Intelligence agencies attract new talent, but do they have the career development systems to retain it?

While the federal government has been wary for decades about recruiting more young talent, some intelligence agencies are trying to find a way to balance the more nuanced, if still competitive, battle for human capital.

“The quality of new talent coming in is phenomenal,” said Kimberly King, head of the analysis division in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Human Resources Office. “We have more talent than we can hire. And they come with such interesting backgrounds, having done internships, interdisciplinary programs, speaking the language, doing engineering and math, it’s phenomenal.”

But like the rest of government, while the IC may attract talented people with its incredible mission, it still faces the challenge of retaining them in an environment where agencies compete with the private sector, offering higher salaries, for highly sought-after skills.

In a speech Monday at the National Intelligence and Security Foundation’s second webinar on developing the intelligence workforce, King and former Defense Department CIO John Sherman, now dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, said the IC also needs to improve its professional development practices to ensure it can leverage today’s talent landscape.

“If your career progression feels like the ’90s, it probably is,” Sherman said. “And by that I mean, agencies are providing career services and putting a lot of thought into it, but it still feels very government-like. And I think the generation that’s super creative, if they experience a lack of flexibility, yes, they’ll get the job done … but the highly laddered, structured, ‘because we said so,’ and ‘this is what you have to do to get from the fourth salary bracket to the fifth salary bracket,’ can be stifling.”

Sherman said that from starting his civilian career as an imagery analyst with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to becoming CIO of the Department of Defense (DOD), he had to “swim against the tide” of an often inflexible career development bureaucracy, despite having creative and talented mentors.

“Most often, the middle management tried to hold on and not allow (change),” he said. “If you feel like that’s happening in your agency, it’s going to kill retention as fast as anything, and you’re going to lose them because they’re so talented.”

King said DIA has taken steps, such as introducing a new pay model, to attract college students from specific technical fields to fill positions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. That’s coupled with an active recruiting effort at colleges and universities, including internships, agency open houses and the deployment of career development staff to provide greater insight into different careers.

To help retain and grow its current workforce, King said the DIA is actively looking to address issues such as compensation, representation and is using data to better understand employee turnover trends and why they are happening.

The agency is also proactive in upskilling its workforce through joint assignments that send workers to temporary jobs at other agencies, embedding them with private-sector partners and in academic settings. The DIA also pays for technical training, schools for older workers and offers specialized skills training to earn what King called micro-badges.

Both King and Sherman touted the federal government’s move toward skills-based hiring — which emphasizes technical training, certifications and competencies rather than rigid academic requirements — as a way to attract even more talent.