Some 70,000 federal job applications were lost when the main online hiring system of the government stumbled for many days during the week of August 8th. According to an Aug. 12 listserv notice from the Department of Health and Human Services, the USA staffing system of the Office of Personnel Management—which posts vacancy announcements before rating and ranking job applications—crashed unexpectedly on August 9. 

OPM had USAJobs.gov back online after two days, but lost all applications that were submitted between late afternoon August 7 and midday August 9. HHS said that the “unscheduled maintenance … was necessary to research, identify and resolve problematic issues reported by users of the system.” It further added that “this unscheduled maintenance has undoubtedly caused a delay in recruitment efforts and service agreements.”

 Were you affected by the site crash? How can OPM better handle situations like this in the future?