--- id: "workshop:bringing-ai-and-tech-talent-into-government" type: "InnovateUS workshop" title: "Bringing AI and Tech Talent into Government" url: "https://innovate-us.org/bringing-ai-and-tech-talent-into-government" date: "2023-11-30" duration: "60 minutes" language: "English" instructors: ["Jennifer Anastasoff","Cassandra Madison"] recording: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMEonjNRQzc" 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" --- # Bringing AI and Tech Talent into Government InnovateUS workshop · 30 November 2023 · 60 minutes Join us for a 60-minute virtual workshop with Jennifer Anastasoff, Executive Director of the Tech Talent Project and founding member of U.S. Digital Service, and Cassandra Madison, Vice President of Partnerships at the Tech Talent Project. This training will focus on best practices in hiring and supporting tech and artificial intelligence (AI) leaders in government, including identifying relevant technology and innovation leadership positions and the competencies these leaders and their teams will need to be successful. Participants will receive specific advice for recruiting and hiring technical experts, including strategies for reading tech resumes, doing pitches, closing candidates, and providing the right resources and tools for new tech talent. This training is open to all public sector professionals but is especially geared towards human resource professionals and critical stakeholders in public sector hiring**.** ## Learning goals - Learn to identify relevant technology and innovation leadership positions, and the competencies leaders and their teams will need to be successful - Receive specific advice for recruiting and hiring technical experts - Learn about strategies for reading tech resumes, doing pitches, closing candidates, and providing the right resources and tools for new tech talent InnovateUS offers weekly virtual trainings on innovation, data, and digital skills for the public sectors. Check out and sign up for our upcoming workshops [here.](https://airtable.com/appdAyP4l2W9gxQdc/pagx9sXF2F53dI7kn/form) ## Speakers - **Jennifer Anastasoff**, Founder and Executive Director, Tech Talent Project - **Cassandra Madison**, Executive Director, Center for Civic Futures Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMEonjNRQzc ## 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/bringing-ai-and-tech-talent-into-government.txt (plain text) and https://innovate-us.org/bringing-ai-and-tech-talent-into-government.json (every segment with its start and end second). **Unknown speaker** [0:01](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1) And hand it over to you both. **Cassandra Madison** [0:04](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=4) Thank you so much, Hannah. It is such a pleasure to be here with you all today. In addition to Jennifer and I, you have our colleague Charity Green. She's also helping with some logistics today. Slide deck, so Charity, thank you for your help. What are we going to do today? We've already gone over some logistics. We have 60 minutes at our disposal and we have a lot of content for you. So there's really a couple of key things we want to talk through. One is share a little bit about why this AI conversation is so critical right now and in the context of talent. We also want to help give you a frame to recruit for AI and AI enabling roles in your agencies. And a big part of this is helping you with things like how do you tell your story effectively? How do you translate technical resumes? How do you close a candidate? The key things that you need to be able to bring the best and brightest from across the country into your agencies to help you deliver services effectively and equitably. [1:11](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=71) And as Hannah said, we're going to have a bunch of content in the beginning. We will have some interaction in that content, but we'll really reserve the last 20 minutes for Q&A. So tell you a little bit about us. Thank you, Hannah, for the introductions. A little bit more flavor for Jennifer and I. So at the Tech Talent Project, I've been with the organization since October of 2019. I run our recruiting team. I do a bunch of work with Jennifer at the executive level. And I also spend a lot of time leading our state and local portfolio. As Hannah mentioned, my background is state government service. I'm not a technologist. I actually started my career as a bright eyed, bushy tailed policy person that just believed if you pass the perfect law, wrote the perfect policy, things would magically get better for people. And as most of us know in the room, that is not true. And so I ended up having a front row seat to a couple of big technology disasters as they unfolded in Vermont. And that's where I developed my love for technology and operations. So ran a couple of tech turnarounds there. [2:13](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=133) And after about seven and a half years, did some reflection and realized that the work that we were trying to do to transform the delivery of technology was much harder than it needed to be because we didn't have the right technical leaders at the table. So I got really excited to join Tech Talent Project to try to help government solve this problem. And I'm so excited to see all the state and local agencies on the event today because I'm particularly excited about helping you all close your technical talent gap. I'll turn it over to Jennifer to tell us a little bit about herself and kick us off into the presentation today. **Jennifer Anastasoff** [2:47](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=167) All right. Well, I think we're all really lucky to have Cass leading the conversation today, so I'll be quick. My name is Jennifer Nesoff, as Cass mentioned and Hannah did. I co-founded the Tech Talent Project in 2018, and it came out of a lot of work basically helping to co-found the United States Digital Service. Back after healthcare.gov didn't work largely because didn't work because a website failed. And we all know that there's more than just that. But what I have found over the last decade of working in this field is that there is so much opportunity. There are so many amazing people like yourself who are trying and trying to figure out how do we bring in amazing tech talent and how do we support the people who are inside government? What I often found and what keeps me going on a daily basis is that there are great folks who are in HR who are doing project management, people like where Cass was a few years ago who are truly thinking about how do we make things work better for folks on the ground, for the folks who are supposed to be