VA Races to Hire IT Staff

The Veterans Affairs Department has brought on 365 new IT workers since it launched an IT hiring spree in January, a senior VA official said Thursday.

Stephen Warren, principal deputy assistant secretary for information and technology at VA, told Wired Workplace that the department has hired nearly half of the 705 new IT workers it hopes to hire by April 22. The plan -- which the IT shop has dubbed Race to 705 -- was announced in January and focuses on high-priority positions, particularly in project management and integrated planning. Many of the new IT workers hired will be providing direct support to VA's medical centers and regional offices, Warren said.

Three-quarters of the 365 IT hires made thus far have been external hires, while the remaining hires have been made through staff promotions, he added.

Warren said the hiring spree came from an assessment of the number of workers slated for the Office of Information Technology in VA's budget -- currently 7,516 employees. The end strength analysis showed the office was understaffed by 705 employees, he said. "Everyone we're hiring is within the staff level we've budgeted for," he said. "There are no overages to the authorized approved funding amounts because we're dealing with a workforce that was below what our end strength was."

Warren said VA also opted to team the Office of Information Technology's hiring needs with the human resources department's mandate to reform the hiring process. Agency leaders created a task force to determine what works and what doesn't in the hiring process and provide recommendations. As a result, officials simplified job descriptions and shortened to two weeks the amount of time hiring managers have to review qualified candidates and conduct interviews. They also created teams of IT and HR workers to review resumes to ensure applicants meet the minimum qualifications before they proceed further, he said. "The HR folks did not have the skill set they needed, so we brought in the IT folks who could actually read the resumes and look for the appropriate terms to say who should be considered," he said.

Warren said the reforms thus far have shortened the amount of time it takes to hire a new employee from as long as 180 days to an average of 76 days. Last week, the Office of Personnel Management released a report that said agencies had cut the duration of the hiring process down to an average of 105 days.

Still, Warren said that since the Race to 705 was announced, the VA has lost 303 IT workers, in part because of retirements and steep competition with the private sector. "We want to recoup half of our losses," he said, "and the goal is to keep up with the losses and keep moving us forward."

Interested in applying for one of the open IT slots at VA? Check out USAJOBS.gov.