---
id: "workshop:bridging-the-talent-gap-recruiting-and-integrating-tech-talent-in-government"
type: "InnovateUS workshop"
title: "Bridging the Talent Gap: Recruiting and Integrating Tech Talent in Government"
url: "https://innovate-us.org/bridging-the-talent-gap-recruiting-and-integrating-tech-talent-in-government"
date: "2024-12-17"
duration: "90 minutes"
language: "English"
instructors: ["Keith Wilson"]
recording: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2fMe6_MIbQ"
transcript: "automatic, from the recording"
source: "InnovateUS (innovate-us.org)"
licence: "CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), as stated on innovate-us.org"
---

# Bridging the Talent Gap: Recruiting and Integrating Tech Talent in Government

InnovateUS workshop · 17 December 2024 · 90 minutes

Are you a public professional looking to recruit mid-level tech professionals—such as product managers, engineers, and data analysts—into your government team? This workshop will help you navigate the challenges of building high-performing, tech-enabled teams while keeping public service values at the forefront.

Led by Keith Wilson from US Digital Response, this session will guide you through key strategies for hiring tech talent in government. Whether you’re managing hiring processes, overseeing team integration, or working in HR, this workshop will equip you with practical insights to build cohesive, innovative, and mission-driven teams.

In this 90-minute session, you’ll dive into real-world case studies and learn best practices for inclusive hiring, effective onboarding, and creating a culture that motivates staff to stay and grow. You’ll explore how to create a collaborative environment that aligns tech roles with existing public service goals and culture, ensuring these professionals thrive. By the end, you’ll have the tools to build and maintain a resilient workforce ready to meet the demands of the digital age.

## Learning goals

- Understand the key elements of hiring and retaining mid to senior-level tech professionals in government.
- Explore best practices for integrating tech staff into public service teams 
- Discover practical solutions to common challenges in building a strong, tech-enabled government workforce.

## Speakers

- **Keith Wilson**, Talent Engagement Manager, US Digital Response

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2fMe6_MIbQ

## Transcript

Automatic transcript of the recording: names and terms can be misheard, and the times can be a few seconds off. Each time links to that moment of the video. The transcript alone: https://innovate-us.org/bridging-the-talent-gap-recruiting-and-integrating-tech-talent-in-government.txt (plain text) and https://innovate-us.org/bridging-the-talent-gap-recruiting-and-integrating-tech-talent-in-government.json (every segment with its start and end second).

**Keith Wilson**

[0:00](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=0) All right. Hello, everybody. Let me go ahead and get the presentation up here. If somebody could give me a verbal confirmation that they can see the first slide here. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for the introduction. I'm just really happy to be with all of you here. We have a lot of great, hopefully fun content to go over today. I'll make sure to get through it so we have that time at the end for Q&A. Throughout the presentation, we're going to have some prompts and questions and interactive things. So please, I hope you all engage in the Zoom channel or in the chat there. My colleague, Tina, she'll be keeping an eye on it in case I'm distracted with presenting. But if you have any questions along the way or certainly in the engagement points, please feel free to share. One of the things that we like to do at U.S. Digital Response is kind of have an icebreaker question to get people thinking about, just kind of get comfortable, get going, and think about the space we're talking about. Just kind of wanted to put that out to you all.

[1:11](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=71) You know, if you were going to bring in your next technologist into the public sector, what would be one great superpower that they could have? Mine would be sort of x-ray vision through bureaucracy would be what I would say. But if anybody has anything on, feel free to share that in the chat. Give folks a little bit of time while I go over the session overview. So again, we're going to have about 90 minutes here and a little bit less. We're going to go through USDR, which is U.S. Digital Response organization I work at now, our overall approach to our work in the talent space. We're going to touch on some sort of the basics of talent acquisition and then go into some resources, the Talent Toolkit and Hiring Sketchpad, which are two resources that we've developed to help you go through your holistic talent acquisition process. Then dive in a little bit more specifically about connecting with technologists and making those genuine connections.

[2:13](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=133) Take some time to talk about onboarding. You know, once you get folks hired into government, how do you make sure that they're set up for success? And then ultimately that Q&A at the end there. So first, as I mentioned, how USDR approaches our work. So we are a nonprofit organization that is nonpartisan. We partner with governments across the government, U.S. spectrum, cities, counties, states, whoever, you know, aligns with the work that we're trying to do. We're always happy to help with them. And we tap into a network of hand raisers. We just crossed 10,000 recently. And these are folks that are sort of mid or senior in their career. Oftentimes they have started their own companies or been directors in their respective divisions. So really, really talented, amazing people that are willing to give their time and expertise to work along public servants and help them solve their challenges to build digital capacity.

[3:21](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=201) All right. And then in terms of, you know, how we do these engagements, they're usually about two to three month engagement. You know, in my role, pardon me, I'm partnering directly with, you know, maybe it's a leader or hiring manager or, you know, a group within an organization that has, you know, a specific talent challenge. And I try to really understand their problem and understand, you know, is this an organizational framework challenge? Is this a hiring challenge? Is, you know, do we need a better job description or whatever it may be? And then we bring in, we tap into our pool of hand raisers to bring in experts that are really able to help execute that work. And then on top of that, we're also just trying to build resources for the ecosystem, the talent toolkit, which we'll touch on a little bit, just sort of putting general guidance and support out in the field, and then trying to create opportunities for networks, for governments and people trying to pursue work in the government.

