Ep. 329 How Federal Agencies Can Unlock Hidden Workforce Skills

Today, we examine the strategy for filling technology roles in the federal government.

Everyone reading this sentence knows that the federal government is competing with commercial organizations for tech talent. Combining that with an arduous federal hiring process, a reduced budget, and a drastic increase in cyberattacks heightens this concern.

We sat down with Nav Singh, the Chief Marketing Officer at Eightfold.ai, to discuss the company's mission to match job candidates with roles based on skills.

For example, Eightfold has analyzed 1.6 million skills and 1.6 billion career trajectories, enabling it to identify and upskill employees for roles like cybersecurity. Singh emphasizes the importance of reducing bias in hiring and leveraging AI to discover hidden talents within organizations.

During the interview, he reviews the idea of training people who you already have on staff for cybersecurity positions. It is possible to assess talent and identify which candidates can make this transition.

This "hidden talent" theme makes even more sense for the federal government. One may need a specific kind of security clearance. It may be easier to assign an existing employee with that clearance and train them rather than go through the whole vetting process again.

Singh also mentions introducing an AI interviewer to enhance hiring consistency and efficiency. He states that the future workforce will be a combination of humans and agents. This is a scenario in which agents perform repeatable tasks, while humans set the strategy and exercise judgment.