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Your FSO can predict employee turnover

Also, how to fill jump-ball positions.

Author

Brad Wilson
July 19, 2023

Together with

Welcome to the SF-86 (presented by STEM Solutions) – the only newsletter dedicated to bringing GovCon talent teams the latest insights from the front lines of the federal and cleared workforce.

In this issue we discuss:

 🦜 What your FSO can tell you about employee retention

 🏀 Winning Jump-balls

🦜 Your FSO is the canary in the coal mine for employee retention

The best FSO I ever worked with told me an incredibly insightful piece of information. She said:

❝

I’ve never had an employee ask me about their clearance status, and not leave the company with a new job in the following few months.

The cleared workforce is about as competitive a candidate market there is, and no data source can be overlooked when searching for an advantage.

If you want to get an insight into what contracts are getting ready to bleed talent, what teams are about to struggle with retention, or what key positions you’ll want to have your recruiting partners start pipelining; take a walk down the hall and knock on your FSO’s door (or shoot them a Team’s message 😀).

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🏀 Winning Jump-ball positions

You did it! You got on to the big program and are going to fill several positions that will to take your firm to the next level! Except there’s one problem, you can’t fill any of these roles. Either another company beat you to it, the skillsets are impossible to find, or there are countless clearance issues/requirements, among a laundry list of other reasons.

Here are a few key measures that I have implemented with clients which help us dominate the open competition roles in their portfolio:

  • FOCUS!! Pick a specific skillset or group of skillsets and stick to them. This has multiple benefits. The first being compounding returns. When you continue to source the same skillset you begin to establish yourself in that niche – which means candidates refer each other to you, and your name becomes known as a company constantly hiring within that niche. Narrowing down your skillset also allows you to submit candidates to multiple programs you support that require similar skills. If you did a good job of aligning your BD efforts and program wins to your core competencies, then this will result in increased jump-ball success.

  • Don’t go there! Know which roles are going to waste your time. This includes the extremely difficult roles, aka anything with the words Developer AND Poly in the job description. But this can also include the easy to fill position. If there is a remote Systems Administrator position available as a jump ball, you better believe every company on that program is going to submit candidates for that position. Best to stay away from those roles. Find your sweet spot with the medium hard to fill and niche roles that offer less competition.

  • Jump the line! Every large program has their own candidate submission process you have to follow, whether it be submitting via a SharePoint portal or an officially formatted email to the main POC. See if there is anyway you can expedite your submissions while still following official processes. This can include submitting a candidate to the portal, then sending a side email to a POC on the Prime to get them to review your candidate ASAP. Or if submitting via email, try CCing the hiring manager for that specific position. They will see how great your candidate is and put pressure on the operations team to get your candidate set up for an interview.

STEM Solutions is proud to present this issue of the SF-86. STEM Solutions specializes in the recruitment of cleared professionals. The federal talent market is as competitive as it gets, we’ll help you win by getting the best talent, faster. Schedule a time to speak with us today. **

📚 Continuing Education

If you haven’t checked it out, the ClearanceJob’s salary reports are scary accurate.

We either learn to use AI or be replaced by it. This podcast on AI’s role in the future of war is worth a listen. 

1440 is the daily newsletter helping 2M+ Americans stay informed—it’s news without motives, edited to be unbiased as humanly possible. Check it out here. **

Don’t let simple tasks like scheduling interviews delay your hiring process. Get the competitive edge and automate the interview scheduling process with Calendar.com.**

 📰 In the News

Here are the top execs leading the AI charge in the GovCon space.

Cuteness alert: is the new Gerber baby a future secret squirrel?

** - sponsored content

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