receiving services, for the businesses who are supposed to be receiving services. [3:53](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=233) And technology and now AI can be potential tools for that. Technology definitely can be a tool for that. AI can be a tool for that. But there's a lot that goes involved that is involved in that. And I'm really excited to talk with you all today about some of what that means. So. Taking a look here, look, any system, let's just back up a little bit into technology, right? Any system that you care about, health care, education or any issue that you care about, I should say, health care, education environment, it's enabled by systems. And systems that are often held together by the technical equivalent of tape and sticks and paperclips. And it's just an example that I share here is Health and Human Services System 3. It's 50 years old and this is a federal a table on federal legacy systems. And it's such a high security risk that we can't even name the system. So what I would ask each of you to think about is, do you have a system? [4:53](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=293) When I mentioned that, is there a system or process that pops up in your mind as one that you're concerned about when you're when you're hearing this? Jumping onto the next slide, look, 19.2 million people in state and local work in state and local governments today. And they're working to make sure that our economy is strong, that folks receive benefits, that our governments run smoothly. And you all have been doing it for years, often with technology that makes it harder, not easier. So you from from our perspective, y'all are heroes and our goal is to supersize your work. But what is tech talent do? So what we do is we find the right senior level and executive level leaders from tech. The right roles in government, technical data, AI and help build the capacity of both sides to create effective public tech leaders. **Cassandra Madison** [6:00](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=360) Mute. Thank you. So what's the challenge? Government, as Jennifer said, critically needs to attract and hire modern technical leaders. But there's a couple of big barriers. One is that modern technical leaders often aren't even aware of the opportunities to serve. And if they are aware, they're turned off by cumbersome and confusing hiring processes. Many of you know this more than anyone else. And what does this look like in practice? First things first, government often doesn't do active recruiting. We call this the post and pray method. Post your your job opening and hope that the right people will apply. And then when applications come in, often they're rejected for things that don't have to do with the foundational qualifications of the candidate. They might be rejected for not being in the right format or not having the right margins or not having the right font. There is often requirements for applications that look dramatically different than what folks are used to in the private sector. [7:05](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=425) We've seen states who require seven to 10 page resumes or require executives to fill out answers to essay questions. We also see what we may call clumpy communication. So no response to an application after someone applies or not keeping them updated throughout the hiring process. We've worked with candidates who apply for a government role, don't hear back for several months and just assume that they're no longer in consideration, only to get a call several months later. But by then it's too late. They've moved on. They've moved on to another job. The next slide. So there's challenges there and we'll talk about how to overcome those challenges today. But what happens when you can get through these barriers and hire the right technical leaders? Take Rick Clough, who worked for the state of California. He led a team to create a model vaccination card for the United States. It was built with open source code and it allowed other states all across the country to copy that code and use it for their own communities. [8:11](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=491) We have a strong federal CIO in Claire Martirana, who just in her role was able to make sure that $1 billion became available to agencies to improve their technical systems. **Jennifer Anastasoff** [8:31](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=511) Now you're on mute, Jennifer. We should just both stay off mute. We're just going to stay off mute, but it's fun. So basically, and you all again, you're going to hear this a lot from us. You all know this better than anyone else. Actually hiring a strong technical or data leader in government can feel like a miracle, especially if you work in government. And so this is where we work. And the fact is, though, that we found that over time, that really finding a strong candidate that is interested in public service, it takes talking to 100 qualified candidates, not just candidates, but qualified candidates, that helping them understand government can take three to six months and helping them find roles and work through government hiring can take six months to a year. But I want to pause you on that. Well, actually, why don't we jump on to that next slide? Because now knowing all of this, you're being asked to hire folks in AI as well and hire AI talent as well. That's got to feel like a challenge. And what we want to say is, and I just want to just reality check, we're going to give you a lot of ideas and a lot of thoughts and share best practices. [9:41](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=581) You do not have to do them all at once. This is not a contest to see who can burn themselves out quickest, but you can do critical pieces of it. So please listen with that in mind. It'd be great if you did them all at once. But also, we want to make sure that you can be as effective as possible. So, look, artificial intelligence has been around since the 1950s. It's been used in government to do everything from analyzing traffic flow to a very controversial, as some of us call, we'll jump in and share with us facial recognition. So it's everything in between. It's so critical to have people who are in government, who are focused on the needs of the public, who can ask the right questions. That is what we're talking about today. And that is what you are the holder of as folks who are looking to hire and bring in AI and AI enabling talent. [10:42](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=642) So people use, let's think about what AI means. People use the term to mean a lot of different things. Sometimes people mean machine