The White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) is planning to launch a new sprint this fall to focus on bringing more cybersecurity talent into the Federal government to help fill about 3,000 open technology positions.
Seeyew Mo – the assistant national cyber director for workforce, training, and education – explained that the sprint comes as ONCD is partnering with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to get an inventory of cybersecurity jobs in the Federal government. This inventory effort is part of the implementation of the National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy.
Notably, Mo said that ONCD and OPM discovered that there are about 3,000 jobs that were open in the 2210 series – or the IT management series – for fiscal year 2024.
“Using this information, we would like to socialize it more with the interagency to figure out how we can work together to fill some of these roles in a more efficient manner,” Mo said during an Aug. 27 event hosted by Federal News Network. “One of the areas that we’re focusing on is we’ll be launching an engagement and hiring and recruiting sprint in the fall to make sure we can start filling some of these positions.”
He added that there are still a lot of decisions that need to be made “in terms of what positions we want to focus on,” but the agency plans to start by filling the open 2210 series jobs.
Mo clarified that the coming sprint will be different from the Federal government’s “Tech to Gov” hiring effort, which aims to recruit AI and emerging technology experts. Several agencies joined a “Tech to Gov” job fair in April, where the Federal government extended over 100 job offers.
Mo said the Federal government plans to have “an upcoming Tech to Gov at some point,” but it is also planning on having a separate, larger sprint this fall “that’s more than just Tech to Gov.”
“We’re going to have an engagement campaign to make sure that we are also engaging with private sector employers to encourage them to hire interns, registered apprentices, as well as entry-level folks, so that we can just get more people into the national cyber workforce in general,” Mo said of the sprint.
The announcement comes after OPM announced in April that it is overhauling the Federal government’s hiring process for the 2210 series – transitioning to a fully skills-based approach by the summer of 2025.
“ONCD, together with our White House partners, is working very closely with OPM to make sure that we are framing this and shaping this and taking the appropriate steps so that we can do this in a way that achieves our goal,” Mo said. “We have to remember that these are policies that affect real people’s lives. We have to get it right, so we are coordinating very closely with them in this regard.”
