In this episode, we're diving deep into the realm of Postal Service recruiting, hiring, and career development, with special guests Jim Davey, Director of Field Human Resources, and Shontay Porter, Director of Talent Acquisition. Whether you're a prospective employee or just curious about the inner workings of the Postal Service, this episode is for you!
When we think about the Postal Service, mail carriers often come to mind. However, there are thousands of different types of jobs within the Postal Service, beyond the familiar faces we encounter in our neighborhoods. This week on Mailin' It, we're diving deep into the realm of Postal Service recruiting, hiring, and career development. Join us as we learn about the diverse array of jobs, how the organization identifies the right talent for these roles, and invaluable insights for those considering a career with the Postal Service.
Karla Kirby
Hello and welcome to Mailin’ It, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Karla Kirby.
Jonathan Castillo
And I'm Jonathan Castillo. When most people think about working for the Postal Service, the jobs that come to mind first are probably delivering mail or working at a post office retail counter. I mean, those are the postal workers we tend to see day in and day out. Karla what if I told you there are actually thousands of different types of jobs at the Postal Service?
Karla Kirby
Well, you know, Jonathan, I do work in HR. So I'm going to say I know that. But I get your point. I think there are a lot of things about the postal service recruiting, hiring and career development that our listeners will find both surprising and interesting, which is why our guests for this episode are Jim Davey, Director of Field Human Resources and Shontay Porter, Director of Talent Acquisition.
Jim and Shantay have all kinds of great information they're going to share with us about different Postal Service jobs, how we find the right talent to fill these jobs, and what you need to know if you're looking to join the Postal Service. Jim, Shontay, welcome to Mailin’ It.
Jim Davey
Thank you.
Shontay Porter
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Jonathan Castillo
I think the best place to start is talking about the different types of workers that the Postal Service employs. I'm talking about the fact that some employers are bargaining unit employees while others are salaried administrators and still others are brought on as seasonal help. Let's start with bargaining unit or craft employees, if you will. Jim, can you tell us about those workers?
Jim Davey
Absolutely. These are the roles, like you said, that most people associate with the Postal Service. They make up the vast majority of about a 630,000 person workforce. So they'll include positions like letter carriers, both your city and your rural carriers, retail clerks, mail handlers, truck drivers, auto mechanics, labor custodians, and a number of other positions. In fact, several of our postmaster generals have actually started in these craft positions and then rose all the way to the top position over time.
Karla Kirby
So I think we could agree that these are obviously the roles that are the bread and butter for the postal service. Shontay, can you tell us about the Postal Service's EAS employees and what those positions entail?
Shontay Porter
Absolutely. EAS employees make up about 50,000 positions of our workforce. These positions support the infrastructure of USPS in various different ways.
Some of our EAS positions include industrial engineers, data sciences, sales, marketing, communication professionals, I.T., cybersecurity and human resources, just to name a few. Overall, there are about 2000 unique job positions within the EAS ranks. Many people move EAS positions after spending time as mail carriers, retail clerks or at other craft positions.
Jonathan Castillo
Yeah, I'm actually one of those. I rose through the ranks of a city career assistant, so I'm living proof. Right. Communications. Another important part of our workforce is seasonal staff. Those are the workers who help us handle the increased volume of mail during election season and the end of year holidays. I'm curious, Jim, how does the Postal Service know how many people to hire each year?
And as a follow up to that, what happens to them after the holidays?
Jim Davey
So the Postal Service does demand forecasting based on expected package and mail volume, and that helps us determine how much staff we need to add by location and by time of year. So a key part of our Delivering for America plan is to invest in our employees and really stabilize the frontline workforce. So in the last few years, the Postal Service has onboarded a lot of new employees and converted them into full time positions, putting them on a solid career path in the organization.
So many times after the holiday season, these employees will come back and work for us long term and become future career employees for us.
