DIR Review - HR REE 30 day supporting statement 3-1-16

SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSION

INTERNational Connections
OMB Number 1405- 0190

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. The Department’s student intern programs provide a key source of potential candidates who are interested, motivated, and qualified to become future Department employees. The Department seeks to strengthen and maintain its connections to this group, fostering and mentoring a pool of candidates from which to potentially obtain successful recruits. Currently, the Department’s intern program employs over 1,000 participants during the summer, in addition to fall and spring internships. However, no information system exists to enable the Department to track its interns over time or to determine the rate at which they are ultimately hired as Civil Service or Foreign Service employees. This proposed information collection will provide the Department the means to maintain contact with former interns, complementing other outreach activities to sustain their interest in Department careers and to follow up and encourage continued engagement and a sense of community. The following legal authorities necessitate this collection: 22 U.S.C. § 2651a; 22 U.S.C. § 3901; 5 U.S.C. § 3111.

2. The Department’s Bureau of Human Resources will use the collected information to track and maintain contact with current and former interns, sending them targeted electronic messages related to their interest in careers with the Department. The purpose of these contacts is to encourage these interns to pursue those interests, in support of the Department’s recruitment goals and objectives. Individual Department officers in other bureaus may also use the information for the purpose of mentoring and enhancing the interns’ sense of engagement with the Department. The information can also be used by the interns themselves for the purpose of maintaining contact with one another other, networking, developing contacts, and creating a shared sense of community.

3. This proposed collection of information exclusively utilizes electronic information technology.

4. The information to be collected is not available elsewhere.

5. The proposed collection of information does not impact small businesses or other small entities.

6. Without the proposed collection of information, the Department of State will not have a means of maintaining contact with its former interns and will therefore lack a valuable recruitment tool for targeting a particularly well qualified and motivated pool of career candidates. Moreover, by lacking the means to track its former interns, the Department would also be unable to measure the success of its efforts to recruit among this population.

7. There are no special circumstances associated with this information collection.

8. The Department published a 60-day notice in the Federal Register on September 4, 2015. 80 FR 53611. The Department received no comments in response. The Department is publishing a 30-day notice in the Federal Register to solicit public comments.

9. There will be no payments or gifts to respondents.

10. Respondents are given no assurances of confidentiality of the information provided to the Department other than those afforded under the provisions of the Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act. Respondents themselves control the degree and extent to which their information is shared with other respondents.

11. This information collection does not seek responses to any questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Participation in this information collection is completely voluntary, and respondents are free to devote as much or as little time to it as they choose, depending upon the extent to which they find it useful in furthering their own goals. It is estimated that approximately 1,000 current and former interns will each spend about 15 minutes on this information collection. Based on these figures it is estimated that the total annual burden on respondents will be 250 hours. According to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics website (www.bls.gov), the weighted wage rate category for “All occupations” (chosen because the respondent could be from any occupation) is estimated to be $31.79 per hour ($22.71 average wage x 1.4 multiplier). Therefore, the estimated annual burden hour cost to respondents “all occupations” is $7,947.50 (250 annual burden hours x $31.79).

13. There is no cost to respondents to participate in this information collection. There are no costs or fees and no equipment or recordkeeping requirements are associated with this information collection, which is completely voluntary on the part of respondents. It is expected that respondents currently have the ability, without the need for research, to provide the requested information.

14. It is estimated that the annualized cost to the Federal Government is confined to the salary and benefits associated with the time spent by Department officials responsible for the administrative oversight and management of this information collection, as well as the annual web hosting fee. The total annual cost for ongoing maintenance, web hosting and personnel salary and benefits is approximately $40,000.

15. Since the previous submission, we have updated the total annual burden on respondents from 500 hours to 250 hours to reflect that, after a further review, respondents will only spend about 15 minutes on this information collection. The information collected has been updated as well. Respondents are no longer asked to report: cellphone number; link to Facebook profile; link to LinkedIn profiles, home address; homepage URL; link to Hometown Newspaper; name, address, city, state, zip code, country, phone, website, email or office of current work; language; weather; private messaging options; show when online; keep journal private; elementary/primary school; the Student Program Internship Section: year served, program type, internship location, about my internship experience. Since the previous collection, respondents are asked to report: Career Path, Job Title, Language(s), Personal Interests.

16. Results of this collection of information will not be published.

17. The expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection will be displayed.

18. No exceptions are being requested to the certification statement.

B. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS

This collection does not employ statistical methods.