OPM Launches “Hire-Palooza” Virtual Hiring Fair for Early-Career Candidates

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will host a virtual hiring fair on October 29. Director Scott Kupor described the event as a “hire-palooza” and said 16 federal agencies will conduct online interviews and extend job offers on the day. An OPM spokesperson clarified that participation is limited to applicants already in the hiring pipeline and that the fair aims to coordinate virtual interviews and immediate offers for early-career positions nationwide.

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OPM’s hiring push follows a period of extensive federal workforce cuts. From September 2024 to January 2026, the share of federal employees younger than 30 fell from 8.9 % to 7.9 %, a decline the Partnership for Public Service attributes to probationary-period firings enacted by the prior administration. In its fiscal 2027 guidance, OPM set a government-wide target that at least 33 % of external hires be early-career workers and aims to recruit more than 30,000 such employees this year.

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Kupor emphasized the need for candidates who “love this country” and “believe in the Constitution,” positioning the fair as a way to restore confidence in civil-service careers after the recent cuts. The OPM spokesperson reiterated that the fair’s purpose is to streamline interviews and offers for early-career roles, aligning with the agency’s 33 % external-hire target.

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• “I’ll call it a hire-palooza for lack of a better word,” — Scott Kupor, part of director

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• “Hiring fairs can help bring early career talent into federal service, but only if participants know who is being recruited, for which positions and what’s expected of them. So far, OPM has said little about why the event is limited to people already in the hiring process, which hiring authorities agencies will use or how skills-based assessments are integrated,” — Jenny Mattingley

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