Karla Kirby
Okay, so that talks about some of our what we would consider our crafts kind of seasonal positions. So up until now, you know, we've been talking mostly about the traditional jobs. Shontay mentioned the number of EAS positions that we have. Can you just give us a little bit more information about those types of jobs?
Shontay Porter
Absolutely. I love to just talk about a few.
So first that comes to mind would be industrial engineers. It's their job to improve and to optimize internal processes, including mail flow and logistics. Not a lot of people associate industrial engineering with mail delivery, but logistics and efficiency are very important to the Postal Service. Another position that comes to mind would be data sciences and information technology.
We have a data department that studies demographics, for example. Every large business has IT people and Postal is no exception. Whatever you think about in another organization, the Postal Service would have it right here as well.
Jonathan Castillo
I think it's so interesting that, like we said earlier, not a lot of people I don't think would know, Hey, they have, you know, operational engineers and things of that nature. I mean, it's just absolutely incredible that the diversity of jobs that we have here. But let me ask you this. In general, how often does the Postal Service hire, you know, with such a large workforce?
I imagine that we're always looking for good people.
Jim Davey
Absolutely. Always looking for good people. And in a typical year, the Postal Service hires usually between 150,000 to 200,000 people. So we offer a lot of room for movement over time, you know, either to new positions, new locations, or both. I think what's important is we have good people stay within the organization.
Shontay Porter
Yeah. And just to add to that as well, I want to talk about something that a lot of people may not recognize, is that 50% of our workforce is eligible for retirement. So we have job opportunities that open up pretty regularly. When a job becomes vacant, we look internally first for qualified candidates. If there are no internal candidates selected, we open the process to external candidates.
This includes coming up with a recruitment strategy to reach the candidates we're looking for to meet the qualifications of that particular role. We market our positions on various job boards, such as Indeed, LinkedIn and job boards that are niche specific to the type of candidate that qualifies for the position.
Karla Kirby
Okay. So just to play devil's advocate, we have these various different types of positions.
Why would someone want to come to work for the Postal Service? And what's the perception of postal jobs by the general public? Jim?
Jim Davey
So I think there's a lot of reasons to come work for the Postal Service. You know, it's not easy work, but it's stable work. And I'd say it's rewarding work. My father worked for the Postal Service for over 30 years, and growing up, we never went without. I joined the company 24 years ago and I've been able to do the same thing for my family.
And I think we're as relevant today as the day we were founded. And given the critical nature of what we do in the Postal Service, our employees are a little bit insulated from some of the economic swings. We also have great job mobility. The Postal Service is a national organization. So if you get mail there, we probably have postal jobs there, meaning that if you need to move for some type of personal reason or life event, there may be an opportunity to move and keep in the same company.
Don't underestimate what it means to have a retirement plan. We have a great benefits package with annual leave, sick leave, retirement, and it's great to have retirement planned out for you even years before you even think you need to retire. So combined, great benefits, stability, and even a degree of job mobility when you come work for us.
Karla Kirby
So, Jim, thanks for providing some background on, you know, why someone would come to the Postal service. As I mentioned, being in H.R., I'm very familiar with the benefits. And we do have one of the richest packages, you know, as far as employers go. What would you say, though, is the perception of postal jobs by the general public?
Jim Davey
Our organization has been voted time and time again as the most trusted government agency. People rely on our services day in and day out to get their goods and their secure correspondence from point A to point B. I think we have a great image in the general public as an organization.
Jonathan Castillo
Something else I'd like to talk about is professional development. The Postal Service does a lot of recruiting of college graduates to fill different positions, and we offer four different professional development programs. Shontay, can you tell us about those?
Shontay Porter
Sure. So like you said, we do have four different developmental programs designed for recent college graduates. And they are sponsored by different groups. The Emerging Professional program is a 24 month program that is managed by our chief financial officer group. Their positions include data analyst and statistician associates, economists associates, financial Analyst Associates and Purchasing and Supply Management Associates.
