This IRM is part of the Servicewide effort to provide IRS Human Resource practitioners with the most current policies and procedures from the HCO, Policy & Audits Office (P&A).

This IRM reflects the role of the IRS Recruitment Office/STARS Office in meeting the over-arching recruitment goals of the IRS. It includes policy and guidance on strategic recruitment activities ranging from marketing materials and campaigns (print, radio, television, and internet) to recruitment activities and strategy.

This IRM also establishes the relationship between the IRS Recruiting Branch, the STARS Office, and other IRS operating divisions and business units.

Laws:https://uscode.house.gov

Public Laws:https://www.congress.gov

Regulations:https://www.ecfr.gov

Other:

The Human Capital Officer is the executive responsible for this IRM and overall Servicewide policy for recruitment and hiring.

HCO, OHRS, P&A is responsible for developing, maintaining, and publishing content in this IRM.

HCO, OHRO, TA, PEO and the STARS Office are responsible for:

All IRS managers are responsible for ensuring government resources are used efficiently and effectively, with a minimum potential for waste, fraud and mismanagement. They must administer procedures covered in this IRM with integrity and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies.

This IRM provides policy guidance on workforce hiring strategies to build a diverse and highly skilled IRS workforce. The HCO, OHRS, P&A gauges the effectiveness of this policy based on feedback from customers and staff members. During the review and publishing of this IRM, sections are added or removed based on statutory and/or regulatory changes and based in part on this process.

The STARS Office manages the Servicewide recruitment strategy. The recruitment strategy supports and balances all division and business unit hiring needs, allocates resources to recruiting campaigns and activities that support consistent messaging, ensures continuation of regional relationships with recruiting sources and field and campus responsibilities of local recruiting efforts.

The following table defines terms contained in this IRM:

The following table provides acronyms contained in this IRM:

The STARS Office accomplishes its mission by:

The STARS Office is an office under HCO, TA.

The STARS Associate Director is the advisor to the Chief Human Capital Officer on strategic recruitment issues.

Four branches report to the STARS Office Director:

A permanent media presence is vital to the continual improvement of the IRS image as an employer of choice. The STARS Office is responsible for strategically communicating the benefits of IRS employment to potential employees.

The STARS Office designs employment marketing campaigns using the research, analysis and design services available through the IRS’s employment marketing contract. Campaign design activities include conducting research on media placement, job advertisements and direct marketing components, using research from focus groups, analyzing industry best practices, evaluating proposals, developing prototypes and final products, all of which supports the IRS Careers website at: www.jobs.irs.gov.

The IRS Careers Website is available at: www.jobs.irs.gov. This website is focused on employment marketing and recruitment, and contains links to the online vacancy announcement and application systems. The site is not used to distribute any tax related information. The site is hosted on a public facing server controlled by the contractor and managed by the STARS Office IRS Careers Website program manager. Strategic media campaigns direct audiences to the IRS Careers website which provides links to all approved IRS internet sites.

The STARS Office works with the IRS Design Office, C&L, and business units to ensure a consistent approach is used to communicate with national and local print publications including professional journals, college recruitment publications, diversity-focused publications, and special-interest publications. Print media campaigns can reflect nationwide employment opportunities or may be targeted to specific jobs and/or locations. The STARS Office recommends approaches consistent with the market and current trends.

The STARS Office maintains advertising and job posting on the internet, including event promotion sites, professional organization sites, college recruitment sites, general recruitment sites, diversity-focused sites, special interest sites, and general interest sites, including social media. Internet and social media campaigns can reflect nationwide recruitment events, nationwide employment opportunities or may be targeted to specific jobs and/or locations.

Placements are purchased on job posting and career information sites for use during the campaign year. These job postings supplement, but do not replace official vacancy announcements on www.usajobs.gov. The STARS Office manages the posting of job announcements and career information to selected sites through the media campaign contract.

The STARS Office maintains a presence at in-person and virtual career fairs and other venues where recruitment materials may be displayed and/or distributed. Recruiting materials may also be made available for placement in local newspapers and other outlets.

The STARS Office is responsible for the design, procurement and distribution of recruitment displays for IRS. Additional copies of the national displays and additional photo-panels may be purchased by operating divisions and business units through the Service’s recruitment marketing and advertising contract by contacting the STARS Office.

