Oft around these parts there is mention of ‘The Bureaucracy’ in terms comparable to those reserved for a singular organism. It is not that these are not apt, but looking at the cogs that make up the machine, their incentives, and most importantly, how they are selected provides some insight into why the Bureaucracy makes the maddeningly insane decisions it does. The first two root causes that came to mind were Recruitment and Procurement. But this article is only about the Recruitment side of things. So, how does the Bureaucracy staff itself? In New York, at least, it uses a very Chinese system – the Civil Service Exam, mostly.

To get a rank and file job in the system, you apply for an exam you meet the qualifications for, take the test, and wait. Test scores turn into a list of eligible candidates (the list) and when an agency is hiring for a position filled from a list, they send out canvass letters to candidates who are ‘reachable’, choose people to interview from among the respondents, score the interviewees, and select one to make an offer to. So what is ‘Reachable’? It means someone who scored in the top three. That is not three people. For example, I am on a list where I am tied for second with several hundred other candidates who all scored 100 on the exam. I didn’t mention that there are special credits that get added to certain individuals’ exam scores, which is how there is someone on that same list with a 105.

So this pool of Reachable candidates sounds pretty big. For a title like ‘Beginning Clerical Worker’ (the entry-level catch-all for generic office jobs) it is. But, the BCWs are literally the bottom rung of the Civil Service. The criteria to take that test is ‘Do you have a high school diploma or equivalent, and can you read English?’ Once you move up the ladder, the titles get more and more specialized, and the lists shorter and shorter. Every agency has its own specialized title series’ related to the roles that agency performs. Some of these title series contain less than a dozen individuals. But, I can’t speak to how difficult it is to move into or out of those, so I will focus on my specialized title series, Information Technology.

In IT, there are people who started in the BCW title series and moved up through operations, or the help desk and into more advanced technical roles. But these days, the vast majority will get in by applying for the IT Specialist 2 title. There is an ITS1 title, which is generally how the lower level office workers get into the IT Specialist track, but someone who graduated college with a technical degree can hop on at ITS2 from the outside. These are “Open-Competitive” positions, meaning any Citizen-Resident of the state can apply, and if they meet the criteria, be hired. Open-Competitive positions are rare, and generally limited to the ‘entry level’ of a title series. We don’t hire ITS4s Open-Competitive, and for ITS3s, well, it depends. Every other title in the regular Civil Service (ie, not politically appointed) is a Promotional item. To be Reachable on a Promotional list, you need to have taken the test, scored high, and have enough time in title at a specific lower grade within the same title track. In IT that time in title is typically one year. The testing cycle and fill process means you won’t be able to get annual promotions though.

That’s where the next bottleneck comes in – skills.

Because the middle of the title track involves doing the actual work of the specialization, hiring managers are looking for promotional candidates with specific skillsets that either match the work or are ‘close enough’ that the candidate can learn the technology quickly. If you’ve got an uncommon tech, ‘close enough’ is about the best you’ll find. The thing is, the tests are created by a specific division within the Department of Civil Service which is staffed by people who by no means know a damn thing about the skills actually used in the day to day job duties of the specialized title series. Consultation with subject matter experts from those fields only gets them so close. Especially since those selected to help the testing services division are often those at the end of their long career who are unlikely to seek further promotion. That is, those most steeped in the organization culture of the Civil Service, and with the least experience outside of it. To compound it, most of the managerial style questions focus on things like ‘Bureaucratic English’ which amounts to formulating or selecting stilted sentences which most match the English as it exists in official documents.

So, those who score high on the test demonstrate an understanding of how the state has always done things, rather than excellence at their specialization. And an aptitude at the sorts of standardized testing public school students are subjected to year over year.

So, when trying to find someone to fill an open promotional spot on your team to perform specialized work, the hiring manager ends up sifting through good test takers for someone whose skills are ‘close enough’ for the work to be done. None of this selects for good managerial skill or strategic decision making. Which leads to the next bottleneck.

Managerial titles are Promotional spots from among the rank and file of their specialized title series. So, for managers you get to pick from among the good test takers whose specialization skills were close enough to the business area’s work who show the most promise at being decent supervisors. And since technical tracks tend to stop where the management tracks begin, any staff interested in better pay but not management will end up jumping ship from state service to the private sector. This further reduces the pool and forces a backfill from among those Reachable on the list.

Division Directors are selected from Managers, and Deputy Agency Heads are selected from Division Directors, each time, the pool gets smaller, and the choice is from a smaller and smaller pool of ‘close enough’ candidates. Agency heads tend to be political appointees, so Deputy Agency Head is the top of the Civil Service track proper. These people, Managers, Division Directors, and Deputy Agency Heads are the ones who make the day to day decisions on how the agency will act or react. Barring a political directive, this ever shallower pool of ‘close enough’ candidates. All of this is when the system is working objectively. Those who work in the system figure out how to game the system and will find ways to get their favorites into available positions. These favorites may be good at their job, or may just be good friends of the hiring manager. So long as they’re not related and the letter of the rules have been followed, the system can’t tell.

So, to borrow a quote, “They’re not sending their best,” to run these agencies. The hiring managers are selecting their preferred least bad candidates from an ever shallower pool, by whichever definition of ‘least bad’ that hiring manager can make fit into the letter of the law. At its heart, longevity and conformity to the Civil Service culture matter more than competence for opening up opportunities for advancement. Oh, did I mention that, depending on the title, it can be between seven and ten years between exams? The higher up the title, the less frequent the exams become.