These positions are primarily located at our headquarters in Washington, D.C. We also have the Industrial Engineer Trainee Program, which is also a 24 month program, and it's managed by the Industrial engineer leadership across three different executive leadership groups. The Professional Development Program is also a 24 hour a month program, and it's managed by the University Development Programs Team, which is a team under my group.
The positions in this program will generally come from the remaining executive leadership groups and these two positions are determined by what we forecast as future hiring needs for the organization. And then lastly, we also offer an Honors attorney program. This 36 month development program allows for entry level attorneys to gain experience by handling various legal matters independently.
Karla Kirby
I like the idea that the Postal Service its growing its talent, and we're also identifying college graduates that can step right into the postal Service and get this sort of career development.
In addition to the professional programs. Are there other types of training that the Postal Service offers?
Shontay Porter
I'm very glad you asked, because there absolutely are. In addition to the programs we offer recent college graduates, we do also offer internships. The internships are primarily during the summer, where students have the opportunity to work full time and gain hands on experience within their prospective fields.
Karla Kirby
So Shontay, in addition to the various development programs we offer for college graduates coming in. You mentioned the internship for individuals who are still in college and can gain some valuable work experience during the summer. What other opportunities are there for employees that are already with the Postal Service looking to develop across their career?
Shontay Porter
Yes, we have a multitude of internal programs to keep the development going.
Once someone has actually onboarded as an employee of the United States Postal Service. So we have programs called the Managerial Leadership Program, Advanced Leadership Program, that helps continue to cultivate the talent once you're inside the organization.
Karla Kirby
So, you know, in in several of our episodes, we've touched on the delivering for America plan that was developed by our PMG. Shontay, how does what we're doing with our employees and the development we're offering tie into that plan?
Shontay Porter
It directly aligns with what the PMG's vision is. So one of the key pillars within our Delivering for America plan is building talent. And that's what the purpose of these programs are.
Jonathan Castillo
And so a lot of the, you know, managers that we currently have, it seems like they probably went through some of these, you know, programs. You mentioned managerial leadership program, advanced leadership program. There are other programs, me, too, for some of our higher-end managers, like executives and things like that as well, right?
Shontay Porter
Yes, we do. We offer executive foundations. I'm a newly promoted executive myself, and so I just went through executive foundations just this summer, and I'm looking forward to going to executive leadership here next year.
Jonathan Castillo
Okay. And so what are these, you know, kind of leadership in these executive leadership programs? What are they intended to do?
Shontay Porter
They're helping to bridge the gap and your skill set. So helping you understand like how you can become a better leader, especially when you're coming into like the actual leadership development programs. While we're looking at those programs for those recent college graduates, we're trying to help them transition from college to corporation.
Jonathan Castillo
So it really sounds like we're developing that pipeline for some of these hard to fill positions and cultivate, as Karla mentioned, cultivating our talent, investing in our employees, investing in their careers. So just absolutely amazing things going on. Now, we've talked a lot about the different types of jobs at the Postal Service. Is there any way to sum up the types of people that we're looking for when we recruit, or does it really depend on the specific type of job.
Jim Davey
Frankly, because we're looking for so many different kinds of people to fill all these different kinds of jobs, there really is no set person that we're looking for. You know, if you want to work outdoors all day, get a lot of exercise than a letter carrier job is probably a good fit for you. In fact, I love to go recruiting at races and outdoor events because I know I'm going to find those kinds of people at those events.
If you want to work indoors, we've got plenty of jobs at our facilities. If you enjoy being on the road, we're always looking for drivers. Some people need shift work because they've got obligations at home. So one parent works during the day. Another parent needs to work at night. We've got all kinds of different shift work available as well.
So there really is no set type of person that we're looking for.
Karla Kirby
I think those are some great points. Jim. We do hire just it seems like across the spectrum. So another area now that we've talked about the jobs that are available at the Postal Service is what that application process looks like. And what's the best place to look for postal job openings.
Jim Davey
So probably the first place to look is our careers website. So USPS.com/careers. You can also find our job listings on a number of employment websites, on social media. In addition, we have thousands of in-person job fairs around the country, so we will be there in-person to walk people through the application process. Many times we'll even take your fingerprints at the job fair.
So as a reminder, this is a federal job, so there's some specific requirements to come work for us, like a background check. And so the screening process does take a little bit of time.
Karla Kirby
So, Shontay, would you say the process looks maybe a little different for you in some of the college graduate positions?
Shontay Porter
For the most part, Jim really covered it. It's about the same because you will see our positions posted on our careers page, but you can see them listed on various different sites. However, the only place to actually be considered for our roles would be to apply on the careers page.
Some people may apply on Indeed our LinkedIn, but if you don't actually circle back and do your application on the careers page, you won't really be considered for employment.
Jonathan Castillo
Talking about the application process, how is the Postal Service made it easier to apply for our jobs in recent years?
Jim Davey
So for our craft positions, so our mail handlers, letter carriers, clerks, we now have a virtual assessment online. So there used to be a proctored exam that you'd have to take in-person. That was a civil service test that you had to study for. Now applicants can go online, take the virtual assessment, and they give you about an hour to take it.
But it really takes about half that time. And it's not like the civil service test. You don't have to study for it. A lot of the questions are personality based, so they'll ask you about what kind of position you're looking for. What do you enjoy doing? Like, do you enjoy working outdoors? And it's really more about matching you to the right job in the Postal Service.
Karla Kirby
So, Jim, I think that's great information for our listeners. What tips can you provide for successfully making it through the hiring process? Is there anything that you would recommend specifically to our audience?
Shontay Porter
Yes, absolutely. Make sure to do your research before you apply. Check our website and video so you can see what the different positions do. The videos aren't long.
Be prepared for what you're applying for. Some of our craft positions don't actually require a job interview, so this is very helpful for people who feel they aren't good at interviews or maybe even tests. Just make sure you answer honestly, because we want to see where you would be a good fit, like Jim said previously. Make sure to also review the requirements of the position and ensure that your resume and or application speaks to your experience with those requirements. Before an applicant can reach a hiring manager, a review committee must review the applicants and score them against those requirements. Also, make sure to read the posting carefully before applying. And then lastly, you can get more information at our careers page at USPS.com/careers.
Jonathan Castillo
So important to read the posting before you apply… Understand exactly what it is that you're applying for. Right. Let me ask you this: How long does it generally take for an applicant to find out if they'll be hearing from the Postal Service?
Jim Davey
So not long at all, Jonathan. We get back to applicants very quickly and keep them informed as they're going through the hiring process. We have really worked to try to streamline it, although it is a lengthy process because you have to be background checked and screened. But last month I think we were down to an average about 29 days time to hire.
Karla Kirby
Oh, well, that sounds like it's happening pretty fast.
Jonathan Castillo
Very fast.
Karla Kirby
So again, as John mentioned, USPS.com/careers. I think, Jim, you mentioned Indeed. I have seen positions on USAJobs.gov where other federal agencies also post. What else can either Shontay or Jim can you share with us as last bits of advice, tips or other good things to know before applying to the Postal Service?
Jim Davey
So I think Shontay said it very, very well. It's about coming in, being prepared, knowing what you're applying for. We're always hiring. We always have opportunity. As we talked about, the organizations can have great opportunity for people going into the future as our current workforce retires. So come in, be prepared. Look forward to having a great career with us.
Some of our people stay 30, 40, 50 plus years in the organization. So we're not just looking for somebody to come in for a job. We're looking for you to come in, have a career, and stay with us.
Shontay Porter
Absolutely. Jim wrapped that a very beautifully. The only thing else that I would add is if you don't see a position that you're looking for, one of the ways that you can get in contact with my team in talent acquisition would be to reach out to us at talent@USPS.gov. That can get you in front of a recruiter.
So then you can understand what sort of positions may be coming available or what positions that you typically qualify for right now.
