of young Americans would consider working for the federal government if they were encouraged to by folks close to them, like parents or teachers, but also if such a request came from our next president of the U.S. That sounds like great news in light of the retirement wave that is getting under way as baby boomers exit civil service. Except that the critical phrase is “IF they were encouraged to.” Apparently no one is asking America’s new workers to join federal service.

At first that seemed like an easy problem to fix; start encouraging them. But with what and how. I mean after that parent or teacher or president says, “Hey, you should check out working for the federal government,” then what? Where will that person look? What will s/he find? How will s/he be engaged?

What moves someone from consideration to motivation? And on the flip side, how does a particular government agency convince that now motivated person to pursue that one agency over any other? We can try to think of our government as one giant employer, one big happy team, but when workforces get thin agencies will absolutely be competing against each other for good employees. So how do you get yours?

Barr quotes Patricia McGinnis, president and chief executive of the Council for Excellence in Government, who dropped one hint as to how to move beyond encouragement to inspiration. She says 18-to-29-year olds are “more responsive to interactive communication and personal attention than people have realized.” Time to start realizing it people.

Social networks, live chat customer service, user-generated content, they all fall into that category of interactive communication and personal attention. Young Americans, certainly well-educated, tech-savvy young Americans (AKA prime job candidates for federal agencies) rely on interactive communication as much as other generations came to rely on the evening news or the morning paper. Remember when PR was getting mention in the op/ed section of the paper? Or maybe even a mention on the news? What a coup! It moves a bit faster now. It happens a little lower in the weeds now. It’s person to person, or may I suggest employee to potential employee.

Based on the survey results Barr references, it sounds like the federal workforce stands to benefit from at the least some encouraging words, from parents, teachers, and even Mr. or Mrs. President, to explore a career in federal service. Beyond that, it’s up to each agency to shoulder the load and move young Americans from curiosity to engagement. How will you do it? Well for starters you can check out a white paper written by some of my friends here at Mind & Media, “Recruiting the Next Generation of Government Using Web 2.0”.

What comes first? The story about your organization or the work that the organization performs? Maybe you’re thinking, “Story? What story? I come here, I work, I go home.” I hear you. That’s the day-in-day-out grind. That’s the work. But what is the story of your work, your organization? Call it a story, a brand, a mission, whatever. Everything, everyone, has one. So, did the work cause the story or did the story cause the work?

Seth Godin dropped a great post on the topic recently, which got me thinking about that in terms of the federal agencies we work with. Specifically in terms of how those agencies recruit new workers. Do federal agencies have a story? Absolutely. And as organizations of public service, each agency was started with a story. In the most basic definition, they were formed to support some public need, and that is the beginning of the story.Heads up federal recruiters, your audience—your potential workforce—is impacted by your agency’s story as is stands today. Is the story good?

As Seth illustrates, if you start with a good story of who you are and what you do, then the work is focused and supports the story. It becomes cyclical and unified. His logic is good, but it assumes the workers are living the story, feeding that cycle. If workers are living in the weeds, doing the work day-by-day, but are not living the story, then the cycle can dissolve. Then what becomes of the story? Certainly the federal government has to turn up the heat on recruiting to fill a vacuum left by retiring baby boomers. But only looking outward can be a mistake. Simply shouting a story (is it the real story?) out the windows is hollow. Savvy recruits—children of Internet research and social networks—will discover the true story fast enough.

Recruiters need help from the agency leaders. How does the agency’s work and workers impact the story? What can you do to remind current employees of the beginning of the story and to encourage them to take part in the story? If the workers believe in the story, and work to support the story, then the recruits will hear it, loud and clear.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates didn’t mince words during his recent testimony before the House Science Committee.

The shortage of scientists and engineers is so acute that “we must . . . reform our education system and our immigration policies. If we don’t American companies simply will not have the talent to innovate and compete.”

Workforce shortcomings have even our most successful companies in a sweat, bringing business and government leaders together to accelerate solutions.

According to the abovementioned AP article by Jim Abrams:

Gates outlined four goals he said the country must pursue: improving educational opportunities in science and technology, revamping the visa system for highly skilled workers, increasing federal funding for basic scientific research and providing incentives for private-sector research and development.