learning, which is where computers can learn without being explicitly told to do something or explicitly programmed to do something. Like software, for example, that might use historical data to make predictions. Sometimes that is helpful and sometimes it's not, right? The recent interest that you would have heard a lot about is potentially generative AI. ChatGPT is something that a lot of folks have played around with. It exploded this year. The city of Boston did a really interesting job in putting out guidelines if anyone's interested on how to use generative AI and how not to use generative AI in government. People in companies, and the fact is, and I'm sure many of you have heard about this, people in companies are developing new AI products every day, probably more than every day. And some of them may help solve some problems that you have. Honestly, some may not, right? [11:45](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=705) AI is a tool, like technology generally is a tool. And it needs guidelines and guardrails. And let's just, again, this reality check. Our society will be working on trying to figure out how to responsibly and appropriately use AI over the next year, years, decades. And none of us that are on this call can wait for all of that to be figured out. We need people in government who can be helping to make the day-to-day decisions that are going to happen no matter what about tech, about data, and about AI in a way that serves the public. And again, I keep bringing this up, asking the questions. That's the hardest part when we don't have folks who know enough about data or technology to ask those questions. So, many agencies, there's a lot of words on here. The main thing that I want you to know from this pyramid is that many agencies, when we talk about AI and deep learning, it's right up top. [12:54](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=774) And probably the politicals and the folks that you work with on a regular basis are saying, we want AI and deep learning now. Many agencies just need to cover the basics on the bottom here. Basic tech, basic data needs, and you need to build the foundation for AI and machine learning in order to be able to be effective in asking those questions and making next decisions. So, next slide. The truth is, and I'll just share this with you from some of our learnings, that while AI seems new and shiny, as someone just mentioned, who's been working in AI or IA since the 80s, Jay, in reality, it's part of a broader, longer-term existing problem. Over the last few years, we've seen technical delivery work well. And this is something that I would never have guessed 10 years ago when I got into tech and government explicitly. We've seen child tax credits dropped directly into people's bank accounts. [13:54](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=834) And again, these are policies independent of your political perspective on whether or not this policy should have happened. The fact that that happened is amazing, right, just from a logistical standpoint. COVID tests delivered to every home that requested them. Agree or not, that was a technical and logistical feat, right, that we could not have imagined 10 years ago when I first started this work. We've also seen things that didn't work well. Unemployment payments delayed or, in fact, not paid out in 30-some states. And some of you may have felt the pain of this, right? So what we know is that serving people better with technology and technical capacity can work. But until governments have enough tech capacity inside, they're going to be unable to deliver on the promises that we make. So for the past 10 years, we've been trying to figure out how to climb what I consider this hill of great delivery, great customer experience, great service to humans. And we've been working to improve how governments serve workers and families and businesses. [14:56](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=896) And now that AI is being incorporated, we are moving from climbing a difficult hill to a much easier one. So we've started to cover some ground here on AI and consistent considerations in government and what it takes to hire technical talent. I'm curious for folks who are on today, what's keeping you up at night? When you're thinking about AI and AI use for the public sector, when you're thinking about hiring technical talent, where are you stuck? Where are you really feeling it? Drop your answers in the chat. **Cassandra Madison** [16:05](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=965) Limitations and accuracy. People thinking AI has the right answer. This gets back to what Jennifer was saying about it being an enabler and it can solve some of the problems but not all of the problems. Folks talking about HR. I'm going to advance the slide. Keep putting your thoughts in the chat. When we're out there talking to folks about what's keeping them up at night, agency leaders, there's really two big things that come up, whether we're talking about AI or tech more broadly. One is around attracting the best talent with the right skills and experience. [17:11](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1031) There's this piece on speed. How do you get the best individuals into the right positions in a timely manner? I see lots of folks in the chat talking about how do you know when is the right moment to use AI? What are the right guardrails? I see lots of folks in the chat talking about how do you know when is the right moment to use AI? How do you get connected to this talent piece? You need the right people inside to be able to provide that grounding. Go to the next slide. **Jennifer Anastasoff** [17:51](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1071) Jennifer, this moment in AI? This is the moment to recruit and to support those folks. The good news is that hiring for technical talent is actually, I guess there's actually been over 300,000 people. This isn't good news at all that 300,000 people have been laid off from tech. But the good news for the folks on this call is that many of those folks are rethinking their choices. They're rethinking how they want to make impact. We're hearing from them on a regular basis. They're thinking about government and public service as a very attractive option. That's just something to know right now. There's also a moment where we say that tech workers are government curious. They want to know what government can do. [18:54](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1134) And they're interested in the scale of government. A reality check, which we talked about, there are a lot of challenges to hiring from outside of government. Cass has been in