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Maria De Fazio:
All right, welcome, welcome, welcome, folks, as Zoom is letting you all in, get settled, get comfy. We've got a great session for you today, so we're going to get started very soon. So hang on a few minutes while we give more folks time to arrive and then we'll get started.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent. Well, we have we have quite a few people logged on already, and since it's a little bit after 1:00, I think we will be we will get started and hopefully a few more folks will be joining us.

Maria De Fazio:
So, hi, everybody. I am Maria DeFazio. I am the executive director of PMAA. As you probably know by this point, if you've been coming to our PMAA Couchella sessions, we created these lunch and learns in order to give us a way to network and continue learning, even though we're all a little bit physically separated right now. PMAAs mission is to support the ongoing excellence of PMI in PMF alumni to help support the PMF program today and to be one more in a chorus of voices saying that we need a strong, professionalized public service because public service is important. So we are so glad you all could join us today. I wanted to quickly introduce Patricia, Patricia, if you could say hi.

Patricia Soler:
Hi, everybody, my name is Patricia Soler. I'm an executive board member also of the PMAA, in the role of the secretary, but I'm a PMF class of twenty fourteen and I look forward to talking with you today about outreach to academia is one of my favorite topics that I'm looking forward to.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome. And we are also joined by Becca Wadness of the PMF Program Office. Becca, if you want to, just say hi and introduce yourself real quick to.

Becca Wadness:
Sure, thanks so much for having me Maria. I'm Becca Wadness, I'm a class of twenty eighteen PMF and I help to manage the recruitment and placement for the program office at OPM.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome, thank you so much for joining us today, Becca. So I want to go over a couple of quick housekeeping things and then we will get started. The question and answer function; we will be taking time for Q&A at the end, but, if you have a question throughout the presentation, you can drop it in the Q&A function so that you don't forget it and then we'll have questions ready to go when we get to the end of the presentation. If you experience some sort of technical challenge or problem, please use the chat function to let me know about that. That actually blinks at me and tells me that there's something wrong. So please do that. And if you get confused or something that we've brought up doesn't quite make sense. You can always raise your hand or drop that, use the raise your hand function or drop it in the Q&A and we will absolutely clarify those things for you.

Maria De Fazio:
Other common questions: Is there going to be a recording of this? Yes, there is. We will also be including going forward with these Couchella sessions, a transcript. We wanted to make our sessions a little bit more accessible, a little bit easier for you to sort of search and find and access the information after the fact. So we will be doing that and we're going to start posting our transcripts going forward next week. Are there resources for this presentation? Yes, there are. You should have received, in your reminder, email links for today's slide deck, today's talking points and a brochure that you can use as a leave behind from the PMF program office. And if you need those resources, they will also be included in the follow up email that you will automatically get for having attended the session. That is all I have here. So what we're going to do is get started and. Oh, sorry, my computer's beeping at me.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent. So we are going to get started with today's Couchella session, which is: Outreach to academia, a how to guide for PMI and PMF alumni. So that you can do your own outreach back to your Alma mater or a variety of academic programs that you may have been involved with to help promote the PMF program. So. Your hosts today are Patricia and myself with a great assist from Becca regarding some specific PMF questions, so I will toss this over to Patricia to get us started.

Patricia Soler:
There we go, OK, great. So really, the goals that we're going to cover today and the purpose and intent of doing this type of outreach to your Alma mater or as Maria said, maybe other academic institutions, whether they're like physically located close to you or they're somehow you have a connection to them or know somebody in a career center capacity. So don't think just like in the narrowest terms of your alma mater, but perhaps your alma mater is the best place to reach out to. And the idea being that you should be reaching out and promoting the program within the academic community at these university spaces. And we're also going to talk about strategies and resources to make your outreach effective. So it's like a toolkit almost, and also things to keep in mind, especially this year when you're doing outreach to an academic institution. And we're also going to go over how the outreach to your alma mater, but also to your university career centers. Plural Centers. Is critical for the success of the program moving forward. Getting the word out is essential, especially if we want to promote more of a diversification of the PMF program cohort as well. And we'll get into that during the presentation.

Maria De Fazio:
So the first real topic we're going to cover is why me and I say this slightly humorously, but why do we need you to be the folks doing this? Because it is critical that we have program alumni doing the actual outreach. So, Patricia, why don't you go ahead and kick off explaining why while alumni make the best case?