[4:23](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=263) We've done a couple of these sessions and we have one upcoming soon where we do a resume session where we try to partner folks trying to get into government with people that have expertise there so they can work on their resumes and get into spaces like that. Great. So in terms of talent acquisition best practices, you know, we're going to talk about, you know, how to connect specifically with technologists. But, you know, first and foremost, you need to have a strong foundation of a holistic talent acquisition process. And really some of the key tenants of that are your employer brand, you know, what's the reputation you have out in the marketplace, the candidate experience, you know, how does the candidate, what is their perception of your experience, the hiring process as they go through, and that entails everything from, you know, communication to, you know, all the steps and how long it takes and everything like that, to hiring process, which is the very practical specific steps, you know, the quality of the job description, the way that the interview is structured, the way that you're evaluating candidates, all of that. And all of this stuff we'll touch on a little bit more in detail. I'll provide some resources that supports that more. And then ultimately your hiring data. How are you tracking the success of this work? How do you know that you're connecting with the right candidates and that your hiring process is efficient and effective? And we'll be touching on that as well.

[5:55](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=355) So in terms of employer brand, like why this is important, there was a LinkedIn, some statistics here that said 75% of job seekers consider an employer's brand before even applying for a job. And I know in government, you know, that's a big thing is trying to get how to drive traffic to your roles. And that's, your brand is going to be part of that. I mean, half candidates out there are seeking out, you know, if they hear about an opportunity or your particular government or organization, they're going to be Googling it. They're going to be looking on LinkedIn about it. They're going to be looking on Glassdoor about it. They're going to be looking at your website, your career's website, all of that stuff. So what kind of picture of work in this role are you painting that potential candidates are going to see? And then ultimately, with the candidate experience, I mean, we're talking about half of candidates will decline, more than half of candidates will decline a job offer because of a poor experience.

[6:59](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=419) So if you have the ability to get a candidate in the pipeline and get them interviewing, which is already a huge hurdle, if you're not providing a great experience for them in that pipeline, in that process, you potentially are going to lose half of folks in there. And then on the flip side, you know, giving a positive experience is going to go so far in terms of hopefully getting candidates to the finish line. And, you know, we'll talk about it throughout the presentation, but one of the things I always remind folks is that, you know, our candidates in the government section, in the government sector, they're probably going through multiple hiring processes at the same time. They're probably talking to other companies, other organizations. Chances are their hiring processes might be faster or, you know, in some areas in the government one. And so if you don't really focus on that candidate experience throughout there, you know, they're going to have that direct comparison to what other organizations are doing. Just wanted to give an example of an employer brand in the government space that I always really appreciate. This is for CodePA, who's definitely a friend of USDR. We've done, you know, we've done some work with them and just a really great organization.

[8:10](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=490) And this is something that they have on their career site. It just talks about the team, it talks about the culture a little bit. It has a button right there to take you to their job openings, which seems like a pretty straightforward thing, but is surprisingly uncommon for government roles. Oftentimes you'll see something about a government and then trying to find your way to the actual role that you want is quite a journey. So I love that CodePA throughout their website is painting a really nice picture of different aspects of their work culture and their approach. But then there's always that call to action right there to apply for a job. And then in terms of job descriptions themselves, you know, so the basics there, you know, this is going to be the thing that the candidates look at when they're ready. You know, they've looked at your brand and they've made this decision, okay, like, let's look at these jobs. Let's see which one works for me. The job description, the job announcement, as some people call it, is going to be really key to that. You know, is it clear?

[9:14](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=554) Is it giving the information that candidates are most interested in? And we'll talk about that a little bit later. Are you highlighting the impact of your organization? Are you sort of showing that brand and the impact of the work that they're doing and sort of connecting to that part for candidates? And then just the basics, we always have to have that in there, especially for folks that touch the HR spaces, the legal standards in there and making sure that you're compliant with your organization. This is just a little heat map on the side here that LinkedIn has shared before. It just kind of shows you what candidates are actually looking for. And, you know, one of the things I always talk about with governments that I'm partnering with is don't bury the lead. You know, make sure that the things that are going to be the most important and resonate the most with your candidates, it's going to be easy to find and it's not too buried in there because ultimately we all do this with resumes and we're reviewing them and different things. You know, we all have the best intentions to read every single word in there, but oftentimes our eyeballs go to the places that we think that we're going to find the information that's going to be most important to us. And then according to an Indeed survey, 65% of employees, or I'm sorry, of employers have had to revise the job description after it was posted in the last year. So oftentimes you only get one shot with the candidate. They're only going to see that job description one time, that job announcement one time and make the decision on whether or not they want to proceed.

[10:48](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=648) And you want to make sure you get it right the first time. And you want to make sure you get that information there because you may, if there's gaps in that, you may never get a chance to connect with them again. I just wanted to show a couple of examples. This is kind of our first interactive thing. I'll talk through this a little bit, but please feel free to add your thoughts in the chat. I have two different examples. These are little snippets from job descriptions. And so I just love for people to take a second here to read it. I'll read it out loud for anybody that can't see the screen. And just give me thoughts, like, is it clear? Is it giving the information that you would want as a tech candidate? Again, this is not the full position description or job description. This is just a little snippet here. It says this position is located in, we'll say Austin, Texas. That's where I'm based out of. This position may work a hybrid remote office schedule with two days required in the office per week. Selected candidates who have been approved to work a hybrid schedule must complete that work within, let's say, expert time or state of Texas. Candidates should confirm work location and schedule at the time of interview. We'll give folks a second to think about it. If you have any thoughts on whether you think that's clear or not. These are not trick questions, but we'll give folks a second to think about it. The reason I shared this one is that I actually really appreciated that they took the time to explain what the hybrid remote situation was. And a lot of government job postings I see, you'll just see one word. It just says remote, or hybrid, or flexible, or something like that. And there's no context on what that means. And so if you're a candidate and you live far away from that office, are you being asked to come in once a week, twice a week, four times a week, once a year? It seems like kind of basic things,