In the midst of so much election-year immigration controversy, that’s bound to be a tough sell, but long-term U.S. workforce needs may end up trumping any short-term xenophobia. It points to a not-too-distant future filled with younger and/or foreign-born skilled workers who will need to be brought into the fold, trained, and put on a productive path as quickly as possible.

About a month ago, career coach Jefferey Ward offered young Federal employees some advice on maintaining their social network presence (e.g., Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn).

Federal Computer Week writer Florence Olsen offered this summary of his advice:

If you are a young federal employee with ambitions to become a government leader, do yourself a career favor: Don’t let any wild party pictures or other unprofessional-looking content taint your Facebook profile and, possibly, your career.

Olsen followed up by paraphrasing an additional Ward prediction that fledging Federal employees would do well to weigh:

Young feds often hear that many opportunities for advancement and leadership will open up in the federal government any time now as the large baby boom generation begins to retire in record numbers. But Ward told a different story. He said many senior employees who are eligible for retirement are not retiring, for various reasons.

This doesn’t mean that opportunities to advance won’t abound as Boomers step down, but it does mean that it’s not going to be as easy as you might hope. The search for standout talent is on, and posting a photo of yourself in your Tinkerbell Halloween costume might give the tie to another equally qualified candidate who doesn’t spend his or her time trying on tights and waving magic wands (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Ward is essentially acknowledging that Government agencies (i.e., employers) are not only familiar with the social networking phenomenon, they are actually paying attention to its implementation. If you’re job hunting in the Federal sector, it might be time to take down those frat party pics.

Ypulse, which touts daily news and commentary about Generation Y for media and marketing professionals, just concluded their College Mashup conference on Friday. The focus was on how to connect with today’s totally-wired college student. Something that may be of interest to marketers, sure, but should also be on the minds of employers, too. For employers trying to fill the void left by retiring Baby Boomers, recruiting IS marketing. So what messages work?

An event sponsor, Survey U, offered up some stats related to what these kids want in their advertising. So if you want their attention, check this:

60% of respondents said being truthful is extremely important, while only 15% gave the same importance to being stylish, and only 8% felt it was extremely important to exude cool. That’s great news.

Say you’re recruiting for a federal agency; it will be much easier to talk honestly about a job offering or agency in general than it will be to try to inject style or coolness into public service.

Honest language is more evergreen, too. Imagine trying to write messaging that exuded cool. Sure, I know there is a massive ad industry trying to do that very thing day in and day out, but they don’t sleep. When you try to exude cool, you risk your message being oh so not cool by the time it hits the audience.

Style and cool are two things that move very quickly and are hard to nail just right. But honesty? Hopefully that comes pretty easily.

Anyone hear that Giant Whoosh?

That’s the sound of the first wave of Baby Boomers leaving the ranks of the Federal Government. As reported by Government Executive magazine, 60 percent of the Federal workforce, and an even more alarming 90 percent of its executives, will be eligible for retirement within the next decade. That’s right, over half the workforce and almost the entire current leadership in Government won’t be here ten years from now.

Is this an impending crisis or a terrific opportunity? Well, both actually.

Certainly, the Federal sector needs to react quickly in order to compete for the future best and brightest—a job that will be made all the more difficult by the fact that there simply aren’t enough Gen-Xrs and Millennials to replace the departing Boomers. This is why I say that in the possible crisis lies a terrific opportunity, especially if viewed as an opportunity to redefine the role of Government and the way it does its work.

If the exodus of Baby Boomers comes to be viewed by Government agencies as both a recruitment challenge and an opportunity for transformation, then the problem takes on a very different and exciting dimension. Taking it a step further, a message of organizational transformation is also a great recruitment message, as long as it’s real and it’s serious. And since Government is already faced with a need to transform itself in order to do more with less, shouldn’t transformation be a big part of the message anyway?

I believe that if Government agencies communicate to an incoming workforce of Gen-Xrs and Millennials that they have an honest opportunity to help transform Government, it will make a big difference in their recruitment efforts. That kind of message will resonate with a new workforce that seems to deeply desire making a difference within and through the organizations they are looking to join.

What do you think?