Today, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments calling for them to improve the Federal recruitment and hiring process. Specifically, he said, "Americans must be able to apply for Federal jobs through a commonsense hiring process and agencies must be able to select high-quality candidates efficiently and quickly." Why would such a directive be needed—recruiting and hiring isn't rocket science, (unless you are applying to NASA) right?

If you are seeking employment, consult opm.gov (for Office of Personnel Management) and click on the link titled, "Job Seekers", you are immediately confronted by:

• Recovery Jobs
• USAJOBS
• Jobs in Demand
• Senior Executive Jobs
• Job FAQs
• Veterans' Employment Resources
• Persons with Disabilities

Most people would want a "job in demand" rather than a job in decline so I naturally clicked on that only to be led to just one job opening: associate director for budget at the National Institute of Health. Is this supposed to be a featured opening—surely there can't be just one position in the entire federal government that is "in demand?" It is clearly a case of the government speaking to itself—these links are a mixture of special programs, names of websites and types of job seekers.

And then it gets worse. If you find a job that is of interest, you confront this instruction to determine if you are qualified:

"A combination of education as described under letter A above and specialized experience as described under letter B above which when combined are equivalent to 100% of the qualifications requirements. To compute this, first determine your qualifying experience as a percentage of the experience required under letter B above. Second, determine your undergraduate education as a percentage of the education required under letter A above. Then add the two percentages together. The total must equal at least 100% to qualify."

Frankly, if you can do that calculation, you should be tapped to head up the Federal Reserve.

Of course, this confusion arises only if you actually seek out a federal government job. There is actually a critical shortage of federal workers looming as large numbers of employees reach retirement so the government needs to attract talent. Many people mistakenly think that most federal jobs are based in Washington DC—far from it—most are dispersed throughout the nation. Shouldn't that statistic be plastered on the home page? We want the best and the brightest public servants—instead we catch mice who can follow a maze.

Irene Etzorn is the executive director of simplification for the Siegel+Gale New York office.