and out of state government. I've been in and out of local state and federal government. And in all of those places, we know that there are several myths that can be easy to fall into because they're, you know, myths always start with a nugget of truth. But as a whole, what we found is the myth is there. No one is going to be able to take or want to take a public sector salary. No technologist or data person or AI person would want to, or no one would want to relocate. No one will get the culture. The right people for you will. There are definitely people who won't. Those aren't our targets, right? We need to. So how do we get AI into government? Well, it's three-pronged approach. [19:55](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1195) Number one, we want to map. Well, to do all of this, we want to maximize the benefits of AI and minimize the risks. But the three-pronged approach that we look at is recruiting tech and data leaders to join government. So let's recruit people who deeply understand the systems that we're talking about, who are thinking about their ability to contribute and who are focused on their ability to contribute. Number two, we want to recruit multiple organizations, right? I want you all to know you're not alone. Part of the reason we're here is we're an organization that helps, but there are many other organizations that help folks at the state, local and federal level to be able to bring in talent. Please lean on all of us. But we've got to work with organizations to make sure that government leaders have access to the knowledgeable experts on AI. And the third thing, a final piece is that we all need to help. And one of the things that we're focused on is helping government to build that AI delivery capacity. Okay. So you may be wondering, and I can just hear, I can hear the very loud silence right now, but in your heads, you're all saying, yeah, that's all nice. Jennifer, you're saying words. [21:04](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1264) I live in this world and I'm not seeing it. Okay. And I hear you. I do. I hear the silent scream. You may be wondering where all of this talent is, and we have a number of different methods for engaging tech talent. We know it's hard for you to do in the, in the, the amount of time that you have in a day to do anything other than the multiple things that you're being asked to do on a regular basis. But one of those things is called tech to gov. It's a program that brings leading nonprofits who bring technologists into government together to bring thousands, in some cases, thousands of technologists, data folks, AI enabling and AI talent together to talk to state, local and federal agencies about roles that are open. Right. And it's, it's a set of virtual job fairs that largely we've been able to pull on more than 50% mid and senior level leaders, folks like United States, digital response, putting it forward, governing for government for America, who all work with states are very excited about participating in it. [22:11](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1331) High volume of tech talent is introduced to government through these, these programs. The first one was this year was January, 2023. And we did it on a Lark y'all. We did it because what we said was, Oh my gosh, so many people are being laid off. How are we providing an opportunity for them to learn about government right now? And since then, we've had another two job fairs. So three this year, the latest one happened in October where we had 3000 technologists sign up 1000. We're on a wait list to learn about the roles that you have available. They had close to 3,200 one-on-ones with agencies, the technologists and data folks did there are technologists that are interested in government. It's not easy. I don't want to say by any means, it's easy, but, but they, they are there. So I would just want to share a quick video with you to introduce you to one of those technologists. Hi, my name is Patrick Day and I'm a chief architect at the VA. So early this year, I attended the tech talent job fair, just out of curiosity to see what was available. [23:15](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1395) And within two weeks I had a job offer with the VA. I was definitely excited about the impact, but I think I was more intrigued by the possibility of serving my country. I have family members, I have kids, military. So being able to give back was appealing to me. Right now, the project that I'm really working on is helping veterans enroll in benefits. Most of the time, you know, a veteran may not actually use a benefit that they're entitled to because they don't know it exists. And that will be a huge game changer. I have a two-year appointment with the government. So my goal is to make the biggest impact as possible on millions of veterans lives. **Cassandra Madison** [24:08](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1448) Thank you so much. So look, Patrick's story, thankfully, is not unique. We hear it over and over, and we know you're here because you recognize that AI advancements and tech innovation represent a critical opportunity for government. And as I said, and as I see in the chat appropriately, a critical challenge. So your leadership is the first step in more Patrick's coming on board. So let's dive a little bit more into how you hire the right leaders. And I want to say we are explicitly focused today on what it takes to bring folks into government who may be exploring government service for the first time. That is not the only way to step up your teams. We're talking to states all across the country who are also looking at upskilling their current staff and making sure that they have the modern skills and expertise to deliver effectively. So lots of best practices out there, but for our purposes today, we're really focused on how do you bring those new folks in? [25:10](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1510) And there's really a couple key components, four things we want to focus on. The first piece is around telling a compelling story. So we've said this a few times, but it's worth repeating. Money might be an issue for people, but it's not for everyone. There are a group of really talented and diverse technologists out there who want to make a difference. And so one of the ways, most powerful ways that you can connect with them is by being able to tell the story of the impact they can have effectively. That's number one. Also about that, there's other parts of that story. You can talk about career growth. You can talk about the complexity of challenges. And it's not about it being a job. It's about it being part of a, of a success story. The second