State Civil Service highlights 'Attract' recruiting tool; pilot campaigns raised eligible applicants 44%

The State Civil Service Recruiting and Outreach Center introduced Attract, a NEOGOV-based candidate-relationship manager, and a virtual-recruiter feature that uses background AI to reach passive candidates for low-performing vacancies.

Why it matters: Agencies with hard-to-fill positions can use Attract's career page forms, email campaigns and analytics to expand applicant pools and measure return on recruiting investment, officials said.

Peter Harris, assistant division administrator at the Recruiting and Outreach Center, described key features: a career page form to collect candidate data from events and schools, manual and automated email campaigns to re-engage passive candidates, and a virtual recruiter that runs in background stages for low-performing jobs. "We've been doing this with some agencies already. We worked a campaign where we were able to increase the number of qualified applicants by 44% that ended up on their eligible list," Harris said.

Harris said Attract tracks campaign analytics (opens, clicks, applications) so ROC can report how many people were reached, who opened messages and who applied. He emphasized that the virtual recruiter targets only low-performing jobs and that applicants can unsubscribe. Harris also promoted ROC's renovated recruitment space, private-interview rooms and event services to host targeted recruiting or hiring fairs.

What comes next: ROC plans to scale Attract campaigns and encouraged agencies with difficult-to-fill vacancies to contact ROC for targeted outreach and event support. Harris said ROC will continue to provide applicant assistance Monday through Friday and that agencies can contact ROC staff for dissemination at events.

Ending: State Civil Service thanked the ROC team and directed agencies to job-events links in the Q&A for upcoming recruiting opportunities.