[12:50](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=770) but that stuff matters to candidates. This is all stuff that can impact a candidate's decision on whether or not they're going to apply there. Second example, this is just sort of the header of the particular job announcement for this one. And just take a look at here if anything, I'll let you take a look to see if anything jumps out. Salary range, 70,000 to 116,000. If we have any thoughts on there, anything? Yes. So for this one, I'll say the salary range is pretty big. We're talking about approximately $46,000 salary potential there. And I know for a lot of folks that are hiring in government, their roles fall under certain HR classifications. You don't really have a whole lot of control over what the... Once it's been classified, what the salary range or what the salary is going to be for a particular role. But for a candidate, especially for certain parts of the country, you're talking about a pretty significant difference in sort of lifestyle and income and things like that. And so having opportunities to explain how that salary gets determined, whether it's in the job description or whether you have an information session or if it has to be in the actual interview process where you're telling candidates how that salary range was determined or why, it's so critical for folks because people that work in government... I worked in federal government for almost seven years and I understood how the GS levels worked and steps and classifications and all of that stuff.

[14:40](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=880) But folks that are joining from the private sector or that are thinking about joining from the private sector, they're going to have no idea why that range is so big and what level of control they have over getting that type of job or getting that type of pay. So next kind of thought question here is, how do candidates find your open role? You know, what are the techniques that you're using to connect with candidates? And not necessarily even just technology candidates, but, you know, your organization. How are you all doing this? Are you posting roles on job boards? Are you, you know, putting it on your careers website? Featuring it on your main website? You know, what sort of strategy are you using to do that? This is the first of a few. I had a little fun with ChatGPT as I was building this presentation. So you might catch some typos and things in some of these images, but had fun nonetheless. You know, one of the common techniques, and this is not exclusive to the public sector, is the post and hope.

[15:45](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=945) You know, where you just put it on a career site, and you hope that the candidates that you want find that. And it certainly works. There are governments and organizations that have been really successful with that. But that is not always going to be the case. And so the next section, as we go into the Talent Toolkit, you know, we'll talk a little bit more about resources. And not every organization has the ability to have dedicated recruiters that are going to be out sourcing candidates. But there are other ways to connect with your candidates there. Great. So, again, this kind of resource that I mentioned earlier, the Talent Toolkit. This is something, and the Accompanying Hiring Sketchpad. This is something that I worked on to develop internally. This was built on top of some really great work that was already being done at USDR and the ecosystem in collaboration with some of our government partners.

[16:47](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1007) And what this tool is meant to be is a public-facing resource that leaders and hiring managers in government, at all levels, who are trying to hire quote-unquote technologists, researchers, designers, product managers, software engineers, to have sort of hopefully a helpful playbook to take folks through that process and provide some resources that may not have been openly and readily available previously. And then in terms of the toolkit, the approach to talent, you know, this is, again, it's meant to be best practices and resources. Everything can be downloaded and accessible. There's areas that we dive in a little bit deeper. But in general, we try to keep it not so overwhelmingly dense with information that it's just too much to go through. So certainly, you know, I think that most people that are sort of in the space and have at least done probably some hiring would feel confident going through it.

[17:54](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1074) Oops. So sections and sort of resources in the toolkit itself. This is just a snapshot of the main menu here, the toolkit, which we all have links shared out at the end of the presentation and things like that. All of these sections go into depth and have, you know, information and have some case studies and examples and resources and things like that. But at a high level, the first section talent acquisition, this is going to take you through the holistic recruiting and hiring process. It has job description examples, interview and evaluation examples, candidate communications, you know, everything under the sun that can kind of take you through that holistic hiring process there. We have a total compensation section. Again, you know, I know in government space, a lot of that stuff is a lot of compensation is determined by HR processes. But so that, you know, there's some resources out there to kind of help guide that conversation, that conversation, especially in collaboration with your HR departments.

[18:56](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1136) Onboarding, which we'll go to more at the end of the presentation. But in the toolkit there, there's all sorts of resources and templates and guides and just kind of thoughts about creating great onboarding experiences that are provided there. We touched on learning and development a little bit, which is sort of that continuation of onboarding and how do you identify the current needs of your organization and sort of build a strategy out from there. We have culture and engagement, which has a really nice case study from the state of Missouri about how they use digital credentials to get their very large staff member, you know, the group of staff members to do different trainings and go through different processes and be able to kind of take personal ownership of that, but have it sort of tracked at a broader level, which has been really successful for their organization.

[19:56](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1196) So there's some information and examples in there. Inclusive practices, this is just, you know, how do you make this a positive inclusive process all the way through? You know, we tried to have that embedded throughout the toolkit in general. And then working with HR, you know, the work that we do in the talent space is not done in a vacuum. For most government organizations that I've worked with, you know, you may be working with a leader or hiring manager that's trying to develop a role, but they're working in concert with their HR department to make sure they can actually, you know, actually hire for this role and get the job posted and get the offer out and all of that stuff. And so just some tips and tricks to help folks that are kind of driving the process from the hiring manager side, how to make sure that they're a really great partner for HR. And then the last section here, resources, this has pretty much everything that's linked and downloadable in the toolkit.