thing is finding their motivation. So when you have a candidate that you really want to hire, what is it that's even motivating them to have the conversation or to consider government service? And for this piece, it's all about being curious and asking questions. [26:11](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1571) Things like how excited are you about this opportunity? How does it compare about to other opportunities that you're looking at? This is where you learn all sorts of valuable information about whether they're considering other offers too. If we agree to terms, would you be excited to take the offer? This is, you want to find a way to connect with a person one-on-one and really understand what's motivating them as well as what barriers there might be to them saying yes, so that you can close them effectively. The third piece is around translating tech resumes. We've already touched on this, but tech resumes in the private sector often look really different than government resumes. And you really need to make sure that you have someone internal to your team with technical experience who can evaluate what they're seeing on a, on an external resume. And then the fourth thing is closing a candidate, which I think is this often overlooked component, but is probably the most important piece of the puzzle. You just can't take for granted that your top candidate is going to say yes. [27:11](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1631) Closing is really hard work. When we're working on matching folks to roles and we're in the final weeks where they have an offer, they're nearing an offer. We're talking to them every day. In the tech industry, candidates are really used to getting offers for three to five jobs, like offer letters in hand, and then deciding between them, which is really different than our typical experience in government where it takes a lot to get to an offer letter stage. And at that point you're expecting somebody to say yes. So in addition to staying in close communication and really working hard to close those candidates, you also want to make sure that you have in your final stages, at least three really strong candidates. And you would be happy if any of those three candidates said yes. You don't want to, we call fall in love with one person, have one candidate and then have them say no at the end, which is not uncommon. And then you're starting your search over. Go to the next slide. So really want to hone in here on telling your story because this is, this is the door opening. This is the most important piece of the puzzle. [28:17](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1697) You can advance the slides, Charity, to bring everything up. We talk about the three S's. First things first in your, when you're developing your pitch is you want to be specific. You want to be specific at the role and the requirements for the role. So the person that you're speaking to can understand what is it that they're signing up for? And are they going to be a good match for what you're looking for? The second thing is speed. Government hiring, hiring processes can be slow and speed. Speed is your friend in, in a hiring process. So once you get somebody excited and engaged, you have to be quick. You have to be agile. You have to be consistent with your communication. A best practice in tech and business is to hire people within 30 calendar days, which is lightning speed for government, but it is possible. In the story of Patrick Day, you know, the VA came to the tech to gov job fair. Patrick was not expecting to say yes to a government job that day, but they gave him a verbal offer on the spot. So figuring out how you can increase the speed of hiring processes is really critical to hiring the right candidates. [29:21](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1761) And then the third piece is scale. And this is all about developing your story of impact that you can share again and again, and again, you don't want to reinvent the wheel every time you're talking to someone about a role. So find those key stories of impact, get really well practiced in them and then use them over and over again. So you can scale your, your hiring process. Go to the next slide. You can click through the graphics. So how do you tell an effective story? An effective story has a few different components. One you need to know what type of person you're hiring. So you need to know what type of people you're hiring. So you need to know who the right people are, but you need to know that you're not hiring the right person. Introduce yourself and what you do. So you need to know how to tell effective stories. It's great to get personal at this moment and help share with people what it is that motivates you to do the work that you do. It creates a human-to-human connection and gets your story kicked off on the right foot. Two is sense of purpose. Like, what problem are you trying to solve? What problem is this candidate that you're trying to hire going to help you solve? [30:24](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1824) Three is solution. So, how does your organization fix a problem or how would you like to fix a problem that you're not able to today that the person you're trying to bring in can help you? And then, finally, the benefit. What is the impact on the actual lives of humans that this person is going to have in your role and that your team has in their role? So, think about the work you all are doing. What do you want someone completely new to government or to your agency to feel about the work that you do? Go ahead and drop your thoughts in the chat. What really resonates with you about the mission of your agency? And you can think in terms of the end effect. You want to think in terms of benefit to people. So, for example, I worked on SNAP and Medicaid in Vermont. SNAP program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, helps keep families fed. [31:28](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1888) Medicaid helps make sure that kids are healthy. Public housing authorities help provide housing to those that need it. What do residents get from your agencies? I'm seeing what folks are popping into the chat. Work beneficial to stakeholders. And government has lots of different stakeholders, right? Passion to serve the public. Clean water for all. So, some really compelling examples here that you can turn into stories. And the important thing to know is that your story is really going to shape not only how the candidate views your role, but how they view working in government generally. So, once you have your story, you need to make it stick. [32:30](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=1950) And