Patricia Soler:
Alumni make the best case because first and foremost, you know things and you've made it through the assessment process. So it's a first hand experience that you can relay to your alma mater and also within your networks and. PMIs, And we want to be inclusive of the entirety of the program's history when it was also called something else. But PMIs and PMFs show that a variety of different things contribute to success and that you know your university and you should celebrate those things that make you who you are today and your PMF experience, or if you are part of the PMI program when it was called that, are among those things. And you're an excellent marketing resource for your alma mater and they can talk firsthand about your experiences and you can also relay information about the program that is more anecdotal and in a sense, but also, you know, tricks and tips that helped you along the way for the purposes of the assessment process. And also what came after, when you found placement within the program. All of those things and also your expanded network, which include your cohort and also the PMAA. People who have graduated from the program who are now alums. So you can tap into so many different resources for your alma mater just by creating those connections and again, being that person who knows things firsthand from going through the process.

Maria De Fazio:
Great, I think we can all remember how important it was to talk to someone who actually had firsthand experience in the government as we were, as we were working towards either accepting a PMF position, getting our feet, getting on our feet once we were...once we were sorted out. You know, once sort sorted out and at an agency, and so I think that you you have the opportunity to be that person for someone else.

Patricia Soler:
Right, even just real quick to add onto that, even to take it to and this is more anecdotal on my part, which I'll get into is the terminology as well. Like I didn't know what a GS Pay schedule was. I didn't know a lot of these agencies even existed, like, you know, aside from the most prominent ones that are in the news cycle quite a bit. And I also had no business acumen in English, which is an entirely separate story. But I didn't know the terminology to even be using when talking about things. And there things, like, we take, some of us take for granted, but they're invaluable, even like the words we use in the federal space can be a barrier for those trying to make their way into the program or during the application process. So you're an asset in like so many more ways than just how to apply, it's also what is like how do you talk to people about the experience and paying attention to the words that people use,

Maria De Fazio:
Particularly if you came from a program that wasn't like an MPP or an MPA program. If you're if you're in a particularly the sciences, it can be really useful to help folks start learning how to translate the skills in the language they're already using into "gov speak". Not that that's always the best thing to do, but in a lot of cases, that's what's going to get you in the door. Sorry, I'm having a little technical issue here with the slides, but so how do we do this well? If we're if we're going to do this, and it's on us because we're PMIs and PMFs, and this is this is what we do, right? We fix things. So how do we do it well? Because if it's not, we're not going to do it well, it's not worth doing. And I think the first part of that is that I'm going to have Patricia talk about how to understand your alma mater.And it's not just how to understand the idea of a university. It's it's things that you might need to think about in terms of internal politics, in terms of structure. And then, yes, we have a whole thing about COVID. But let's, let's start with the basics of how do you understand how your alma mater functions?

Patricia Soler:
Ok, great, thanks, Maria. So here are some like really, I think, important tips and insights into an alma mater. You know, everyone's experiences with their respective alma maters is different. There are things that you may not have been aware of or had limited insight to when you attended a program or a particular university. And also how things may have changed since you attended your university. And what I really want to emphasize here is that universities have multiple career centers that specialize in different programs. And so one career center that's more oriented toward public policy might have a ton of information about the PMF program. But your engineering school with its career center that's trying to place its grads probably doesn't. And career centers don't always talk to each other. That is, again, anecdotal on my part. But I've been doing a lot of outreach to universities over the past six years and have firsthand experience with this myself. When I went through the PMF process, was that the alumni or the career center that was sort of like assigned to me, knew nothing about this. And the I had to sort of beg and ask permission for another career center, for which I was not a part of their program, to let me into their PMF info session. So there's sometimes information withholding between career centers. Like it's in their interest to place their students and that's what they're being paid for. It's their job. But does that mean that they are going to then spread the wealth of knowledge of this fellowship opportunity to all of the career centers on campus? You cannot make that assumption. And so while we like to think the people are sharing job opportunities, especially in these economic times, that's where you're critical in finding out: OK, outside of my program, outside of my career center that I may or may not have worked with, who are the best people? Could be an alumni center as well. That have resources for all alums of a university, but also identifying what these career centers are and encouraging, like your points of contact to say, "hey, who else can I reach out to about this at my alma mater that might not know?" And some of that work might be incumbent upon you rather than them to do a little bit of extra legwork there. But it's worth it in terms of getting the word out about the program and all of the opportunities and also emphasizing that this is a viable career option.

