It's not standard. It varies enormously, because the nature of the positions varies enormously. There are some that are very specialized, for which we will get maybe four or five applications, and we have to beat the bushes to get them. Sometimes we hire search firms to identify people. At the most senior level, people aren't looking at the want ads in the newspapers and applying; they expect to be approached and recruited for the job. So it varies enormously according to the level. In some of the more junior positions we'll get a higher number. For the ones that are more or less a generalist function, we'll obviously get a much higher number; we'll get a dozen or maybe 20 or 25 applications for a given position.
Some of them are quite particular. We had the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod recently, and surprisingly we actually got about a dozen applications. I was a bit surprised by that. In fact it was a bit more than that--almost 20 applications for that position.
So it varies enormously. There are some that are more generic--for example, board members or directors of crown corporations, and the CEOs and chairpersons of crown corporations. There we're targeting people within the private sector. For commercial crown corporations, oftentimes we'll go to the private sector. Or in other related areas of the public sector we find candidates from other levels of government. Also, there are some candidates from within government. There are some senior public servants who are at the tail end of their career and see this as a nice last assignment before retiring. They sometimes provide actually very good candidates for those positions.
We set out a statement of selection criteria for all the positions. The statements of qualifications are announced. They are published in the Canada Gazette. They are put on the government appointments website. They're there for everyone to see. Overall in terms of the number of processes we've run, I'm quite satisfied--in fact pleasantly surprised at times--at the level we've been able to recruit people.
One thing that's surprising is that the average age--I don't have the statistics with me--is actually quite high. We're getting a lot of people--as I mentioned, public servants, but also from the private sector and other sectors of society--coming in at the tail end of their career. They are somebody in the private sector saying that they've made money, their family is taken care of, their kids have gone through university, and they'd like to do something in the public interest. They come and work for a crown corporation or some agency, board, or commission. Being able to recruit such people is actually quite nice.
We've had former judges. Mr. Konrad von Finckenstein at the CRTC was a Federal Court judge. He indicated an interest in assuming some other kind of role, and he has played a very dynamic role at the CRTC.
I think we're making progress in terms of being able to recruit qualified people. One difficulty we have is on the compensation issue. The economy has been going strongly for so long that private sector salaries have gone up quite a bit, and we're having trouble recruiting in some instances, especially for crown corporations. They're saying that the people they want to attract are making much more money than they're offering. We try to keep a lid on compensation to avoid compensation creep. That's an ongoing struggle.
But the thing I've found interesting is the number of people saying that as a last step in their career this is something they want to do.
