Photo By Ellen Crown | Army Medical Logistics Command Human Resources Director Kenneth Daniels discusses...... read more read more
Subscribe
If you ask most government employees how long the hiring process takes, you will likely get a chuckle and an answer ranging from a couple of months to nearly a year.
All of the answers are correct and usually have legitimate reasons — security clearances, qualification checks, syncing calendars to coordinate panel interviews — but all of these steps take time. However, extended hiring timelines are one of the reasons the Army is losing the war for talent. It is also why the Army Materiel Command piloted a new program called Rocket Vetting for Rapid Hiring at the Becoming Everything You Are Science, Technology, Engineering and Math career fair held Feb. 16-17 in Baltimore, Maryland.
The program allowed real-time vetting of applicants for hiring officials to make on-the-spot employment offers at the event.
The Aviation and Missile Command, a major subordinate command of AMC, took full advantage of the new program and issued 37 tentative job offers at the BEYA hiring event.
“If you look at all of the different Army commands that went to BEYA, AMCOM had the most people with offers,” said Darion Boone, AMCOM human resources specialist. Boone oversees the recruitment outreach program and said they were successful because of the pilot program combined with the planning they did leading up to the event.
The two-day BEYA career fair was held in a hybrid environment, both in person and online, with the last day being a Saturday. However, since Department of the Army civilians do not typically work weekends, the federal government was slightly disadvantaged compared to its private sector counterparts.
Boone organized a tiger team to work the Saturday event at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. They facilitated job offers, conducted interviews for the virtual career fair and provided reach-back assistance to the AMCOM team that traveled to the in-person event in Maryland.
The AMCOM G-1 set up a command center in a Toftoy Hall classroom. In addition to human resources personnel, it included security officials and hiring managers overseeing the 83 vacancies available. Although he was onsite in Maryland, Boone said the team back at Redstone worked perfectly.
“Having everyone in one room for the virtual fair was new this year,” he said. “It was actually an [After Action Review] suggestion from previous years. The problem we would run into was people were at home, so when we had questions, concerns or problems, we couldn’t reach them because it was the weekend. You make it a duty day, you have them come to a consolidated location, you have the HR team over here and the units over there. Now, if there’s a problem, you can reach straight across. And, if you have hiring managers who need to conduct a virtual interview, they now have a dedicated, quiet space. People don’t like working on weekends, but in the long run, it saved us time.”
Dylan Irvin, a recently hired logistics management specialist with the Security Assistance Management Directorate, attended the virtual fair Feb. 16 and received a tentative offer the next day.
He said, “I logged onto the career fair side of BEYA, and it was a virtual look at the conference. I looked at all of the companies involved, but I was waiting for AMCOM to contact me Friday. Then, on Saturday, I got a call around noon and was told I got an offer, then it was a streamlined process from there.”
Irvin said BEYA was an awesome opportunity that rapidly changed his life.
“Things moved pretty quickly,” he said. “I graduated college three months ago and am now moving into not only a job but a career that I see myself working in for a long time; it’s pretty life-changing.”
Davina Collins also received an offer from SAMD during the BEYA event. She served in the Navy for eight years as a logistics specialist and was hopeful but hesitant to leave her contracting position.
“I would always get told that I needed to apply for a government position, but the money is too good on the contracting side,” she said. “After I had a baby a few months ago, I started thinking about the long run and stability. BEYA was awesome, but I was pretty anxious during the process. I got a call from AMCOM, and they asked if I would accept the position. I had the verbal offer, and a few weeks later, I got my letter.”
Boone said he has been helping people like Irvin and Collins his entire career and is passionate about it.
“I’ve lived the Army life since 1989 so telling the Army story comes naturally,” he said. “Seeing and helping young people is a good fit for me. I’ve always tried to help others find their way and the correct path in life.”
With 24 of the 30 BEYA hires on board, Boone is simultaneously finishing up paperwork for the remaining new employees and gearing up for the next national hiring event — the League of United Latin American Citizens Career Fair, scheduled for late June in Las Vegas, Nevada. Boone and a team from AMCOM will be there with direct hiring authority and more than 50 open vacancies. He said all of the hiring events are great opportunities, but BEYA is unique.
“BEYA is a fantastic event,” he said. “The sheer volume of people who come through there and the opportunities available are mind-boggling. I'm proud of the work that our team did this year, and I’m proud of the teamwork we had amongst the commands and the number of people we were able to recruit to help fill the vacancies within AMCOM. It’s a slow process, and we still have some work to do, but we are getting there.”
| Date Taken: | 05.03.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 05.03.2024 17:10 |
| Story ID: | 470301 |
| Location: | BALTIMORE, MD, US |
| Web Views: | 24 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, AMCOM scores big at BEYA Thirty new employees accept offers to become Army civilians, by Michelle Gordon, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT