Peace Corps – Office of Volunteer Recruitment and Selection
Peace Corps Response Personal and Professional Reference Forms
Supporting Statement
Section A: Justification
1. Peace Corps Response uses the Personal and Professional reference forms in order to learn from someone, who knows a volunteer applicant and his or her background, whether the applicant possesses the necessary characteristics and skills to serve as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer. See 22 CFR 305.4 (eligibility and selection standards for Peace Corps volunteer service.)
2. The information collected on the Reference Forms for Peace Corps Response Candidates as an integral part of the screening and selection process and is used to determine whether an applicant would be a good candidate as a Peace Corps Response volunteer. The information obtained from these forms is used by the recruitment and placement specialists within the Office of Peace Corps Response.
There is no other means of obtaining the required data, and the information gathered is not shared with outside sources or other government agencies.
Peace Corps Response will include the Reference Forms electronically, although independent of its web-based application itself. Qualified applicants, following the submission of their application and their successful interview, will be required to submit the names and email addresses of their two references. These names and email addresses will be collected electronically within the applicant’s record. Peace Corps Response staff will send the Reference Forms to the references electronically via a secure portal. References will complete and submit the forms electronically via the web service.
Information, from an applicant’s references about whether a particular applicant possesses the skills and characteristics desirable for Peace Corps Response service, is available nowhere else. If a candidate has “reapplied” to serve as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer (either to serve an additional term, or because the applicant was not selected previously due to any reason), Peace Corps Response will request two additional references only after a successful interview process.
The collection of information from the Peace Corps Response Reference Forms does not impact small businesses or other small entities.
6. If Peace Corps Response were unable to collect the reference information requested on these forms, the office would run the risk of sending poorly qualified or unqualified representatives into foreign countries. The communities where Peace Corps Response assigns Volunteers often observe closely the actions and behaviors of Volunteers, who are representatives of the United States. A Peace Corps Response Volunteer with poor performance, bad judgment, social inadequacy, or undesirable personal behavior easily may become an embarrassment to the United States. A poorly screened volunteer may create conflict and embarrassment for the United States by attracting negative media or political attention.
7. No special circumstances exist that require the information collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.6.
8. The agency’s 60-day Federal Register notice was published in the Federal Register on May 16, 2011, 76 FR 28246. No comments were received
9. No payment or gift is provided to respondents.
10. We are amending PC-21, Peace Corps Response Database, to cover candidates without prior Peace Corps experience and the Reference Forms.
Respondents are informed that the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(k)(5), provides that Peace Corps may keep their identity confidential, if so requested. The form has a box to check if the respondent does not authorize the Peace Corps to identify him or her as the source of the reference. The form also has a box to check indicating that the individual authorizes the Peace Corps to identify the respondent as the source.
Privacy Act notices are printed on the form for assurance of confidentiality. It reads: (taken from the Reference Forms)
The Privacy Act is a federal law that states that everyone has the right to know about and receive information about, or copies of, documents about them that are maintained by the federal government. This law provides that the Peace Corps may keep the identity of the source of this reference confidential only if you request that it be kept confidential. Please indicate below whether you do or do not wish your identity revealed to the applicant.
□ I DO NOT authorize the Peace Corps to identify me as the source of this reference, nor do I authorize the Peace Corps to release a copy of this reference in its entirety to the applicant, I realize that a summary of this reference may be released without my approval.
□ I AUTHORIZE the Peace Corps to identify me as the source of this reference and to release a copy of this reference, upon request, to the applicant.
No questions of a sensitive nature are asked.
Estimated burden (hours) of the collection of information:
a. Number of Applicants
(complete the application process): 2,500
Number of Applicants
(requiring references following interview): 350
c. Number of reference required per applicant: 2
d. Estimated Number of reference forms received: 700
e. Frequency of response: One time
f. Completion time: 10 minutes
g. Annual burden hours: 117
h. Number of forms received electronically (99%): 692
i. Number of forms completed manually by staff (1%) 8
There will be no cost to respondents.
There is no total annual cost burden to respondents or record keepers.
14. Total annual cost to the Federal Government per annum
Printing (1% of 700 forms) $ 100
(includes cost of paper, ink, printing labor)
Analyzing information and processing $ 1,067
(see table below for calculation of labor hours)
TOTAL per annum $ 1,167
Number of reference forms reviewed following interview by Recruiter 700
(350 applicants following interviews x 2 reference forms each)
Amount of time Recruiters review reference forms 35 hours
((3 minutes per form x 700 forms) / 60 minutes)
Labor cost for review by Recruiters $1,067
(35 hrs / 2087 hrs per year = 0.02 of a Recruiters’ annual salary
0.02 of Recruiters’ salary * $53,350 annual salary of a Recruiter)
TOTAL LABOR HOURS $1,067
15. This is an existing collection in use without prior OMB approval. Requesting a new OMB number for this collection.
This information will not be published for statistical use.
N/A.
18. Peace Corps Response is not seeking any exceptions to the certification statement.
Section B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods
The collection of information does not employ statistical methods.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | Peace Corps – Office of Volunteer Recruitment and Selection |
| Author | nfull |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-31 |