The STARS Office uses brand management to market the IRS as an employer of choice. The marketing created reflects the values, vision, and mission of the IRS. Standardized recruitment marketing materials deliver a consistent message and are used across the IRS. Content within branded materials can be tailored to attract identified candidate segments.

The STARS Office maintains an inventory of all employment marketing handouts and brochures. Creation and revision of all recruitment materials is facilitated by the STARS Office in collaboration with the IRS Design Office and Publishing Services, to ensure IRS design standards and an enterprise branding approach to recruitment are maintained. Recruitment products are published and ordered through Publishing Services and warehoused in national distribution centers. Corporate recruiters and local recruitment offices can order handouts and brochures from the national distribution centers.

The STARS Office procures and maintains an inventory of promotional items (giveaways) for distribution at recruitment events by corporate recruiters. The giveaways contain at a minimum the official IRS logo and the IRS Careers Website address: www.jobs.irs.gov.

The STARS Office is responsible for the creation and maintenance of an inventory of media templates that can be adapted for local use by operating divisions and business units. These templates contain approved graphics and employer branding messages. Local job titles, salaries, grades, location, and contact information for local offices can be stated in the approved media templates as needed. Creation and revision of these templates is facilitated by the STARS Office, in collaboration with the IRS Design Office, and Publishing Services, to ensure IRS design standards and an enterprise branding approach to recruitment are maintained. Operating divisions and business units are responsible for the placement of ads in local advertising outlets.

The STARS Office is responsible for ensuring that all recruitment advertising on local television is consistent with IRS Brand and Marketing guidelines, where such advertising is necessary.

The STARS Office is responsible for ensuring that all recruitment advertising on local radio is consistent with IRS Brand and Marketing guidelines, where such advertising is necessary.

Each fall, the STARS Office provides recruitment advertising to help fill thousands of seasonal and temporary jobs during the tax filing season (primarily in Submission Processing centers). In addition to the usual print and Internet media, the STARS Office uses a wide range of marketing tools developed specifically for individual campuses such as local flyers, transit ads, cinema ads, cup sleeves, billboards, radio ads, and direct mail campaigns. Creation and revision of these marketing tools is facilitated by the STARS Office, in collaboration with the IRS Design Office and Publishing Services, to ensure IRS design standards and an enterprise branding approach to recruitment are maintained.

The STARS Office performance management system ties recruitment success to HCO and IRS strategic goals. The STARS Office conducts studies and analyzes data for use in measuring the success of each recruitment source. Return on investment targets vary for each source strategy. The STARS Office measures the cost of a source strategy against recruitment success and utilizes various performance measures to gauge the effectiveness of recruitment efforts.

The STARS Office tracks the effectiveness of recruitment programs using the following measures:

The STARS Office tracks the effectiveness of the overall recruitment strategy using the following measures:

The STARS Office performance is measured by the following elements to ensure timely hiring of applicants:

The STARS Office performance is measured by the following elements regarding efficiency:

The STARS Office is responsible for the recruiting, selecting, hiring, supporting, and managing of a diverse staff of full-time corporate recruiters who market the IRS mission and its careers. Corporate recruiters build strategic relationships with key partnership organizations including, but not limited to colleges, universities, and IRS affinity groups. Corporate recruiters coordinate with IRS field and campus executive as well as senior and frontline managers in a team-based approach to plan and implement recruitment events.

Corporate recruiters are responsible for the following recruitment programs:

Corporate recruiters are responsible for representing the recruiting needs of all IRS operating divisions and business units. They work closely with the embedded recruitment offices of all IRS operating divisions and business units.

The STARS Office is responsible for providing annual recruiter training. All full-time corporate recruiters are required to complete the annual training. Training topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

The IRS is committed to supporting the recruitment, hiring and retention of employees with targeted disabilities, as defined by the Office of Personnel Management on their website here: www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/disability-employment. The STARS Office partners with other HCO divisions, EDI, the Office of the Chief Accessibility Coordinator and IRS business units to deliver disability recruitment outreach activities and disabled veterans outreach efforts. STARS is responsible for Schedule A program oversight on a Servicewide level.

The STARS Office partners with the Office of the Chief Accessibility Coordinator to assist operating divisions and business units in identifying individuals with targeted disabilities who are interested in a position in the post of duty where a job is to be announced or projected vacancies are scheduled to occur. The STARS Office supplements the Office of the Chief Accessibility Coordinator’s national contacts with Veterans organizations, regional and state Vocational Rehabilitation Centers, and nonprofit organizations to identify and recruit potential schedule A candidates.

