FEDERAL TECH HIRING INITIATIVE SEES RECORD-BREAKING DEMAND WITH NEARLY 4,700 TECHNOLOGISTS SEEKING PUBLIC SERVICE ROLES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 13, 2024

Latest Tech to Gov Forum Draws Unprecedented Interest with more than 2,000 Registered Attendees. This event is the capstone of the Office of Personnel Management who partnered with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Management & Budget to launch Service for America, the Biden-Harris Administration’s recruiting, hiring, and engagement sprint aimed at preparing our country for a digitally-enabled future by connecting Americans to good-paying, meaningful jobs in cyber, technology, and AI. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in contract with The Volcker Alliance and Tech Talent Project, launched fiscal year 2025 with a highly successful Tech to Gov Virtual Hiring Forum, marking a significant milestone in the federal government's technology recruitment efforts.

The October 31, 2024 forum, which kicks off a series of three planned FY25 events, demonstrated continued growth in interest for federal technology careers. More than 200 representatives from 30 federal agencies engaged in over 3,000 one-on-one conversations with qualified candidates during the event. The unprecedented demand resulted in a waitlist of nearly 3,400 technology professionals, signaling a transformative shift in how technologists view public service careers.

"The overwhelming response at the last three forums reflects a seismic shift in how technology professionals view government service," said Rob Shriver, Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management. "We're not just filling positions – we're building a movement of technologists who see federal service as a career destination."

The virtual forum which connected over 30 federal agencies including with candidates ranging from early-career developers to seasoned technology executives. More than 50% of agencies indicated that these candidates were a fit now or in the future. 

"The caliber and diversity of talent we're seeing through Tech to Gov is remarkable," said Devon Beard, Director of People Operations within VA's Office of Information Technology.

"This extraordinary response validates our belief that top tech talent is eager to tackle society's most pressing challenges through public service," said Jennifer Anastasoff, Executive Director, Tech Talent Project.

The next National Tech to Gov Virtual Hiring Forum is scheduled for March 20, 2025, as part of the FY25 series. Technology professionals interested in exploring federal career opportunities can learn more at techtogov.org.

About Tech to Gov The National Tech to Gov Virtual Hiring Forum + Job Fair connects technology, cybersecurity, and AI professionals with opportunities in federal government service. Since January 2023, the initiative has hosted five successful forums, demonstrating consistent growth in both agency participation and candidate interest. The program is hosted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in contract with the Tech Talent Project and The Volcker Alliance.

Social Media: #TechtoGov #GovTech #PublicInterestTech Follow: @techtalentproj @VolckerAlliance @USOPM

For media inquiries:

  • Office of Personnel Management press contact: Viet Tran, Viet.Tran@opm.gov

  • Tech Talent Project press contact: Charity Greene, charity@techtalentproject.org

  • The Volcker Alliance press contact: Idalis Foster, ifoster@volckeralliance.org

Angie Quirarte Angie Quirarte

Want to transform government? Start with people

In the spirit of mutual learning, we are sharing draft principles and stories to modernize gov hiring and recruitment through this blog series.

Shared lessons on modernizing hiring for tech talent

The public sector workforce will shift our national conversation about how we deliver on the promises of government.
— Jen Pahlka - Author of Recoding America

The annual Code for America Summit brings together civic-minded technologists dedicated to improving government services. For years, the summit has been a place to plant the seeds of positive change for the public interest technology community. Over time, the conversation has evolved to focus more on building capacity and empowering public service teams—the people that make this important work possible.

As many of us have experienced, hiring in government is hard and hiring for tech talent feels harder. But why?

At this year’s summit, we (Angie, Michelle, Rebecca, and Alex) led a session to begin an open dialogue on developing shared principles to modernize government hiring and recruiting.

This conversation started because several cities and states are rethinking their hiring and recruiting systems and processes. What challenges are they facing ? What steps are they taking? What’s working so far? How might we learn from each other’s mistakes and successes? Based on our collective knowledge, can we establish shared  principles to guide this work?

In the spirit of mutual learning, we are sharing our draft principles to modernize hiring and stories from our experiences doing so across levels of government through this multi-part blog series.

The principles

The public interest tech community is often driven by principles in delivering services. We believe the same approach should apply to government talent. Our current hiring systems follow principles that don’t fully meet our needs today. The principles below are actions that government teams can use to transform how we approach talent in the digital age:  

  1. Use urgency to drive action

  2. Identify your levers of change and engage your key partners 

  3. Ask why until the trail ends 

  4. Bring stories and proof to back them up

  5. Understand the history and the why

  6. Focus on serving internal staff’s goals to gain buy-in 

  7. Define the problem 

  8. Pilot and test before you scale

Join the conversation

If you’ve been exploring ways  to modernize hiring and recruiting- let’s chat! The CfA session and this blog series is the beginning of a conversation. We welcome other voices and want to share your lessons learned with this growing community.

The next post will focus on the history and context setting on the role and impact of the civil service on government hiring. Stay tuned!

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