so, this is where you're really trying to build your conversation points. You want to do everything you can to relate the subject that you're focused on, the work of your agency, to your audience. How do you connect with the candidate and their interests that you're talking to? You don't want to get too bogged down in detail. I think this can be really challenging in government, especially if you're a hiring manager who's doing the work day-to-day. It can get really easy to wade into a lot of detail about what you all are doing and how you are doing it and all the different systems and contracts and things like that. But you really want to try to come up a level so that you can focus on that impact. And really let the listener you're trying to engage in a conversation, let the person you're trying to hire ask for more information. Avoid jargon. That's obviously also really hard in government because even when you're trying your best to communicate in lay language, acronyms creep in. And so, you want to do your best to get that jargon out. [33:31](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2011) And then speak personally wherever possible. So, again, we talked about this in introducing yourself, like what motivates you to do the work that you do? Also, when you're talking about challenges, we deeply believe in being candid with people about how difficult work in government can be. And so, being able to be open about how rewarding government is and also how challenging it is and what keeps you going every day is really important in your conversations with candidates as well. Next. So, finding the motivation. There's not a one-size-fits-all in terms of what's going to motivate somebody to say yes to working in government. We've talked to thousands of people and tried to connect them to the right roles in government. And so, sometimes you hear people say, I want to work on something that makes the world better, that I can be proud of. And I think we've seen this deep questioning happen with candidates. Probably started with COVID. We're seeing it with AI where folks were like, man, I want to do something that really has meaning or I'm at a point in my career when I want to give back. [34:37](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2077) So, they're moved by this idea that government's the toughest job you've ever loved. And you can really lean into that. There's other folks who are really motivated by the complexity of the problems and government seems like a really hard problem to them. So, when you're asking them questions, you start to get a sense of what their motivations are. And then you can specifically kind of hone your pitch into the specific problems that they're going to solve, how challenging they are, and the impact. There's other people that you talk to, I mean, look at all the layoffs happening in tech, who want more stability. And that's sort of been the cornerstone of government's pitch for a long time. It's still helpful for a certain group of folks. So, you can talk about public sector life, you can talk about benefits, you can talk about work-life balance, all of those sorts of things. Some people will tell you, I just need a break. I'm looking for something a bit easier. This is not your target audience. Do not recruit those people into government. And this gets back to just this idea of being candid. You know, you don't... [35:39](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2139) You can put in all this work to hire the right person. And what you don't want is for them to come in with assumptions that this is going to be easier than what they did in the private sector. And then they flame out in three months or six months, and then you're right back to the recruiting spot you were in. So, if people are looking for something easier, point them in a different direction. But the most important thing at the end of the day is that you're engaging with candidates. And this gets to this active recruiting, which I know is hard because you all are busy and wearing multiple hats. But especially at the executive level, it's true up and down the pipeline that this is a... You're trying to get to know what motivates people. You're trying to engage deeply with them. That's what's going to put them in the position to say yes to a role in government. So, there's probably lots of things we could put on the do and don't list. But our biggest one in the don't list is just take a look at the hiring processes and make sure that you're not weeding out great people because they aren't putting their resumes in the right format. And we've seen that again and again all across the country. [36:41](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2201) There's just these simple things, these little tweaks that you can make to make it easier for people to get hired in the right way. Things, these little tweaks that you can make that just put you in a position not to weed out people who are really highly qualified. On your do list, again, emphasize the work, the projects you're proud of, the challenges that you're working through, not the processes. Do assume if someone has never been in government for that they know nothing about government or the organization or your work. So, you got to start from square one, use your plain language and just really be prepared to communicate with people regularly if you think they're a good fit for either this role that you're trying to hire them for or other roles in your organization. So, we're going to talk a little bit about translating government or tech skills into government and tech resumes. [37:43](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2263) As we're going through this, again, please feel free to pop your questions in the chat about, you know, any questions you have about how to motivate folks or get them to yes. Jennifer will talk more about resumes, but just briefly to help bridge the gap between public and private sectors, we've bucketed some job classifications into themes that can help you better understand sort of what skills people are coming in the door with from private sector. This is not black and white, but it can kind of help you begin to translate your needs into candidate skills. So, some highlights here. I'm not going to read through them all. This is a resource for you. But product management, really popular job classification in the private sector. It does not have an easy translation on the government side, but folks in product management are, these are the folks that are, they have accountability and resources to deliver on a project. They work with technologists, they work with program leaders to ensure that the end product serves