Patricia Soler:
Like, I don't think and I could be wrong, but that at job fairs on campus, there is a table that said, come work for the federal government. Come tell us...let us tell you about all of the different options out there. It's that there's largely no coordinated effort from the federal government when it comes to going to university spaces and doing this type of active recruiting. That might have been agencies if you saw anything at all, like very specific agencies going after specific types of graduate candidates, skill sets that they wanted. So federal service, public service are not always things that career centers, or even like alumni programs, like have a good grasp on what that means in connecting people with the right people. To talk about the topic.

Patricia Soler:
And I'm talking about the entirety of the federal space is immense, but even being sort of a point of contact and using your respective network can be really, really helpful for a career center and also university and making those connections. And I already won over the fact that career centers don't always talk to each other. So that's where you can potentially fill gaps. And you think about the extra mile, like, what does that mean necessarily? So my academic background is in the humanities, specifically in foreign languages, and that is why I had no business acumen in English. And it was a really rough year, my first year of the PMF program, because I didn't know what words like stakeholder really meant. And also a lot of "consultant speak" has like infiltrated, Fed talk, so to speak. And there were a lot of idioms that I was like, I have never heard that before, and there's like a perpetual state of confusion for me for a while. But you can fill those information gaps like things like really could have been an assist for me back in the day. I just didn't have that network.

Patricia Soler:
LinkedIn. It's not something that is used among academics. And how to interview for specifically public service, how to have a public service resume. These are all things that you offer as a PMF alum of the program. That could be the extra mile like that one on one mentoring or doing a webinar on those specific topics. They're very, very much in need, depending on some of these programs that have less familiarity with not just the PMF program, but also the federal space in general.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent. I would also say that you can help fill that information gap or serve as the impetus to build an event that may not have otherwise occurred. Where I've had some experience in doing outreach, where talking to the career center for my alma mater, they ended up putting together a multi-university panel because they were all interested in the program and only wanted to have to put it together once. Which I mean, especially in light of our next topic is kind of important.

Maria De Fazio:
So obviously coronavirus is...affecting everything right now. But I think it's important to view what we're doing as potentially offering solutions or offering resources, so go ahead. Patricia, why don't you talk a little bit about what you've learned about COVID in academia right now?

Patricia Soler:
Sure , sure. So I'm plugged into like I still have a lot of connections with academic institutions and, at least in the D.C. area, I think I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of different things that are going on, at least at the administrative level and also at the university professor level, which are different things. But there is a lot of uncertainty right now and things are changing by the day, if not by the hour. And so it's just something to take into account. Like Maria and I were talking about this presentation because we have talked on this topic before. But while the materials are almost arguably, arguably the same, everything in the surrounding environment has changed. And so when you are talking to your academic, it could be your career center or alumni program or even your degree program from which you graduated. Just keeping this into account that it's really ugly and rough right now for a lot of these universities trying to figure out remote learning, bringing back a limited number of students to campus, what are their roles in all of this? And it's kind of a mess, I have to say. And there's no pretty way to paint the picture right now for.

Maria De Fazio:
Not that that's really a surprise.

Patricia Soler:
Yeah, it's so case in point, you know, there's been limited numbers of students allowed back to certain D.C. schools for different reasons. And there's there's different explanations for why certain universities are deploying different strategies. It's kind of left up to them. Right? So we're seeing in the media how everyone's really kind of on their own. But they're also like looking at what other universities are doing. It's totally decentralized. There's no like university, like the Department of Education and others are not giving direct, like, guidance to universities on what to do. And so coming up with these plans, it kind of mirrors our own lives right now, I would argue. Where in our jobs and teleworking constantly or getting advice about I would compare it if you have kids to their school situations and that probably changing by the minute as well. So it's framing what you are going to offer in terms of information or connections or sort of broader resources as a solution. That you can help these career centers or whoever it is. Again, I keep on stressing, in these economic times, to present the PMF, but also public service, as a viable option. That you're there to help. And they may not have anything scheduled yet. They may be still figuring out, you know, are they working on campus? Are they not? Are class is even happening? Oh, my gosh. We're sending everybody home tomorrow because of an outbreak. You know, just keeping these things in mind and being a little bit persistent as well, because if people don't email you back, there's probably a really good reason for it. Career centers are there. There they're hired to be placing their students, get them hired. Given the chaos of everything that's going on, just keeping that in mind is to frame your conversations. But then also, if you don't hear anything back for whatever reason, you know, follow up and maybe things have changed within the next two weeks. And arguably, you know, you're more critical than ever right now because public service is one of the most stable job sectors right now that exists for up and coming graduate students. And so and we'll get into this a little bit during this presentation as well. But I just want to touch on, you know, the PMF program, but also USAJobs. You might be a resource in that sense as well. For public service in general to encourage people to start thinking about that, given that we have relative stability compared to every other career sector right now.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent, so I'm just going to go over a couple of quick program basics, we have a whole sheet of talking points for you to use that goes into more detail on this. And there is even more detail available on the PMF website. So but the sort of the main points that you're going to want to use to sell the program, essentially, is the idea that it is both competitive and prestigious. I believe it's the only program that carries the presidential seal, the presidential title. It comes with extensive training and resources dedicated to fellows during that two year fellowship. I know that the sort of the the requirements have changed over time, depending on when you came through the program. But right now and Becca, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe there's approximately one hundred and forty hours of training that happens over those first two years and OPM helps to provide a good portion of it.

