Why the cyber fast track is stalled at DOD

The Pentagon is having trouble bringing on cyber workers through the Cyber Excepted Service, thanks to too few personnel and a backlogged and complicated security clearance process.

CES is a congressional authority that aims to make it easier for the Defense Department to hire cyber and tech workers on the spot and outside the lengthy USAJobs application process. But implementation has hit snags as the program moves into Phase 2, according to Marines Corps Brig. Gen. Dennis Crall, DOD's deputy principal cyber advisor.

Lack of personnel and the complex security clearance process was slowing down implementation, Crall told Congress during a Feb. 26 hearing of the Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Crall testified that the five full-time personnel tasked with the initial rollout of the program were insufficient and that 10 personnel are needed to handle the hiring and the accompanying training of thousands of cyber workers.

Crall also said additional personnel have been identified from within the Pentagon, and a formal request of additional personnel from the CIO is in process.

"Phase 1 of the Cyber Excepted Service was modest by design ... to make sure we knew what we were doing" regarding training, Crall said. The next phase will be much higher than the initial 500 billets, and personnel resources are lacking at the Pentagon and on the service level.

DOD CIO Dana Deasy said it wasn't purely a numbers game, but rather about DOD's ability to train at an increased rate.

"This isn't a case of the volume of people we need inside of my respective organization or working on Brig. Gen. Crall's cross-functional team. This is about competencies that need to exist in them. This is a new way of doing business. And the [Personnel and Readiness] organization and respective military services need to train up at a faster rate -- the people that they need to bring on board that actually accelerate Cyber Excepted Service."

U.S. Cyber Command, the Defense Information Systems Agency and the DOD CIO are utilizing it, but the military services need to "up the game," Deasy said.

Security clearances are also hampering CES, Crall said. "The onboarding process can be very frustrating so while we have four out of five of the recipe right in bringing people on, if we can't bring them on quickly because they're held up in the security clearance process," he said. They could "potentially lose interest," he added.

Crall mentioned an ongoing effort to reduce the security clearance slowdown, including a pilot that uses data analytics for faster processing. But it ultimately comes down to a recruiting issue, something DOD has to improve.

"The Department has to do a better job to make sure we understand the market ... the type of applicant we're searching for and the needs of that applicant," Crall said of the depressed recruiting pool for cyber.

Crall also criticized DOD for doing "too few internships" with universities that would help fill the talent pipeline. Deasy agreed, saying that government is too frequently not a considered career stop for tech workers and that DOD needs a  "better avenue of awareness" to change that.