the needs of the people using it. [38:47](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2327) So, really important skill to have in government, great to bring those product folks into government. And more and more governments are starting to create job descriptions and classifications with product management in the title. Design, these are folks who make sure that the people who use government services or websites can easily figure out what they need to do, that their experience is simple and intuitive. User research, these are folks who figure out where, they specialize in figuring out where the pain points are for your internal and external customers, where are people getting stuck and what needs to be done to make it easier. So, those are some examples. You can see others in the slide, but trying to give you some tips and tricks when you're trying to translate private sector resumes and skill sets to what's needed in the public sector. Jennifer, I'll turn it over to you for resumes. **Jennifer Anastasoff** [39:38](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2378) Thank you. And I will just say that on the tech2gov.org website, there's actually a translation sheet, like a crib sheet for you. And so, we can ask Hannah to share that afterwards if that's helpful. So, what do tech resumes value? Okay, what is this tech resume? And I think this will, if you've seen this, there are gonna be some of you, you can drop it in the chat that have experienced this, looked at these tech resumes and gone, what is this? But what tech resumes value are sometimes high design, but definitely brevity, one page, tops. Outcomes versus job responsibilities. How many people did they actually serve ultimately? What was the ultimate outcome of the work that happened rather than specific job responsibilities? And successes, right? They list a lot of successes on there. It's interesting and important to understand that terms can mean very different things in different places. So, what is a VP? A VP in finance might be someone junior. [40:39](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2439) A VP in tech is someone who is very senior. A VP in FinTech, you're gonna wanna check in with them and ask a lot more questions to find out what level they are, what they know and what they do, right? And a reality check on this slide, some of the top 10% of technologists, top 10% have never written a resume. And if we're lucky, they've put something on LinkedIn. The fact is, is that they haven't had to over many years. And so, sometimes that's just an important thing to know because they may need some help. Next slide. But what do government resumes value? Well, government resumes, you already know this, right? They value extensive information, often every role, every project, committee, task force, every training, every publication, often white and times new Roman, some specific font, some specific font size, details in the job description versus personal successes and time served. [41:45](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2505) Many government entities specifically vet qualifications by checking how long someone has been in a particular role, worked in a specific number of hours. So two reality checks on this one. The term, I'll just give an example. The term data scientist, I've seen this before where in government job descriptions, there's a request for data scientists with 10 years of experience or 20 years of experience. The term literally has only been around for a few years. So you wouldn't be able to find a data scientist with 20 years of data science experience, a data scientist experience, right? So that's the kind of weird tech and data world that we're in right now. So the other reality check is, look, you have too many resumes to review, too much work. And we get that it becomes easier to review those resumes if you have very explicit outlines of, oh, they need to have this font or this approach or whatever. So the key thing is just to think about that trade-off between in thinking about how do you weed out resumes and what's another way that you might be able to do that in a way that saves you time, but that also helps you get towards the goal of your 100 qualified folks for a given role. [42:59](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2579) So let's practice reading a tech resume. So this is when we're gonna take a minute. Based on this resume, it's just a quick outline. Based on this resume that you are currently reading, write down what you know. And you can just take, if you're on video and looking at this at a different time, or if you're here with us today live, what do you know? What do you need to know? And what questions do you have? Three things, what do you know? What do you need to know? And what questions do you have? We'll just pause for a moment to give you that. [44:02](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2642) All right, you've had about 45 seconds to take a look. Definitely gonna need to take a little bit longer, but what role, and just think in your head, you don't have to write it down, right? But what type of role do you think this person might be qualified for? What have they done? And what do you know? And what questions do you have? And feel free, you can drop in the chat if you'd like, your thoughts on it too. All right, thanks folks for dropping your initial thoughts. I think I see a lot of different, I see some, this is really helpful, right? Because we see that there's a lot of different types of questions that are coming in. And I think that's really helpful. And I think that's really helpful, right? Because we see that there's a lot of different, They can be qualified for a software enterprise role, perhaps. I see some, this is really helpful, right? [45:03](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2703) Because we see they have five plus years of experience. They want to grow and innovate. They're trying new things. But they've also moved, right? They've moved every few years to different jobs. There is somebody who put doesn't show accomplishments in each area. My hypothesis is that I probably cut that out just to put it all in a slide. So my bad, Erwin. But that said, looking at this, this person is... The moving around a lot thing really is interesting because that comes up a lot with this slide. This is pretty normal for someone in the tech sector to see this level of movement every couple of years. And this is actually the background in the tech resume, summary of the tech resume for Patrick, the video that you just saw, right? So he's now at the VA. He's doing great work there and deeply excited to give back. He'll be there for a couple of years because that's the