Becca Wadness:
One hundred and sixty, 80 hours per year.

Maria De Fazio:
80 hours a year. There you go. So it comes with the standard salary and benefits. We would actually encourage you guys to take a look at the GS schedule and just familiarize yourself with that if you haven't or if you're not currently in federal service. Obviously, we all sort of have a general understanding of how the GS schedule works now, but it's adjusted by locality. And so that may be something that's important if you are reaching out to a university that is outside of the D.C. area.

Patricia Soler:
Maria, can I, can I...piggyback on that comment real quick. So that's also something that I found to be really important with the outreach specifically that I do, which is mostly to people that have total unfamiliarity with the PMF program and federal service. Is to think about what is their local federal building? And most people know the answer to that. So if they can't move or are looking to remain local, there are still plenty of opportunities. But, you know, even by doing a search of, well, what are the federal agencies located within that federal building in my area? Can really help someone with something that just seems so large and overwhelming, like a lot of information, all these different agencies to help narrow it down, especially if they're looking to stay local. So that's a good tip to share as well.

Maria De Fazio:
I think it's also important to point out that there are a lot of opportunities to either stay local or if you are relocating, not necessarily relocate to D.C. Obviously that is a selling point for a lot of people that they want to be they want to be in D.C., they want to be where headquarters is. You can also rotate through headquarters if you would like to stay local or stay out in the field, because of the rotation required by the PMF program. So, again, just some basic... Sketch what the outline of the program looks like.

Maria De Fazio:
Quick sidebar, because we have given you talking points, we should probably mention how to use the talking points. First thing, start with a good resource. We feel like these talking points are pretty good. Again, there's a link, they're attached to the invitation email, you got to this. And there'll be another link to the "thank you for attending" email that comes tomorrow. These are just some basic top line talking points. You want to start with a good resource. That gives you all of the things that you need. Then you want to do your homework. By this, I mean read all the way through the talking points. Take a look at the OPM website, figure out how the program is different from when you were a PMI or a PMF.

When I say balance is key, what that means is that "how do I use talking points?" Well, talking points are the selling points that start a conversation. When we're using talking points for outreach, it's that we all want to make sure that we're saying something that's similar because that's message discipline. That's making sure that we're focusing on the salient points, making sure that we're giving the best possible argument. But then we also want to balance that with what we know about the program that we're talking to, about the career center that we're talking to. If they are, for instance, particularly on the public policy side, they're going to be schools that are very focused on public service at a variety of levels. How does the PMF program... You're going to want to talk about how the PMF program differentiates itself from just public service in general. If you are talking to a school or a career center that doesn't have a lot of public service... Grads going into public service, you're going to want to spend a little more time explaining public service and explaining the importance of public service. And this comes back to use what you know. So if you're the person who's having these conversations with the program director, with the career service counselor, with the alumni association. Use what you know about your school. So I went to Fordham for my undergrad. Fordham is a Jesuit school. They have, in their mission creating, they call it creating men and women for others, which is a focus on doing service. So I would use that as a as a way to start the conversation that there are important connections between the way this program, the way the PMF program works and the mission of the school. Similarly, it's about using what you know, to find a way to have a good, convincing conversation that that is just that it's using the talking points to turn a sales pitch into a conversation.

