High-profile positions in the civil service and wider public service are being thrown open to the external market, writes Caroline Madden.

Over the last year an entirely new avenue has opened up to senior executives looking for a career move, an avenue which not only offers eye-catching remuneration packages but also affords the opportunity to influence nationally important issues.

It's not an Irish Plc, a multinational or even an exciting new start-up, but the upper echelons of the public sector.

Until very recently this career path was a closed shop, with senior civil service and public sector positions filled internally.

Now, in line with the Towards 2016 national partnership agreement, high-profile roles are being thrown open to the external market.

The campaign to open up the top levels of the civil service and the wider public sector to outside talent is being run by the Public Appointments Service - which provides recruitment services to the civil service and other public bodies - and spearheaded by Niall Leavy.

An occupational psychologist by profession, Leavy is responsible for reshaping and developing this new approach to senior executive recruitment.

"Since late 2006, there's been a huge concerted effort and a lot of momentum building to actually open all those appointments up and advertise them in the open market," he says.

A key part of his role is to ensure that the Public Appointments Service's recruitment strategies are "sharp enough" to attract top calibre external candidates.

"We're constantly reviewing our process, we are constantly benchmarking, we have a very good handle on what's happening in the market," he says.

"We keep a good eye on the new practices in the UK, Europe, North America And on the back of that, we're appealing to a much wider talent base."

Leavy explains that the Public Appointments Service has imported the best elements of senior executive recruitment strategies used by other organisations and agencies while still maintaining their core values, such as fairness and transparency, as a public sector recruiter.

"We've got huge knowledge of the public sector and so we're coming from a very strong base but at the same time the market is changing.

"The market is opening up, and over the last number of years we have been very actively looking at how other agencies work."

One of the main changes to their recruitment process is to take a much more proactive approach "at the front end" in trying to attract people.

In addition to newspaper advertising campaigns, the Public Appointments Service has also explored other channels such as networks and associations in order to get the attention of a broader range of potentially suitable candidates.

Leavy says that they have also sharpened up their candidate relationship management systems, for example maintaining "really good contact" with candidates throughout the entire recruitment process.

However, the executive search and recruitment sphere has hotted up considerably over the last five years. Can the Public Appointments Service compete with the bevy of slick headhunting firms already waging a war for talent in the market?

While he accepts that it's undoubtedly a competitive marketplace, Leavy says that most of their recruitment drives over the last year have received a healthy response.

"It's been a learning experience for everyone involved, but I think we've been successful in terms of raising our profile in the different sectors out there and with senior management target groups.

"It's been successful, but there's still a long way to go in terms of really getting our message out there and selling the public services as a viable career option."

The acid test for the success of this campaign to bring in fresh talent and new ideas from the outside market is whether private sector executives are applying for, and more importantly, being appointed to any of these top level positions.

Leavy says that so far this year, two roles which fall under the auspices of the Top Level Appointments Committee - which makes recommendations on appointments to secretary general and assistant secretary level posts in Government departments - have been filled by external candidates. A number of other appointments have also been made outside the system.

So what is it that attracts high-flying executives to a career in public services?

"It's broader than the salary and the package," says Leavy. Candidates are drawn by "the scale of the work".

The chance to work on big picture issues that have a real impact at a national level could turn out to be the unique selling point that sets the civil service executive positions apart from the crowd, and make this refreshing new approach to recruitment a success.