The Presidential Personnel Office (PPO)
For political appointees, the presidential personnel process is long, arduous, and often repetitive. Depending on the type of position and the amount of classified material the position deals with, there can be multiple layers of background checks and numerous levels of the bureaucracy that need to sign off on the appointment.
The Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) is the main office in the White House that oversees political appointees. Their job is to recruit, vet, and staff thousands of political appointments across the executive branch, which includes every agency. PPO works with the agency’s White House liaison and chief of staff to fill each entity’s political appointments from top to bottom. They also assist in the Senate confirmation process and appointments to presidential boards and commissions.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is the career civil servant counterpart to PPO in the executive branch. They serve as the human resource branch for most of the government and set workplace and hiring standards. For this lesson, we are going to focus on the ins and outs of the hiring process for political appointees.