Maria De Fazio:
So what comes after the talking points? You're going to get asked questions because this is supposed to be a conversation. These are some I've just got these up here on this slide as an example. And basically what we want to, what we want to get across is that we want to be positive. We don't want to be wearing rose colored glasses, but we do want to be positive. We don't want to say things like it's super competitive because that might discourage people from applying. But we also don't want to say, yeah, anybody could get it. You never know. You just have everybody apply. That's that's not helpful either. You want to have people thinking about the folks that seem like they'd be PMFs. I mean, you all know what PMFs and PMIs are like, you know, we have been overachieving for government since nineteen seventy eight. We we are problem solvers and lifelong learners and we're super driven and we definitely have a tendency to put service of others at the top of our list. So those are the kind of people that we are looking for. And I think that's what's important to help, to help you make the case for not just anybody to apply, but for the right folks to apply.

Maria De Fazio:
You know, we also want to make sure that they, we Patricia had talked a little bit about how there's a lot of information withholding or the information isn't shared unless you sort of prompt them to share it.You're going to want to talk about how we need a variety of people applying from diverse backgrounds, from diverse academic programs. This is really important because this is the kind of information that will get shared when someone sees a benefit to sharing it. And so if you want to help people get over that, that information holding, which we do, if you want to help people get over that sort of turf war-y nature, this is the way to do it. Is to specify that we need folks with really interesting degree combinations, even. So, you want to stay positive, you want to stay direct. You don't want to beat around the bush when you're answering questions, but you don't you don't want to make it sound entirely rosy, like, yes, it's a competitive program. Yes, it's an actual job. Yes. Working for the federal government is a challenge some days, but it's also very rewarding. So keep that in mind when you are having these conversations.

Maria De Fazio:
And then keep in mind these four steps for how to get your outreach done easily, well, efficiently. Pick the right target. So you want to talk to somebody who is either going to be directly influencing students, directly helping place students, or who's like the head of the program. And it has that sort of access into everybody. So it's up to you to decide whether you need to go for somebody who's got broad influence or somebody who's got narrow influence, but very deep. Use what you know about about your program to help decide that.

Maria De Fazio:
One of the things that's really important to do as part of making this outreach and making this connection, is to make the link about how this academic program or this the way the program was so hands on or the way the program was so focused or the way the program taught you how to think critically. Share how the program, the academic program prepared you to take on the challenges of PMF, of working in the federal government. You're going to want to sort of highlight some of those high points. Which makes it easier to sell because then you're showing either the program director or the career services person that there's a direct connection between what they're doing as part of their academic course of study and the success that you have achieved, post-graduation.

Maria De Fazio:
Focus on specific benefits to students, I would argue right now, having a job that lets you be remote and pays well for having a master's degree or higher and is generally pretty stable. Huge, huge hit. Like these are these are huge factors that are going to influence the way students coming out of a graduate program or who have graduated from a graduate program recently, think about things. We have bills to pay. We have student loans that we like to cover. We have life that has to happen. And it can be a little unsettling to be a grad student or a PhD candidate and go, "I don't have a job. And that's alarming." So highlight those benefits as well. And I would also argue that you should highlight the benefit, that it's not just a job, it's career development. It is it is a specific federal agency investing in an individual and preparing them not just to be to excel technically at a job, but to excel through the leadership ranks and to grow. So it's it's a good way to highlight that there is there are resources that will continue to be centered towards the student as a as a fellow.

Maria De Fazio:
And then leave the right resources for follow up. So this is going to depend on the conversation you have. If they've got more questions than you can answer, you're going to want to send them to the PMF program office specifically. I mean, not directly to somebody like Becca, but send them to the program office through [email protected]. That is the general email box. They're really good about responding to those inquiries right away. They will get assigned to someone in the program office based on their needs

Maria De Fazio:
Probably, please don't send like one hundred people right to Becca because that might be a little bit more than Becca needs right now. But but if they need some reminders, send them, leave the PMF program offices brochure that just it talks top line stuff and lets them know where to follow up. If they if they're really excited, they're really into this. Let them know that the PMF office is hosting actual trainings for applicants every Tuesday in September. Literally, I think there are five of them. Every Tuesday and September, there's going to be a virtual session where where potential applicants can learn more. Some of these sessions are also targeted: for diversity and inclusion; I believe there's a session that's also for for women in government. Becca can can sort of fill us in on more of those in a little bit. But I think it's important to make sure that you're giving them the information that is going to make it as easy as possible for them to get a student to apply. So think about that going forward.

Maria De Fazio:
So speaking of where you can send people for more information. These are just some of the basic basic resources, I would say, Patricia, I know you're a big fan of LinkedIn and "best places to work.org." If you wanted to sort of share how folks can use those resources.

