In a candidate’s market, companies may be more inclined to take any warm bodies they can get that match the minimum requirement for a national security position. But taking on a clearance holder to just fill a billet (instead of being the right fit for the team) can cause potential turnover and your government customer to have low faith in you getting the job done.
Finding the best fit for your open role may be a difficult task in 2023 – where the cleared candidate pool is shrinking, and the government is still as ever stringent on requirements.
Recruitment Secrets: Finding the Right Fit for National Security Positions
Here are three tips to help you unlock recruitment secrets and source the right fit for your cleared openings.
1. Have one person from the current onsite team be involved in the phone screen or virtual interview process.
Doing this will ensure your recruiters are on the right track and not wasting time on candidates that aren’t going to be the best cultural fit. Pay your billable employees extra, which could be a retention perk across all your contracts. However, only pull them in with viable, interested candidates that are being evaluated on submission to the government customer. This ensures you won’t waste their time either.
2. Get your cleared recruiters access to the classified Statement of Work (SOW).
Yes, this means your cleared recruiters should have a security clearance where appropriate. For example, if you are the prime on a contract and expect some turnover, but bi or yearly surges on the program, it is worth the investment to have your recruiter well equipped to get the best people for the mission, by understanding the program fully.
3. Hiring managers or team leads should create skills matrices or cheat sheets for their recruiters.
TA professionals generally have not done the work they are recruiting for – though I know quite a few Army intels who now recruit for intelligence contracts through industry. Experts within your company should be creating cheat sheets for recruiters which can easily help them with entities or MOS’ to target, Boolean searches to help them save time, and programs or agencies that prospective candidates may be currently working at.
Successful cleared recruiting doesn’t have to be secret, even though the nature of our work typically is.
THEÂ CLEARED RECRUITING CHRONICLES: YOUR WEEKLY DoD RECRUITING TIPS TO OUT COMPETE THE NEXT NATIONAL SECURITY STAFFER.
