Work for America Launches Free Toolkit to Aid Public Sector Hiring Processes

Work for America (WFA) has launched a free resource designed to help state and local government HR and operations leaders speed up hiring and improve the candidate experience.

Built to Hire: A Process Mapping Toolkit for Government Hiring Teams turns lessons from WFA’s inaugural Talent Accelerator cohort into a practical, step-by-step guide for state and local hiring teams, according to a statement from the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based nonprofit initiative.

(WFA will host a virtual launch event on Sept. 22, introducing the toolkit and walking attendees through how to use it. Register here.)

The inaugural Talent Accelerator program ran for eight weeks in the spring of 2026, with 12 participating cities building an end-to-end map of their hiring processes, identifying where delays occurred and building concrete plans to cut time-to-hire.

(WFA continues to support cities through additional Talent Accelerator cohorts, including Data-Driven Hiring for Cities, launching this fall. Interested cities can apply for the Fall 2026 cohort here.)

The new toolkit’s core premise is that “governments can’t solve the issues within their hiring systems if they can’t see them clearly,” according to WFA. “Instead of redesigning the entire system, understanding each part of the process is key to identifying the most urgent fixes.”

Built to Hire walks HR teams through building a process map, analyzing their process and designing improvements. Each phase includes interactive activities, facilitation guides and downloadable email, agenda, and process-mapping templates so teams can move from insight to action without starting from scratch.

The toolkit “is grounded in real challenges that participating cities in WFA’s inaugural Talent Accelerator cohort found and fixed,” according to WFA.

For example, the City of St. Louis uncovered a fragmented, 94-step hiring process that was hampered by paper-based workflows and duplicative data entry. By streamlining and digitizing key steps, the City has already cut its hiring timeline from nine-to-12 months down to two-to-three months.

The City has also increased job fill rates and realized annual savings exceeding $250,000. (To learn more about St. Louis’ hiring reform, read the WFA case study highlighting the City’s process here.)

“Most governments can’t actually see their own hiring process from end to end,” said Shifra Goldenberg, chief program officer at Work for America, in a statement.

“Built to Hire gives HR teams a way to make that process visible, find the one change that will make the biggest difference and act on it, without waiting for a system-wide overhaul.”