The Federal Government Needs a ‘Master Plan’ for Getting More Cyber Talent into Government

Key recommendations for shoring up the government's wobbly cybersecurity recruiting efforts are found in a new report by the Partnership for Public Service and contractor Booz Allen Hamiliton, "Cyber Insecurity II: Closing the Federal Talent Gap". Some suggestions are that the Obama Administration needs to formally declare a “critical need” for cybersecurity talent in government and allow all agencies to fast-track the often sluggish federal hiring process when recruiting for a broad range of cyber positions. Also, that the government should stand up a civilian Cyber Reserve Training Corps, modeled on the military’s ROTC program, to provide education and workforce development and to serve as a more formalized pipeline to federal information-security careers. The report lays a good deal of the blame for the cyber workforce gap on the federal hiring process and pay-setting calculations that have failed to keep pace with the private sector. “The overall slowness of the federal hiring process places the government at a competitive disadvantage,” the report concluded. If a position requires a security clearance, it’s not uncommon for the onboarding process to drag on for as long as a year.