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The Government Accountability Office is an independent legislative branch agency that reviews the effectiveness and efficiency of federal programs. For example, in recent weeks, GAO has issued reports finding that the State Department could be overspending on residences for overseas employees because certain housing standards haven’t been updated in more than three decades and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency cut staff without considering the impacts on disaster operations.
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GAO’s own watchdog, however, determined in a report published on Monday that the oversight agency is taking longer to hire than other federal agencies and that there are issues with how it measures certain hiring data, which could impede efforts to shorten the time that it takes to recruit.
“The length of GAO’s hiring process increases the agency’s risk of not meeting its stated goal of hiring well-qualified candidates because prospective employees may accept other job opportunities while waiting for GAO to complete its hiring process,” the inspector general for the GAO wrote.
In fiscal 2024, the IG reported that GAO took an average of about 103 days to hire employees into roles that have been deemed mission critical occupations across government (e.g. information technology management). To compare, the agency’s internal hiring target is 98 to 101 days, and the Office of Personnel Management’s hiring goal for executive branch agencies is 80 days.
For instance, it took executive branch agencies that are part of an OPM dashboard an average of 72.1 days to hire for contracting roles in fiscal 2024 compared with 110.1 days for GAO to recruit for identical positions.
GAO’s chief human capital officer defended the hiring length in a letter attached to the report, noting that the agency “relies heavily on multiple rounds of interviews as an important part of our assessment process.” The official also said that GAO allows potential hires to negotiate their salaries, unlike other agencies, “but which may simultaneously add time to the process and may increase our ability to attract a broader applicant pool.”
The IG also reported that the agency inadvertently excluded 20, about 30%, of its fiscal 2024 mission-critical hires from time-to-hire data and that there’s a discrepancy between whether the hiring process starts when human capital staff consult with a hiring manager about a vacancy or when such consultation is complete.
“By using the consultation completion dates, [Human Capital Office]’s calculations would have undercounted the days spent on some hiring actions,” investigators wrote. “Further, HCO staff indicated that consultations often took longer than the allotted two days. However, because HCO did not record the start date for consultations, it cannot determine how long consultations took or accurately assess the length of its hiring process.”
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GAO agreed with two of its IG’s recommendations: to periodically review hiring timelines and address inefficiencies and to update all internal documents to reflect the established target hiring time frames.
With respect to a recommendation to ensure all hiring actions are included in time-to-hire calculations, GAO countered that certain actions, such as annual promotions for analysts, shouldn’t be included. And regarding a recommendation about accurately documenting hiring dates, GAO suggested performing separate tracking of early actions in the hiring process (e.g. consultation with hiring manager).
Regardless, GAO officials said they would implement all of the recommendations by April 1, 2027.
The IG also noted that GAO in fiscal 2025 hired fewer than 10 entry-level employees and experienced a net loss of around 100 staffers because it didn’t backfill positions due to “budget constraints.”
The Office of Management and Budget has previously criticized GAO after the agency on several occasions determined that the administration violated rules around impoundments, which is when the executive branch delays or withholds congressionally approved spending.
For fiscal 2026, House Republicans proposed halving GAO’s spending level, but the final appropriations bill kept the agency’s funding flat.
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