term that he signed up for, right? And they're going to really engage him. And he's really excited to give back for that time period, right? So that's just something to give you a sense. [46:05](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2765) But let's jump on to some other tech resumes now. So now we're going to ask you to do a little bit of work on here. Take a look at this slide and let me know what... There are three different candidates. And we are going to take two minutes. I'll time myself because it feels like a long time when you're presenting. We have three candidates here. Which role? Just, you know, you can guess just based on what you know. Which role do you think each candidate would be a fit for in your organization or your agency? And just add it in the chat. You don't have to respond to all of them. You can pick one. You don't have to do all three. But just take a moment and share your thoughts. I'll put a timer for two minutes. And if you're at home on a video, you should be doing the same. [47:16](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2836) All right, I'm going to cut it down to one minute because we need enough time to really talk and answer your questions. So thank you for folks who are jumping on. You can just jump in right at the end here and share your thoughts. If you were on at a different point in time and not live with us, you can just pause and write more. But we see things, everything like candidate two shows business impact. Candidate three shows business impact. Someone started with chief and principal roles, not software engineer roles. You know, candidate one and three, maybe it's difficult to figure out how to integrate them into management work because they were founders and CEOs. Maybe that'll make it more difficult to take suggestions from others. So let's move and see who these folks are. [48:17](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2897) We're going to reveal. This is the big reveal. So the first one is a former deputy chief technology officer for the U.S. and has done great work, was actually quite critical to the turnaround of healthcare.gov, did both coding and had moved to a leadership level and was able to go up and down that pipe. That was really great. Next one, Lisa Golobter, worked in the U.S. Department of Education, chief digital service officer, has started a tech company and is a founder herself now, but really continues to work in government at different levels. And then finally, you have Charles Worthington, who's at the VA, who has been doing really great work there. So it's just an example. So as you thought about your assumptions, jumping back and saying, hey, how might that make me think about how I review resumes and where I might provide some additional options? So candidate expectations. **Cassandra Madison** [49:18](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=2958) Thanks, Jennifer. And I'm going to try to breeze through these last couple of slides so that we have at least a few minutes for your questions. But just things to be aware of when candidates are going through this process. The clock starts for them the minute they have that initial introduction with you, and regular, consistent communication is key. You want to follow up immediately. You want to correspond every couple days. And it doesn't have to be a big, you know, huge email. You can just drop them a quick note and be like, just update on timing. We're still figuring things out on our side. We'll be in touch with another update next week. You just don't want to go dark. That can really kill the experience for candidates. You want to schedule your interviews as quickly as possible. And you want to be prepared to answer their questions. Next slide. Process best practices. We talked about a lot of this already. But you want to make sure you have a clear idea of the scope and responsibility of the position. Be prepared to discuss career growth. [50:19](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=3019) You really want to engage your interview team. This is one of the places where I see agencies fall down a lot is you want to make sure everyone who's doing interviews is on the same page on what the ideal candidate looks like and the rubric that you're using to evaluate candidates. And so that you have something concrete to go back to instead of people's just initial, you know, people going by gut feelings or getting to a place where you are sort of at the end of your interview process and there's wildly different ideas of who the right candidate is and you're trying to resolve that in the 11th hour. Go to the next slide. Closing a tech candidate. Big advice here, just reiterating that the final days, weeks, between when you make a verbal offer and when a candidate says yes are a really, really important time of focus. You want to be asking questions. You want to understand where your candidates are in their decision-making process, what their barriers might be in trying to head them off. You want to have constant communication. [51:21](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=3081) Like I said, when we're working with our interviewees, we want to make sure that we're communication. Like I said, when we're working on helping agencies close candidates, we're talking to them pretty much every day. You want them to be articulating to you why they're so excited about the opportunity. And you want to be able to close them quickly. Try not to drag these things out over weeks and months. And always make sure you have more than one candidate in your final stages. And we can breeze past this for now, because I want folks to be able to ask questions. **Jennifer Anastasoff** [51:58](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=3118) Yeah, and the only thing I would say with this is, hey, everyone, look, there's a lot in here. Again, we know you have too much to do. So sometimes you just got to pick one and go with it. But also, if you need help, right, there are lots of organizations that are non-profits that are out there to be supportive. So there's Tech Talent Project. There's Tech to Gov, which is that group. Of many other orgs that have come together on a regular basis. So please go there and questions. And Hannah, I don't know if we can hang out a little bit longer, but we can, just because we should do that. **Unknown speaker** [52:31](https://youtu.be/UMEonjNRQzc?t=3151) Hi, yes, can you hear me? Great, thank you both so much for that, Cass and Jen. Jennifer, I'm just going to stop recording. * * * Original page: https://innovate-us.org/bringing-ai-and-tech-talent-into-government · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), as stated on innovate-us.org