The Mother of All Ethical Hiring Questionnaires

One of the most important elements of any government ethics program is ethical hiring. Ethical hiring lowers the possibility of hiring people with serious conflicts of interest not only by being careful about the selection process, but also by sending a clear message that conflicts are serious business and must be disclosed even before an official is hired. Unethical people will find the hiring process, and the thought of working for people who would put them through it, unacceptable and will not apply.

The coming Obama White House has taken ethical hiring to a new level, at least if its job applicants' questionnaire is a true indication of hiring practices.

This questionnaire makes applying for college seem like a piece of cake. If you have been a lobbyist or worked for a government contractor, you will spend a great deal of time filling out this questionnaire. The questionnaire is also designed to get other skeletons out of the closet.

This is extreme hiring, but ethical local government leaders will find a lot of ideas in this questionnare, not to mention the idea of having such a questionnaire in the first place. Filling out such a questionnaire is itself an excellent ethcs training exercise. Add in further ethics training, the rewarding of ethical conduct, and good leadership role models, and a local government will hardly need an ethics code at all.

If you know of any local government hiring questionnaires, please send them on to me for posting.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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