[20:57](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1257) I have it centralized in one area here. It's both in Google and Microsoft versions. So you can download all of them and edit and take it as you need. I just want to give a, I didn't have it listed here, but just a shout out to Verge Talent Partners. They're a consultant firm that we brought in to collaborate with on this particular project. That team has a wealth of government experience, and I've actually crossed paths with them professionally, and they're just really great partners in helping to develop this resource. And then moving on to the hiring sketch pad here. So this was built to be sort of a partner tool with the toolkit. So you can see in these particular images, this is a pretty long document that has all sorts of different sections and resources in it. But just at a high level, it provides reminders, like things that you should think about whenever you're going to do a particular step.

[22:02](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1322) So this, the actual hiring sketch pad is going to take you through sort of step by step to help you build a talent acquisition process for a particular role or set of roles. So for each section there, it's going to have reminders, things that you should be thinking about before you dive in. It gives you time estimates, how long it's probably going to take you to be able to do this stuff. So if you're a busy person, which I know so many folks that are tasked with hiring, they're responsible for so many other things as well. It's going to give you an idea of how much time you kind of need to really lock in and mark some time off in your calendar to do it. And then key collaborators, like who should you be talking with at different stages of the process and who's going to be helpful. We also have little helpful notes if you get stuck in the process. You know, who you can reach out to, talking to maybe some subject matter experts or talking to USDR or different ways that you can kind of get stuck, unstuck in the process if that happens to you.

[23:07](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1387) This is just an example here of, you know, sort of presenting a strong employer brand to help you sort of build that out. In each area, we included examples as well. So you're not just staring at a blank box there. Hopefully it'll sort of spark some ideas as you go through. And this is just to kind of show how the two tools are connected here in terms of for hiring data. On the left is, this is from the hiring sketchpad here. So it kind of, as you're trying to set up, you know, for instance here, what is success going to look like for a particular hiring effort in terms of time to fill, time to hire, you know, whatever sort of data and stats that you want to measure there. And then if you need some deeper guidance, it links right into the toolkit. And we have sort of industry benchmarks and information to help kind of level set for you and your HR team.

[24:07](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1447) Great. So now that we've talked about just the overall basics of hiring and sort of setting up a hopefully good process for you there, we're going to dive a little bit more specifically into connecting with technologists. So in terms of the tech hiring landscape, you know, there's estimates right now that the U.S. tech workforce is going to grow 2x compared to the overall U.S. workforce that's in the next decade. So that's an exciting thing. That means that there will be hopefully more people pursuing that work, but it also means that it's going to be an even more competitive marketplace there. And then, you know, demand for tech talent is going to grow by 7.1 million jobs by 2034. And that's, you know, that's from an estimated 6 million in 2023. So we're talking over a million extra jobs, which is pretty hard to believe. And then just, you know, from a sort of the government tech lens here in the cybersecurity space, governments are going to need somewhere around 40,000 cybersecurity professionals.

[25:17](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1517) So that's, you know, you're not talking about other roles potentially in IT and in digital services and things like that. Just cybersecurity alone across the landscape, we're looking at 40,000 more jobs. So in terms of understanding that marketplace, you know, we ultimately can't control it. You know, governments are not controlling the marketplace specifically, but we can understand and appeal to what candidates want. So, you know, tech candidates, you know, this is not, it's not a monolithic group by any means. But, you know, at a high level, you know, sort of the basics there, you know, competitive pay, relevant job titles, which we'll touch on a little bit more. But ultimately, like, you know, IT specialist doesn't necessarily resonate with somebody who's a software developer and how are you going to get them to understand that? And how can they put that on their LinkedIn profile and resumes and things like that?

[26:18](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1578) And then access to modern tech, you know, governments are not necessarily going to have the most cutting edge tech in every area. But there's a lot of governments that are doing a great job with keeping up. I, you know, again, I've worked previously at the Technology Transformation Service and GSA and Federal Service. I worked on a MacBook and I had access to the Google platform and we use Slack and things like that. And, you know, I know that's definitely not standard for across government. But certainly, that was done intentionally because the organization was primarily hiring technologists from the private sector and the decision was made to, you know, use tech that appealed to that particular group of folks. And then in terms of what they're seeking, you know, mission driven work. This is, you know, they want that competitive pay, but governments are not always going to be able to pay top dollar compared to the Googles and Metas and Amazons of the world.

[27:23](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1643) And so, you know, a lot of folks that are pursuing this type of work, they're doing it because they're excited about the mission. You know, maybe they've been on the internal tools team at Meta for a few years and they've been, you know, grinding every day to get something and then that product just gets buried or it goes nowhere. And, you know, I've definitely talked to people that have had this experience where I remember talking to an engineer that worked five years on, he put his heart and soul into this project and did, you know, work that he was so proud of. And then his smaller tech company got bought out by a bigger tech company and it was a competitor and his work got buried and never saw the light of day. And so he was compelled to go find work that he knew that he could make direct impact on people's lives in a positive way.

[28:23](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1703) And then, you know, that rolls into healthy work culture and work life balance. You know, there are definitely companies on the private sector that are doing a good job or better at this stuff. But that's really an area where governments do have some control over that and can do a great job. And then the last one here, stability. You know, there are very few people in the country right now that haven't either experienced the pressure of a layoff or know somebody, either a family or a friend that has been laid off at some point in the last couple of years. You know, 28% of Americans have been laid off in the past few years. That's a pretty, a quarter of America, more than a quarter of America. It's a pretty shocking number. And so, you know, again, it's not every job in government is guaranteed for life, but they're definitely, you know, government organizations for the most part don't disappear overnight like sometimes happens in the private sector.