Patricia Soler:
So I love sending people to best places to work dog, because that's where the scores are.So the Employee Viewpoint Survey. So if you're currently a federal employee or have been in the federal government, you know that that's the one survey a year that they're legally allowed to ask us, from OPM, about what we think about our respective agencies. And then those results are published. And sort of these agencies are ranked, well divided into large agencies, mid-sized agencies and small agencies, and then ranked accordingly on a bunch of different factors that come out of that survey. But that's the best places to work.org. I also like to use for the dual purpose because it's presented very nicely of what all the agencies like and it makes it a little bit more digestible. I think when you're having these conversations with people like the federal government a mess. But here's like an actual list that is very easy to follow. And there's a lot of places that back in the day I was like, I have never heard of this. I did not know it was a federal entity and they have PMFs. And so it's, again, great resource for seeing sort of where these places fall. And again, keep things in context. EVS scores dropped for every agency in the past year. So, you know, keeping these things a little bit in context of, there are trends, as always, with these scores, it doesn't mean that certain places are terrible to work at if they're a little bit more near the bottom. But it is also a good indication, I think it's just one of many tools, resources that people can use to look at to see "what are all these places?" And then to tie it back to my earlier comments about if they need to look at their local federal building and just have an idea of something like that they have seen in person. And can I know that building, everybody knows that building one of those agencies and then going back to the best places to work.org to cross-reference what those scores look like can be a tremendously helpful resource.

Patricia Soler:
Also, LinkedIn huge. That was like instrumental for me personally. Again, something that in my career background, specifically from academia, not a lot of people have because they had other tools. Respectively, that are more useful within their career sectors. But also to keep it updated and then to look at what other public servants like the language that they use to describe what they do. Again, invaluable, because if you're helping people with, say, informational interviews, language is key. And so LinkedIn is one of those tools where you can look at how are people using language to describe their jobs, which can then in turn inform a student's resume when they are preparing for the job market for a public service job specifically. So, again, all good resources.

Maria De Fazio:
Now we're going to get to something that's slightly more philosophical, but only a little bit. So why does outreach matter to to PMAA? We're the alumni association, right? So why why are we necessarily super concerned about getting in, particularly this year in the midst of all this COVID confusion, a, you know, a good class of applicants for twenty twenty one? Well, obviously, people who are applicants become finalists and finalists, become fellows and fellows, become alumni. But it's a little bit deeper than that.

Maria De Fazio:
As PMAA, we are responsible for building and maintaining this alumni community. That means making sure that we've got a great pipeline of people coming in, I mean, that's obviously the most basic sort of why do we care what we care? Because we want to make sure that we have high quality folks who are really service-motivated, who are problem solvers, who are PMF-y. We want them to, you know, we want them to sort of have that PMF X Factor that sometimes we talk about that that, you know, the the secret sauce or what makes PMF unicorns, whatever, however you want to talk about it. But it's the mix of of academic success, a driven personality, a desire or a high service motivation and a real desire to solve problems. Because it doesn't seem to matter how they change the assessment or how they change the program over the years, we all sort of share a lot of those traits. So, you know, it's important to be aware and to be involved in the building of our community from the very beginning. We know things right? Going back to that very first slide, we have all of this experience. We have 42 years of experience, of of experience across thousands of alumni. That's that is so much knowledge about how government works, how the private sector works, how the government, how government and the private sector work together. That's huge. That's absolutely huge.

Maria De Fazio:
Another reason why it matters is because of representation. You can't be what you can't see. And if no one is telling you that there are these opportunities out there and your school isn't putting them in front of you, you may not ever hear about them. As we mentioned earlier, in the year, PMAA does care about diversity. We care about social justice. We care about equality. We want to make sure that we are building a federal service that looks like the people it serves. Because that diversity of experience, that diversity of opinion is important. There is a huge business case for it and we need to do better. And in particular, we need to do better at making sure that we've got diverse leadership. And one of the ways that you can do that, and one of the ways that we all benefit from doing that, is by making sure that we're getting all kinds of people to apply for the PMF program. And we are moving all kinds of people into a program like PMF that supports leadership and growth and development.

