Yes, a contractor can support Federal recruiting, as long as it stays on the right side of one line: the decision about who gets hired. Research, sourcing, outreach, campaigns, events, and reporting can all be contracted. Deciding whether someone is qualified, referring them, interviewing them for employment, and selecting them cannot. This article explains where that line comes from and how to write a requirement that respects it.
Where the line comes from
The Federal Acquisition Regulation lists examples of inherently governmental functions in FAR 7.503(c). One of them is the selection or non-selection of individuals for Federal Government employment, including the interviewing of individuals for employment. Inherently governmental functions must be performed by Federal employees, so no contract can hand them to a vendor.
Title 5 of the U.S. Code and OPM’s regulations add the structure around that decision: qualification standards, assessment, veterans’ preference, rating and ranking, and referral. Those steps run through the agency’s HR office and the official application process, usually a USAJOBS announcement.
What a contractor can do
- Talent market research: where candidates for an occupation work, what they earn, and how to reach them.
- Recruitment strategy: channels, messages, events, and a plan the agency approves.
- Sourcing: identifying prospective candidates whose public professional background matches written criteria from the agency.
- Outreach: contacting those people with Government-approved information and sending interested candidates to the announcement.
- Pipelines and reporting: tracking who is interested and reporting activity and results.
- Campaigns and events: marketing the agency as an employer and supporting recruitment events that agency staff lead.
Where requirements go wrong
Most problems come from vague wording that invites the contractor across the line. Watch for these:
- “Screen candidates.” A contractor can compare public profiles to sourcing criteria to decide whom to contact. It should not rate or qualify applicants. Say “identify candidate leads that align with Government-provided sourcing criteria” instead.
- “Present qualified candidates.” Only the agency determines who is qualified. “Qualified candidate lead” can be defined for contract purposes, as the Ginnie Mae draft work statement does, as long as the definition says it is not a Federal qualification determination.
- Measuring the contractor on hires. Hires depend on agency decisions. They are good program measures and poor contractor measures, and tying payment to them pushes a vendor to over-promise to candidates.
- Supervising contractor staff. Assigning daily tasks to individual contractor employees can turn the contract into personal services, which FAR 37.104 restricts. Describe deliverables and standards, not schedules.
Protecting candidates and the merit system
Outreach needs guardrails too. Candidates should always know they are talking to a contractor with no hiring authority. Nobody should be told they are likely to be selected. Everyone should get the same public information, and nobody should get help that others do not, which could raise prohibited personnel practice concerns under 5 U.S.C. 2302. A good requirement says all of this explicitly, and a good contractor puts it in its quality control plan.
A simple test
For any task in a draft requirement, ask: does this help people find and apply for the job, or does it help decide who gets the job? The first can be contracted. The second stays with the agency. At Career Consults we call this the authority line, and our services are built to stop at it.