[29:26](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1766) And so, you know, how do we connect with technologists where they're at? You know, from my experience, just talking to people in the industry and, you know, when I was out in the private sector prior to government, recruiting engineers and folks like that, they just want genuine connection. And a lot of your really qualified folks, they may not even have their LinkedIn profile. They may not even have a LinkedIn profile up at all, or if they do, they have it pretty much shut down and they don't need LinkedIn. Another recruiter reaching out to them or anything that are just trying to, you know, hey, come work from come work here come work here come work here. They want they really just appreciate genuine connection and people that are really trying to understand what their what matters to them and and hopefully try to connect that to work that that's that's going to be meaningful there so you know ways for organizations and hiring managers to get out there, you know, attending conferences, going to meetups in the community, using niche job boards that are more tailored to particular markets versus just, you know, kind of blasting your, you know, LinkedIn and Google Jobs and stuff like that.

[30:45](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1845) And I know that this stuff, all of this, like that takes effort, and it's not going to be something that every government every person can do. But, you know, if we're talking about an even more and more competitive marketplace for technologists, it's going to take extra effort to make those connections there. The next one, you know, leveraging internal expertise in your organization, you know, if you're, if you're a hiring manager, and you need to get tapped into a community and stuff like that, talk to your peers, talk to subject matter experts in the organization that that may have those connections, you know, reach out to your network, you know, I love seeing that on LinkedIn and other people and other places where people are like, hey, I want to get connected to this, to this, you know, group or, you know, vertical, you know, discipline, how do I, you know, does anybody know who I can talk to, you know, just putting yourself out there and making those general connect genuine connections is, is really, is really great.

[31:45](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1905) And when you're there, be authentic, you know, I always say, the worst thing that folks can do when they talk, try to talk to a technologist, especially like an engineer is pretending that you know what they're talking about. And I've definitely been there. Whenever I was recruiting some front end and back end engineers out in the private sector, you know, I took the time to connect with folks that were working in that space and, you know, try to get an understanding of what, what was the difference between those two things and why those things mattered and what tools they were using and what kind of work excites those folks. And so when you have conversations with people like that's the stuff that you can understand and lead with and you know you don't try to, you don't have to speak, speak all of the technical jargon you can hopefully just have an authentic conversation with them. Wanted to give a little shout out to my former TTS colleagues here.

[32:49](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=1969) One of the ways that they make these genuine connections with technologists is by hosting information sessions. This is something that they do for pretty much every role. And it's just a really great way of sort of helping people that maybe have never applied for government jobs before just interesting just kind of help them understand the process and dispel any sort of fears and just build up that employer brand there. This is, they have about a 20 page presentation. I just pulled out a couple of things from it. But, you know, the first one, the org values, they talk about the things that really matter to them and provide the code of conduct there. They talk about the different guilds that are in the organization and sort of development opportunities, ways that, you know, that, hey, if you're a product manager or an engineer or something coming in from the private sector that you're going to have other people that are thinking about these same problems and challenges and different ways to connect.

[33:59](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2039) Role information, really basics here, but what the role title is, you know, where the location, the salary range and stuff like that. It's also an opportunity. I know one of the challenges that TTS has is that oftentimes the public facing job title does not align with what the internal job title is. As I kind of mentioned earlier, you could be an innovation specialist or IT specialist or something sort of generic that captures designers and product managers and engineers internally. So they take the time in the presentation to actually share like, hey, this is what the role really is. And this is what we're going to call it within the organization. And, you know, you can call it that on your resume, you know, you are still doing that, that same work and that stuff, you know, really resonates with candidates and matters. They go through the hiring overall hiring process and timeline. They're really honest about it. And, you know, it's, they do a great job of trying to make it as efficient as possible, but it's really great for candidates to have those expectations from the beginning.

[35:05](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2105) And then ultimately some application tips, you know, some governments require civil service examinations and different ways of submitting your resume and different formats and stuff like that. So they take the time to go over that a little bit. And then again, there's so much more that they include there as well. So, you know, one of the most interesting challenges I think I've come across in this work at USDR is the challenge of hiring for a role that's completely new for an organization. So, you know, I think about all the AI roles that are coming out and, you know, even just introducing product management as a discipline within a government, or, you know, in this particular example that we'll talk about UX design. Government organizations, you know, they may be sort of touching on these things already, or in some cases it's brand new to them. So how are you going to hire for somebody that, you know, how are you going to try to bring in an experienced UX designer if you don't have the knowledge set to build a really effective interview process to even know what to look for when you're evaluating resumes.

[36:22](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2182) What you can ask a candidate to provide in the process. How do you actually do that? So here's a little example here. This is sort of one that's ongoing. So I didn't share the particular government's name, but, you know, they were looking for a UX designer to really lead certain aspects of their county wide website update. So this particular IT department, they oversee all of the 20 plus departments, different departments in that government and all the websites for them. And they wanted to make the websites more tailored to their constituents, to the people that are living in that county. So it's actually has some really great engagement opportunities there. So this was something that was new to the team. They had some content designers and some folks that had kind of touched on the design space a little bit, but not sort of to the subject matter expertise that was going to be sufficient for this process here.

