Take an exam and wait months to hear if you can apply for a job? No wonder they can't attract talent, the process for city jobs is insane to begin with.

I get that you might want to make it a pretty straightforward aptitude-based program if we take the view that a bureaucracy relies on reliable but otherwise unremarkable people performing otherwise unremarkable jobs as some sort of jobs program - nothing wrong here - but don't leave those people hanging for months at a time. Anybody who has a better option is gonna take it. Instead of getting a mix of motivated and civic-minded people with people who really just need reliable work, the city only ends up with the truly desperate or those who are convinced their patience will be rewarded by grift. City employees and taxpayers deserve better.