Monster re-awarded contract for USAJobs.gov

The Office of Personnel Management late last week decided to keep Monster Government Solutions on to run the USAJobs.gov Web site.

OPM awarded Monster a five-year contract that could be worth up to $27.1 million. This new contract replaces the original $62.1 million award to New York-based Monster that was protested by Symplicity Corp. of Arlington, Va.

The Government Accountability Office sustained Symplicity's protest, but OPM decided against recompeting the contract until the House Government Reform Committee threatened to withhold future project funding.

OPM released the new request for proposals last July, and it took about 12 months to award the new contract.

"[Monster] has a track record of success and its management team has committed the expert resources required to serve the American public's ever-growing interest in federal jobs," said OPM Director Linda Springer.

A spokesman for Symplicity, which was one of two losing bidders for this contract, expressed disappointment over OPM's decision.

"Symplicity is awaiting a debrief from OPM," the spokesman said. "It seems that OPM just went through the motions."

The spokesman said Symplicity's price was close to $13 million less than Monster's and that their proposal was technically acceptable.

"We will be interested to see how OPM will justify this expense, especially with the budgetary pressure e-government is receiving from Congress," the spokesman added.

A spokesman for the House Government Reform Committee said the panel was pleased with the award.

"OPM briefed the Government Reform Committee on the recompete and it satisfied our earlier concerns," said Drew Crockett, a committee spokesman.

Monster's project manager for USAJobs.gov, Dan DeMaioNewton, said the re-award of the contract will resolve any concerns agencies had about integrating with the USAJobs.gov Web site and give the company the opportunity to move forward with technology innovations more quickly.

"Our approach going into the recompete was to show that we delivered what we said [we would] and demonstrate we can deliver more in the future," DeMaioNewton said. "Our rock-solid results for the last two years were one of the things that set us apart. We raised the bar for what it means for the federal government to compete for people. We will continue to raise the bar with innovation and integration."

DeMaioNewton said in the next 12 months Monster will add a application-status tracking tool, redesign the look of USAJobs.gov and Students.gov, integrate and accept a level-2 certification under the E-Authentication e-government project and improve the search for job functions, letting users sort by salary, location or specific job title.

Jason Miller is an assistant managing editor of Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.