[37:31](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2251) And so what we were able to do is bring in one of our USDR volunteers. I'll give him a shout out on the next slide here. But he was able to, he built a Figma or FigJam board and kind of a process to help that team identify and prioritize critical skills. So he listed out all of the skills and things based off of what he had heard talking to the team in this particular project, what he thought was going to be the sort of the most overall pool of skills and knowledge that would be critical for this role. And then let the team sort of navigate that. And we'll show that example here in a second here. And then ultimately he took that information and helped them draft a job description that wasn't just a generic UX designer. You know, you can go on Google or chat TPT and have it do a generic UX designer job description, but he was able to help them craft something that was really specific to the needs of the organization, to the appropriate level and type of work and responsibilities for the role and what would be reasonable to bring in from, you know, potentially the private sector and stuff like that.

[38:52](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2332) And then develop evaluation rubrics and guidance to help identify and evaluate candidates as they go through the process and make sure they're able to make a good selection there. One of the big learning lessons I came across, though, is that in the middle of the in the middle of that project, the hiring manager was able to go to sort of a convening of folks in the UX design space. And they talked to a lot of people just in sort of a casual setting, and it kind of boosted their confidence in terms of what they knew and what they feel comfortable talking about and just sort of where they were at in this process. And as a sort of going forward thing, we're going to try to build that type of engagement into our overall process, especially for situations where a government is hiring for a new role for them. You know, pulling from our hand raiser pool folks that have that are in that space that have that expertise, just to kind of have a casual conversation with the hiring manager before we go into this process.

[40:00](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2400) Because I'll say the UX design expert volunteer that we had, you know, he came in, you know, he hit the ground running. He was asking the hiring manager all of these really amazing, insightful, thoughtful questions. And, you know, I wasn't the hiring manager and I was, you know, on the sideline, you know, feeling a little bit intimidated by it. And so, you know, I think having a little bit more of the comfort of that, the knowledge of that space before we go in is something that we're going to try out more. So this is the FigJam board here. This is developed by Eric. He is a product design director at SiriusXM and just amazing volunteer as well. Has a lot of UX research and design expertise as well, which lent itself to this particular engagement. But this is sort of the example here. They had tapped into five team members. So this is just a little snippet of two here, but he had sort of the skills down the left side here.

[41:05](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2465) And we have the must-haves, nice-haves, and not important for this role. And so folks were able to pull all of those skills into the sections. And then he compiled those into sort of this prioritized list here, the must-haves, and this flowed directly into the development of a really, really great job description. Great. And then this is, you know, a resource on top of that, that he was able to provide. So this was a checklist that he made for phone screens and evaluating portfolios and resumes. You know, the partner, they weren't even sure if they could ask for a portfolio. And, you know, he assured them absolutely, you know, in this particular space, candidates, you know, they expect to be asked for that, and they should be ready for that. And so he had some sort of red flags and good signs throughout that. Again, this is just a little snippet of the overall thing here, but it was really helpful to have that ready to go for the hiring manager and the interview team, so they could feel confident about the decisions and evaluations that they were doing.

[42:17](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2537) And then more, a little bit more specifically, you know, a really detailed interview rubric. So for the different sections of the interview, he had a breakdown of kind of how to make that, the decision making and stuff like that. And ultimately, these decisions are all up to our government partners. You know, we're not trying to be there in the interviews and make these decisions for folks. But there are definitely resources out there and resources that USCIR can help develop just to hopefully make your overall hiring process, especially with tech, particularly with technologists, more effective. Great. So I wanted to play a little game with y'all. One of the things that, you know, I've been seeing recently is, especially for AI related jobs, is job titles that actually have that particular area in the title.

[43:19](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2599) Getting more specific. I think governments and HR departments are probably having to create new roles, and it's given them the opportunity to create really specific job titles and stuff, which is pretty exciting to see out in the marketplace. So I wanted to play a little game just to kind of show you what candidates are seeing when they go out. And the game that I created here was government or Google. So we're going to go into the first one here. There's three of them, and I'll give everybody a chance to take a guess. Feel free to guess in the chat which one you think it could be. All right. Emerging technologies and AI specialist. I'll give everybody a second to think about that. Feel free to put it in the chat. I'm not looking at the chat right now, but I'd love to see the numbers go up. I see a couple people guessing in there. Again, you're guessing, is this government at any level? This could be city, county, or federal, or Google.

[44:31](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2671) The answer to that is government. Surprise, surprise. That is a government role. This is the emerging technologies and AI specialist. This is with Kalamazoo, Michigan here. If anybody is interested, that role closes today, but that's in their information technology department. So pretty fun there. Pardon me. Next one, AI slash ML system architect. That would be artificial intelligence slash machine learning system architect. Government or Google? Giant cash prize to whoever gets all three of these right. This one is surprise, Google. I noticed that In the government space, folks tend to use generative AI and artificial intelligence a little bit more.

[45:33](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2733) Google certainly uses that some, but they also seem to really like machine learning. So this is a particular AI and machine learning system architect, specifically for the silicon division for Google there. Last one. This is a little bit of a tricky one here. Data scientist. Any guesses? Is this a government or Google position here? I love seeing the numbers go. Again, this is a little bit of a tricky one. So believe it or not, this is a government job. So this is somebody that's going to have, you know, utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning in their work as a data scientist. I must admit, this one's a little bit of a trick because Google, they do use data scientist as a job title as well. There was actually a senior data analyst position that was open. That certainly had some overlap with that, but kind of nice to see that that consistency across Pardon me, across the private sector and public sector space there.