Jonathan Castillo
So much great information about the hiring process, the recruiting process, the career development process of the Postal Service. I just want to say, Jim, Shontay, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Really, really important information to get out there. So thank you very much.
Karla Kirby
I absolutely am excited that you guys came to spend some time with us today. Great information for our audience. As Jim and Shontay mentioned, the Postal Service is always hiring. So again, Shontay and Jim, thank you for joining us today.
Shontay Porter
Thank you.
Jim Davey
Thank you.
Karla Kirby
And now it's time for another “Did You Know” segment. As the name implies, this is when Jonathan and I each present a surprising fact about the Postal Service. I'll go ahead and get things started. Jonathan, did you know that the bestselling U.S. commemorative stamp was chosen by a public poll in 1992?
Jonathan Castillo
Interesting. I didn't know the Postal Service held elections for their stamps. Remind me again who was on the stamp?
Karla Kirby
The king of rock and roll, of course. In an unprecedented move, the Postal Service allowed the public to select the artwork for the Elvis Presley stamp. They got to choose between young Elvis and old Elvis. That may sound pretty straightforward. But it was actually a very long process. The Postal Service originally commissioned eight artists who submitted 60 sketches inspired by his career.From there, two were selected for a final vote.
Jonathan Castillo
60 Sketches? That's a lot to choose from for a single stamp. But I guess it's fitting, considering how much of an icon Elvis has become. I'm curious, which era won?
Karla Kirby
The Postal Service received nearly 1.2 million ballots. When all the votes were tallied, 75% of the voters chose, of course, younger Elvis. The 29 cent Elvis Presley stamp was released on January 8th of 1993, which would have been Elvis's 58th birthday. The stamps design was inspired by the Civil War era jacket and tie he wore in the 1956 film Love Me Tender.
Jonathan Castillo
A stamp and legacy fit for a King. Elvis is a hard act to follow, but my Did You Know has some eyebrow raising info as well.
Karla Kirby
All right, you've got my attention.
Jonathan Castillo
Did you know that the number of U.S. Post Offices grew from only 75 in 1790 to well over 28,000 by 1860?
Karla Kirby
Okay, so tell me how that happened.
Jonathan Castillo
I'm glad you asked. During that time period the United States itself grew dramatically expanding all the way to the Pacific Coast. And the population grew from less than 4 million people in 1790 to more than 31 million in 1860. As more states and citizens needed postal service, they pressed the post office department for more routes and faster delivery. The Postal Service responded by adding about 25,000 miles of postal roads between 1819 and 1823 alone.
Karla Kirby
Talk about growth. How do they manage all this new work?
Jonathan Castillo
They staffed up. By 1831, postal employees accounted for 76% of the civilian federal workforce. Postmasters even outnumbered soldiers.
Karla Kirby
Well, that's definitely interesting.
Jonathan Castillo
Yes. In fact, in many remote communities, the postmaster was the only representative of the federal government they ever saw. In that way, postmasters really helped forge the country's identity in those early years by linking remote communities with their national government. And that wraps up this edition of Did You Know?
Karla Kirby
So, Jonathan, another great episode. I think one of the big takeaways for me is the Postal Service is a mammoth organization. As Jim mentioned, we hire anywhere between 120,000 – 200,000 people every year. So keep in mind for our listeners, the Postal Service is hiring. You can always visit usps.com/careers.
Jonathan Castillo
For me, it was all the different types of career development opportunities that the Postal Service is offering, cultivating our workforce and really kind of investing in that pipeline. So many great opportunities both internally as well as, like you said, the new hires. Really great things going on.
Karla Kirby
Exactly. And I think another thing we'll just hone on is the Postal Service offers careers, not just jobs. It offers careers that have great benefits. And you can retire from the Postal Service. So that's all for this episode of Mailin It. Don't forget to subscribe to mailing it wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you don't miss any episodes and follow along on Instagram @USPostalService, X - formerly known as Twitter @USPS, and on Facebook.