The STARS Office supports the IRS initiative to increase the hiring of disabled employees through recruitment efforts including:

The STARS Office is the IRS Veterans Program Office and is committed to supporting the recruitment, hiring and retention of U.S. veterans who are a good fit for the IRS based on skill sets and leadership experiences acquired during their military tenure.

Veteran recruitment incorporates The STARS Office participation at veteran and military career fairs and outreach through advocacy groups designed to increase awareness of the IRS as an employer of choice for veterans including those that transition back into the workforce.

The STARS Office collaborates with operating divisions and business units, and EDI to determine target population segments and geographic areas in which to focus recruitment efforts to ultimately hire employees that are as diverse as the taxpayers IRS serves. The STARS Office partners with the Office of Program Evaluation and Risk Analysis (OPERA) and EDI for barrier identification, evaluation, and investigation of under-represented segments within the IRS workforce in accordance with Management Directive - 715 (MD-715) standards established by OPM.

The STARS Office incorporates diversity considerations and addresses barriers to under-representation in the annual corporate recruitment plan based on the MD-715 report and diversity recruitment needs as determined by EDI and OPERA for the fiscal year. EDI provides timely data on diversity recruitment needs to the STARS Office, which is used to develop a detailed schedule of marketing, media, and recruitment events, that helps achieve the annual corporate recruitment plan.

The STARS Office partners with IRS affinity groups to identify recruitment opportunities. IRS affinity groups include, but are not limited to:

Affinity group leaders and members are encouraged to reach out within their communities to share information about IRS career opportunities. Members are asked to assist the STARS Office in developing a creative and effective recruitment strategy and methods for delivery.

Targeted affinity group leaders and members are asked to solicit excellent employees amongst their membership to represent the IRS at official recruitment events as the face of the IRS. This allows affinity group representatives to offer their expertise and experience as IRS employees. The STARS Office serves as a consistent point of contact for all recruitment questions, assists with affinity group members needs and keeps affinity group members informed of new IRS employment at centers.

Corporate recruiters in The STARS Office serve on diversity recruitment teams to ensure that the IRS recruitment efforts incorporate diversity outreach.

The STARS Office recruitment efforts incorporate outreach to the following assigned diversity groups:

The STARS Office develops relationships with colleges and universities as a key component to recruiting applicants at the pre-career and early-career level. Recruitment activities at selected colleges and universities include participating in job fairs, making classroom presentations, placing ads in student newspapers, and sending email blasts to students. The STARS Office maintains a focused approach to college recruitment using a tiered system of school relationships identifying colleges and universities as primary, secondary, and supplemental. Recruitment strategies for college and university events are adjusted on an annual basis through activities including a review of the tiered list of colleges and universities, Return On Investment assessment, and feedback from IRS stakeholders and corporate recruiters.

The STARS Office focuses its recruiting and marketing efforts at primary schools in the top accredited colleges and universities fields whose diverse student populations have targeted skill sets that are a good fit for IRS occupations. Corporate recruiters partner with IRS executives to develop a relationship with each primary school.

The IRS builds relationships with career counselors and, in high-volume hiring years, has an increased attendance in job fairs and other campus events at additional colleges and universities located within proximity of our larger post of duties, IRS campuses, and primary schools. These are known as secondary schools.

The STARS Office engages in recruitment efforts at colleges and universities where the IRS has successfully recruited in the past or anticipates success regardless of location. These schools are known as supplemental schools. Efforts at these schools supplement those at the primary and secondary schools, particularly when recruitment efforts should be increased to facilitate large hiring initiatives or hiring for a specific location.

The STARS Office provides collaborative recruiting across all operating divisions and business units. Each business unit provides annual hiring needs to the STARS Office in a timely manner to enable the STARS Office to create a calendar of events and the annual recruitment plan.

Operating divisions and business units provide recruitment representatives to assist corporate recruiters at events as requested. Assistance may include attending recruitment events, making presentations to targeted organizations and communicating with potential candidates. Feedback on recruitment activities provided by recruitment representatives is considered in the development of the annual recruitment plan and recruitment calendar of events.

Requests to represent the IRS at recruitment events that are received directly by the operating divisions and business units should be shared with the STARS Office, who can provide logistics, planning, and scheduling support. Recruitment events may include speeches, workshops, and presentations to students, professional organizations, affinity groups or the public.