[46:39](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2799) Great. So, you know, again, so hopefully at this point, you know, you have a pretty good grasp of basics for the hiring process, how to connect with candidates. Again, you know, this is there's so much more information that's out there and that we provide in the talent toolkit and stuff like that. But hopefully you're, you know, feeling more confident about that process here. And, you know, the exciting part is you made that hire, you got somebody actually in the door. So what do you do now? And, you know, the reality is there's all sorts of perceptions out there. And I made the transition from private sector tech into federal government. You know, I had gone through a really hands on interactive, fun onboarding experience at the tech company that I worked for in the private sector. They had a dedicated onboarding team, you know, they brought in leaders from the organization and and there are still, you know, to this day, there are people that I met in that day one and that first week onboarding experience that I still talk to and connect with. And so, you know, especially for candidates that are coming from the private sector, you know, they probably have had that similar experiences and stuff like that also. And so they've already had kind of an expectation of what it's going to what a fun and engaging and effective onboarding experience could be. That's not to say there aren't some not good ones out in the, you know, a lot of probably not great ones out in the private sector as well.

[48:15](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2895) But, you know, let's set our standards high, as high as we can. You know, certainly before I pursued that job in government, I never thought about technology organization in government. I never thought about opportunities in there. And, you know, there's this perception out there that, you know, government is stodgy and and that, you know, everything is outdated and behind the times and and, you know, that may or may not be true for everybody that they have that perception. But, you know, again, these are some of the barriers that we have to break through. And so what I want, you know, just take a second here to think about, you know, for folks here that have maybe made that transition from private sector to the federal or just maybe federal was your first ever job or maybe you've never worked in or sorry not federal specifically, but government, maybe you've never worked in government before. And this resonates, you know, with you from joining a new organization out in the private sector. But what was scary to you when you were, you know, when you had to have that first day of work, what was it going to be like, you know, what are the things that gave you a little bit of anxiety or you weren't sure about?

[49:29](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=2969) You know, we'll give folks a second here to throw some thoughts in there if anybody wants to share what, you know, something in their career as they were starting a new job that maybe kept you up at night or gave you a little bit of anxiety. I see a couple people sharing, that's great. So I'll share. These are the things that scared me whenever I joined government. Thank you again to chat TPT and some photoshopping to help generate these images here, but you know the data technology, I was afraid I was going to, you know, who knew what sort of software and technology and things I was going to have access to, you know, you still hear stories of folks in government that are using typewriters and fax machines and stuff like that. So when you know you're connecting with a technologist, that's something, you know, if your organization is doing a great job with the hardware and software and things that y'all are using, then, you know, share that out. That's all great stuff.

[50:35](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3035) The next one here was all of the acronyms and terms. There were so many acronyms and you'll see a couple one. This is chat TPT tends to put up some funny things in images, but the DADS is actually a real department. These are all real departments here in Texas state government here, but these are just kind of the overwhelming swarm of new terms and things that can be a challenge. And then here's sort of the red tape boogeyman or zombie here that are mummies. I've got my monsters mixed up, but that red tape mummy, you know, am I going to be able to come in and actually have an impact and make changes and do things that are going to be important. And, you know, I always tell folks, you know, if you hire a technologist, their superpower is that they're going to be able to see through that and see opportunities, areas where they can hack bureaucracy or make impacts. And I think that's really important. So I always say I'm like, let people with those fresh eyes and that motivation come in and hopefully do amazing things. And everybody has their own government bureaucracy journey that they go through, but, you know, it's not going to be a, it's not going to be a one man show.

[51:41](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3101) But, you know, trying not to scare folks about it and tell all your horror stories when they first started, but give them a fresh chance to make amazing things happen and navigate that space. And so kind of moving on to onboarding impact here, why it's actually important, you know, from a retention standpoint, I mean, we're talking huge impact when you have a robust onboarding team. You know, folks that just get plopped in day one and don't know what's going on. They're going to have that immediate, that sort of buyer's remorse of a job of, oh, no, what am I, what am I going to do? Why am I not doing this? And they're probably, you know, especially if they're joining from the private sector, they probably have friends and family that are like, why did you make this jump? What is it like? What is your experience? And, you know, they're going to have that immediate, that sort of buyer's remorse of a job of, oh, no, what am I, what am I going to do? Why am I here? Why did I do this? And they're probably, you know, especially if they're joining from the private sector, they probably have friends and family that are like, why did you make this jump? What is it like? What is your experience? And you want those people to be able to, you know, you want that new technologist to be able to share their excitement and how positive it's been.

[52:55](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3175) You know, I always say that the most I ever talk about my job with friends and family is whenever I start a new job and whenever I leave a job. And so that, you know, that experience from whenever somebody joins an organization all the way, especially on that sort of offboarding on the back end, it means a lot to the individual people, but it also impacts your sort of outward facing brand within their network. And then, you know, practically with productivity, folks that just have a good process to get them up and running, you're going to see that. You're going to see that motivation from the beginning. You're going to see people that are, they're bringing that new, higher excitement in. And if they're set up for success, you're going to really benefit from that. And the individual is going to benefit from that. And the organization is going to benefit from it. Here are some different elements. This was just taken from the Talent Toolkit, but here's just some different elements that will have an overall impact to your onboarding experience. You're having a good plan in place, connecting with a buddy, access to resources, and we'll talk a little bit more about that on the next slide.