Maria De Fazio:
So it's not just enough to have people get jobs. We need to make sure that we're giving equal opportunity for development as well. And that's one of those ways that PMF alums and PMI alums can reach back and give somebody a hand. And finally, just yes, it all seems to come back to COVID this year. Sorry, but it does. Public service is more important than ever. Gosh, I mean, with everything that's going on, the government has a huge role to play in handing out resources and developing sort of comeback plans. All of the things that are going to need to happen at agencies and at NGOs that work with agencies, and contractors that work with agencies, and in the private sector over the next couple of years. It's all going to be a lot of recovery focus. Right? We need to make sure that the federal government has a good group of the best and the brightest doing that work on the federal level. It's just that's just going to be critical. So this is why we care.

So given that I'm on the phone with PMFs, and I all know that PMF like to try really hard. What can you do in addition to just reaching out and talking to people on your own? Well, one of those things is the encourage the sharing of information across academia, whether it's working with whether it's encouraging your program to work with another program at the university or encouraging your program to work with a similar program at another university, to make sure that we're doing our best to get the information out there so that more people have it.

Maria De Fazio:
Making sure that we're leveraging our own networks. Do we know people that are going to be graduating or who have graduated recently and are looking to switch jobs and might be eligible for the PMF? You want to go the extra mile, make yourself available to talk to students? Oh, gosh, this is huge. I ended up doing a couple of informational interviews with with 2020 finalists who had already been placed and they just hadn't started working yet. But they were just so eager to learn more about what it was like to be a fellow and what it was like to work for the federal government. Yes, yes. Do this networking. This networking is good. This networking helps people feel cared for and brought into the fold and more likely to reach out if they've got a concern and more likely to stay. And goodness knows, we need all the people we can working, working well right now.

Maria De Fazio:
So and then finally, it target strategically, you know. So if you've got the in at your school because you've got a master's degree in public administration, see if the person at your career center can get you in touch with the person at the Career Center for the Engineering School or the person at the Career Center for the Sciences Department or at the theater school. Whatever it is. See if you can leverage your connections to strategically target other places. STEM jobs are going to be huge going forward. Like let's let's all be clear about that. We need folks with computers. We need folks with computer experience. We need folks in the sciences. We need folks in engineering. There's going to be a lot of that need going forward. And we need those folks to also be able to step up and lead. So we need PMFs with those particular skill sets. Let's go find them. So now I want to I think, Patricia, you had one thing to say to sum up, and then I'm going to turn over to Becca.

Patricia Soler:
Right. And one thing we don't have listed here, but it occurred to me, too, that you may have a veteran center also on your campus. Like, that's actually pretty standard, nowadays. Campuses have chapters of the Student Veterans of America or something else. That's really important, too, given that there's a veterans preference in the federal hiring process, and that includes the PMF program. They are very hungry for this type of information as well and may be sort of outside of a career center or an alumni association. They're usually standalone organizations within the university. So that would also be a great place to sort of do some informational sharing with as well. Huge, huge.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome. So now I'm going to tap Becca and have Becca talk just a little bit about there's another way you can go the extra mile. And we wanted to actually give Becca a chance to to plug that for OPM. So, go ahead, Becca.

Becca Wadness:
Thank you so much, Maria, and thank you to PMAA for being such a great partner when it comes to our recruitment and outreach efforts at the PMF program office. So our team has been working really hard this year in trying to up our game when it comes to making sure that people are aware of the program far in advance of the application opening. And of course, right now is our busy season because we have a month left to do this work. And then we'll turn around and start looking towards the 2022 cycle. So can't wait. Really excited, maybe a little bit exhausted already, but we've done a really good job of engaging our current network of fellows as well as our alumni. And this year we formalized a program that we had piloted around this time last year in our final push for the class of 2020. But this year we started a lot earlier with the PMF ambassador program. And so what PMF Ambassadors is, it's a volunteer network of current fellows and alumni who have signed up with us, with our office, to engage with academic institutions and prospective applicants throughout the year. And so we as an office, with the help of these fellows and alumni, have to date conducted over forty five recruitment and outreach events leading up to the launch of the 2021 application. I've just updated our most recent confirmed list of events and I added about a dozen more before September 30th.

