Recruitment 411: On Facebook – If you answer it, they will come.

We took a ‘Field of Dreams’ approach to our IRS Recruitment Facebook page.Only a few months after creating our page, job applicants were flocking to Facebook in search of answers to their questions about employment at the IRS.

In a little more than a year and a half, we saw our number of fans jump from less than a hundred to more than 2,100. That number grows quickly because we strive to respond to every post – a strategy that seems to work, if for no other reason than people don’t usually expect a personal response from a government agency.

Over the last several months, the posts on our wall have run the governmental gamut, ranging from straightforward statements about employment to intricate inquiries about applications. Of course, privacy is always on our minds, so we move any discussions that involve personal information to private e-mail. However, most of the questions can be answered publicly on our wall – and many questions are repeated by different people.

Here are the three most common things our inquiring Facebook fans want to know:

1. How long does it take to hear back about my application?
Answer: Generally, each step in the application process takes about four to six weeks for us to complete. Of course, this time frame can vary based on the number of applications received for a specific job announcement.

2. What is the status of my job application?
Answer: Occasionally, we do suggest people send a personal e-mail to our staff, and we will follow up with them. However, we generally start by suggesting applicants contact the HR Specialist listed in the announcement because they’re going to have the best information.

3. Are there any jobs available in my city or state?
Answer: This is where we refer to that time-honored proverb: Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.

We can easily go onto USAJobs and do a quick search for someone, but then they will likely come back in a month asking for more fish. Instead, we provide the link to USAJobs with brief instructions on how to search for jobs in a specific location – this will feed them for a lifetime.

What questions do you frequently hear from applicants?

Recruitment 411 is the official blog of the IRS Recruitment Office.