[54:05](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3245) So, you know, what's going on before day one? You know, onboarding is not just the day that a person starts. It's not, doesn't end after the first week there. It's oftentimes happening. You know, you want to have this in place, a process in place well before a person starts. You know, if you start thinking about what their onboarding experience is going to be like after they've accepted the job offer, you're already behind the game. And so, you know, if you have your HR team that's running this, or if you have an internal, you know, ops team or whatever, you know, make sure you work with those folks. Or if it falls on you as a leader or hiring manager to put that time in advance to make sure that you have a good process in place. You know, it's so important to have consistent and clear communication with new hires and with candidates. I remember when I started federal service, I was getting emails from HR. I was getting emails from security. I was getting emails from IT. I was getting emails from people within the organization. It was overwhelming at times. And it certainly was a bit intimidating, and it made me worry. Am I missing something? Am I going to be ready? Are they going to be ready? You know, all those kind of thoughts there.

[55:22](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3322) And being able to just set expectations and dispel any fears that they have. You know, one that I had was what should I wear for orientation? The day one orientation that I had was in a GSA government building. I had never worked for government before. I didn't know if I was supposed to show up in a suit and tie or business casual or, you know, something in between. And, you know, I showed up in sort of business casual then, you know, day one, and there was a person in a suit and tie, and he was looking at me, and I was looking at him, and he was from a different government agency. But that kind of stuff, you know, it seems a little trivial, but it can really go a long way with candidates to make sure they have good experience. And then really for technologists, making sure that they have access to systems and equipment on day one. You know, I feel like private sector tech companies, you know, they know it's like they, you know, that new engineer, whoever needs to have that laptop in their hand and ready to go day one. And, you know, we try to hold that standard in government as well.

[56:25](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3385) And then in terms of day one and beyond, you know, pairing them with a buddy in the organization. It doesn't necessarily even have to be in their team, but just somebody that they can go to and talk to is just so great because, you know, usually new people, you only want to ask your direct manager so many questions before you start to feel a little shy about it. And so letting them know that there's other people in the organization that they can connect with is so great. One that's very specific to engineers is letting, you know, letting folks and designers, like letting them tackle a real task in your organization as soon as possible. In TTS, we'd oftentimes there's opportunities, you know, first day or within the first couple of days to ship a little bit of code, you know, to get in there and get your, you know, get your hands on the systems and stuff like that. So people start feeling comfortable. And then, you know, helping the new hire talk to the right folks and facilitate the right conversations. So especially in a virtual environment, so they feel like they're not just sort of, you know, calling out into the void there.

[57:30](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3450) And then, you know, we'll show a little bit in the next slide here, but getting, you know, making sure that they have a framework that they can have access to and see what the whole experience is going to look like and establishing check-in cadence over time. So it's not, you know, onboarding doesn't just stop whenever the first week ends. So here's a couple examples here. And I know we're reaching the near the end of the presentation. So we'll definitely have time for Q&A after this. But this is an example onboarding checklist. This is something that I had developed in my time in government because there just wasn't really something comprehensive in place, you know, kind of a one-stop shop to help new hires navigate that process. And we oftentimes were bringing in engineers that, you know, they wanted to just have a set of tasks that they could accomplish themselves and what they needed to do and when they needed to do it. And, you know, this is kind of a cleaned up version of it. So it doesn't have all the extra resources that existed there, but who they should go to or what website or whatever.

[58:39](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3519) And so that a person can navigate through that process and see the progress that they're making and see the finished line is really helpful. And then this is an example. This is an actually one that was used here at USCR. This is the immersion plan that we use. So this is a little bit more sort of kind of mapped out kind of experiential one, which I thought was really great as well. Just, you know, information you see at the top, just sort of like, hey, what your role is and who your manager is. I was, I'm never shocked, I guess, at this point, how many people join government and they don't actually know who their manager is when they start. And there were times where people were in an organization for weeks or months and then we'd have performance management cycle and people would come to my team and they were like, I don't know who my manager is. So just having a document that has, that's setting those expectations, that maps out what the experience is going to be like over X period of time, different activities that are going to be important for the onboarding experience, where you're going to have maybe like a 30, 60, 90 check-in period and all of that stuff and one resources is really great.

[1:00:00](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3600) And then, you know, what that continued onboarding and learning looks like. This was something that, you know, I, me and the team put a, just a ton of work and they continue. I know that my former Gov colleagues continue to do a really great job building out this whole experience for onboarding. To make the connection that, you know, GSA government has their own onboarding information classes and stuff like that. And then, you know, this here is an example of the sort of engaging interactive classes that the organization does. So that a person is able to have that connection between the overall agency, their, you know, respective division or part of the org. And then their individual role and work and stuff like that. So, you know, these are all the continued classes and stuff that people can go through. Final part here. So this is, I downloaded a PDF of the presentation and ran it through ChatGPT and I said, hey, you know, create me a visual representation of all the information that's in this.

[1:01:04](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3664) Just for fun, I left all of the sort of typos and nonsense in there. It'll be fun to see what, you know, if I continue to give this presentation in years to come, if I regenerate this image, how much better it gets over time. But just, I thought it was kind of a fun visual representation to end that. And then just real quickly here in terms of resources and support. These are some key contact information and key links. You know, this will be hopefully shared out here and you can have access to all these. This just takes you to the general USDR website and sort of how to get in touch with us, specifically how to request support. We don't just cover talent, you know, we cover procurement, language access, user research, election support, all sorts of other things. So that's, you know, if you're a government that's looking for some support in those spaces, then you can directly request that from us and we'll connect with you. This is the USDR newsletter to stay in touch with us, kind of what we're working on, what's going out, and then direct links there to the talent toolkit and hiring sketchpad.

[1:02:11](https://youtu.be/O2fMe6_MIbQ?t=3731) And that's it.

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Original page: https://innovate-us.org/bridging-the-talent-gap-recruiting-and-integrating-tech-talent-in-government · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), as stated on innovate-us.org