Becca Wadness:
So it's going to be really fun and busy. But it's been really great to be able to lean on the Ambassador Network for a few different reasons. So, one, when we're making those presentations and making those connections with universities across the country, we've been trying to then loop in PMF ambassadors to help us with the follow up. To serve as a contact for questions that students might have. And during this time, like during the summer, we host our annual academic stakeholders meeting. And as one of the follow ups to that, this year, we said, hey, if you're interested in getting in touch with an ambassador, let us know. And then our office has been working on connecting them based on similarities in their backgrounds, whether it's the type of agency, the school or university programs interested in connecting with or an alma mater, or it could just be regionally. So it varies. And then the other piece that we've been doing when it comes to the PMF Ambassadors is this year we created regional teams. So knowing that our efforts, we're really trying to expand our efforts beyond the D.C. bubble. We created four regional teams, the West, South, Midwest and Northeast. And we've had regional team leads to help us coordinate efforts in those regions and as well as the network of ambassadors who are based in those regions to help us just get the word out and extend our reach regionally.

Becca Wadness:
Now, of course, we weren't predicting COVID, and that definitely impacted, you know, our our kind of geographical efforts. Knowing that everything has since then become virtual, which is great because it also provides an easy way for basically anyone in the PMF network to make those connections and do a presentation without needing to find funding for travel or without having to go home or to their alma maters or whatnot. So there's obviously pros and cons when it comes to our new virtual reality. But what's been really nice is to have kind of these smaller teams working with our office throughout the year to help educate earlier on in the fall and early winter. So that, come spring and summer, we're more serving as reminders to make sure that our contacts already know about the program at that point. And hopefully we're just reminding them of all the resources that we've posted and all the opportunities to engage with our office in advance of the application. So if you're interested in becoming a PMF Ambassador, anyone is welcome. We will be doing our next kind of callout for sign ups, I guess probably in the October, November timeframe. Once we recover from the application. We'll try to do it a little bit earlier this year to get it launched again, even a little bit earlier.

Becca Wadness:
I think we did our call out in December, January last year and got everyone on a phone call it like maybe the end of February, early March. I'd love to hit the ground running come like end of January. So be on the lookout for that. And if you are interested in kind of participating in the next cycle, please email us. Especially if you are beyond the class of 2017, you're a little bit more of a seasoned alum. We try to target our recruitment based on what we think will kind of attract the most people. So just let us know.

Becca Wadness:
And then the other the other piece that I just want to highlight for you, Maria, pointed out all the resources that we have on our website. We have been doing a really good job of updating those. We're coming out with a brand new applicant handbook next week.

Maria De Fazio:
Huge help.

Becca Wadness:
Yeah. So that should be published by Tuesday, which is our first day of information sessions for the general public. We have two sessions that day at two p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern Standard. And then we also have created a handbook, a toolkit for PMF ambassadors. So this can definitely supplement some of the resources that the PMAA is offering with the talking points. We have like an example slide deck, if you want to use that, like we've pulled FAQs that we get the most during these types of presentations and some other fliers that can be really useful to your efforts. So I'll make sure that Maria has that to pass out as well. Final plug. OK, final two things. Number one, the info sessions are happening, as I mentioned, starting this coming Tuesday. We have general sessions. All the sessions are open for everyone and will be relevant for everyone. But then we have a session on STEM, public health, and diversity and inclusion. And so those are to make sure that we're we're targeting student, students and applicants that are generally underrepresented. And we know we have a demand for. And then finally, if you do participate in some outreach or recruitment efforts, our office really wants to know about it. Because we want to be able to look at the data and track and see and see your impact and understand where we can improve upon and where we're doing really well. And so we have a link to a very quick survey that where you can just input some of your data around your outreach efforts and we'll make sure to email that out to the crowd as well, too. But that would be a great help if you can make sure to submit that once you complete an outreach activity.

Maria De Fazio:
Ok, I have just dropped that form into the chat for everybody to take a look at. Now I know we're coming up on time. So what I what I'm going to do is I'm going to just sort of open things up for questions and we'll go from there. So if anybody has questions, you can pop them in the Q and A. You can also raise your hand using the raise your hand function. So but I don't see any questions in there, so if you do have if you do have more questions, you can also e-mail us at [email protected]. You can respond to the email that Zoom will send you post-session. As I mentioned or as as Becca mentioned, OPM has a feedback form to let them to let you to let them know how your outreach went. We also have one as well.So basically, we just want to know how this goes.

Maria De Fazio:
So if you have more questions, you can reach out to me, you can reach out to Patricia, you can reach out to Becca at OPM. We are more than happy to help you guys do this outreach and really rock it. So unless there are any additional questions, I think we're probably good to go.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome. All right, thank you, Patricia. Thank you, Becca. Thank you, everybody, for attending. And we will see you soon. We have some exciting stuff coming up. So watch your inbox for your PMAA newsletter next week. All right. Thank you so much. Bye.

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