The Pentagon has asked Congress to give it permanent direct hire authority for its science and technology reinvention laboratories, saying that the authority in effect the last two years helps it bring candidates on board more quickly and enhances its “ability to meet customers’ and warfighters’ needs.”
The freedom to make “on-the-spot” conditional job offers at career fairs “has proven to be a valuable recruitment tool,” the Pentagon said in a request to Congress.
In particular, the labs “have an urgent and critical need for professionals with cybersecurity skills and experience and these candidates are in high demand by all sectors” and many are not willing to wait out the standard government hiring process because they have other options..
“All DoD laboratories have an aging workforce largely eligible for retirement. If the DoD laboratories are not aggressive in hiring efforts over the next decade, critical organic employee skills will be lost,” it added.
“Within some technical competencies, it takes roughly ten years of dedicated mentoring by a senior scientist or engineer for an entry-level employee to reach a journeymen level. Therefore, the laboratories need this expanded flexibility to quickly hire entry-level candidates with bachelor’s degrees to be mentored by our experienced employees who are quickly approaching retirement eligibility,” it said.
