HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah — More than 60 job offers have been made since Hill Air Force Base held a hiring event in March. The event held at the base’s museum focused on hiring civilian scientists and engineers.
Nearly 40 programs conducted about 600 interviews from the hiring pool of journeyman candidates and about to be college graduates. The job offers resulting from the event were contingent on an applicant’s graduation.
The organizations that posted jobs at the fair used special direct hiring authorities approved by the Air Force and Congress that allowed them to work around the customary civilian hiring process for federal government positions.
“Ask anyone to describe the federal government’s civilian hiring process and they will probably say the current system is too slow, too cumbersome and sadly out of sync with our mission needs,” said Bill Snodgrass, director for Air Force Material Command Manpower, Personnel and Services. “We need to change this in order to build a human capital system that meets the needs of a 21st Century Air Force. A big part of this effort is focused on finding ways to speed up the civilian hiring process.”
Due to workload growth and attrition of a senior workforce, Hill AFB is expecting to hire 200-300 scientists and engineers per year for the next few years.
Heather Giacalone, a talent acquisition specialist for the Hill AFB’s 309th Software Engineering Group, said expedited hiring events accelerate the employee onboarding process from months to a couple of weeks.
“Hiring events such as these are increasingly more important to the current and future warfighter because Hill AFB is competing for the Intermountain West’s highly skilled, but limited technical workforce,” said Giacalone. “Time is critical to acquiring the talent needed to defend against an ever changing and advancing adversary as Hill AFB continues to lead the way in air, space, and cyberspace defense.”
Similar civilian hiring events have been held recently in Boston and at Eglin AFB, Florida, providing prospective employees the opportunity to interview and receive on-the-spot job offers. Earlier this month, AFMC hosted a virtual hiring event to fill more than 400 immediate vacancies across the country.
In total, over 160 recruiting events are being targeted at the scientists and engineer career fields in 2019 at locations across the country. Hill AFB held its previous event in November 2018 and is planning its next job fair in November 2019.
Civilian scientists and engineers discover, develop and integrate new warfighting technologies and perform testing on weapon systems, munitions, networks and more. In addition, acquisition and contracting, intelligence, nuclear capabilities and base operational support rely heavily on specialized civilian professionals daily.
Interested candidates can send resumes to afsc.enrw.engineeringhiring@us.af.mil for consideration for scientist and engineer positions at Hill AFB. To learn more about other Air Force Civilian Service career opportunities and future events, visit www.afciviliancareers.com.
(Portions of this article were taken from Air Force Materiel Command releases.)
