Good morning!
Booz Allen has a unique talent issue. The consulting firm needs more skilled tech workers to support one of its biggest clients: the U.S. government. And if that talent pool weren’t already small enough, they also need candidates with four-year degrees who can get proper security clearance to execute the jobs. The firm’s chief people officer, Betty Thompson, speaks to Fortune about the persistent barriers to finding highly skilled tech talent and her new hiring and training initiatives to fill the talent gap.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Fortune: What makes Booz Allen’s talent challenges different from any other company?
Betty Thompson: Besides the larger challenges of the talent market that you probably hear from most CHROs, our area of government contracting has even more challenges because our jobs often require clearances. That’s a hard thing to find—that technology experience combined with the clearances. We also value diversity, and it’s already a less diverse pool in technology. So overall, it’s not a very deep pool for us to source from, which is why adding the four-year college degree requirement, which most of our contracts require, makes it very challenging.
How do you think the SCOTUS ruling overturning affirmative action in college admissions will affect recruiting at the firm?
I don’t know how it will play out since it just came out. I’m still trying to absorb it. It’s yet to be seen what the implications are going to be, [but] I would say it’s not going to help the diversity in universities or getting more diversity there. That’s why we need to look at trying to influence the degree requirement on job applications. We’ve talked to many clients about removing traditional degree requirements where possible. Many of our clients agree with it, so it’s just about figuring out how you get that systemic change to make that happen.
What creative initiatives have you launched to recruit more tech talent?
We’re working with Hiring Our Heroes through Booz Allen’s workforce initiative, MilTech, and what they are doing is giving us access to identify and recruit cleared talent because military personnel typically have clearances before they leave the military. The organization offers a roadmap for these veterans and military spouses on how to upskill and reskill to prepare them for the workforce.
The skills they’re focused on are A.I., data science, and cyber, and if they complete and meet or exceed the requirements of that curriculum, it’s a direct path to jobs. We hope to get more than our fair share of the hires from that program. In general, veterans are an important part of our population, given that they bring the mission, knowledge, experience, and skills we need. We haven’t hired anyone from this program yet, but we’re in the process.
What unique talent initiative are you spearheading to meet the demand for highly skilled tech talent?
In April 2022, we created what we call TXGs, which are our technical resource groups. If you think about diversity, you have employee resource groups that people can join based on their affinity. It’s the same concept but on the technical aspects. For example, if somebody is a software engineer, they can join that particular TXG. It allows them to learn more about what other kinds of work like theirs are going on in the firm so they can secure new opportunities.
Employees can get mentors, training, and internal gigs. You can also join as many TXGs as you want. If you are a software engineer but want to learn about A.I., you can join the A.I. group. It’s an internal network of professionals and another way to create engagement and alignment within the organization. Not only are employees allowed to develop, but they can also feel a greater sense of belonging based on their profession. Forty-five percent of the firm’s roughly 32,000 employees are part of TXGs.
How is Booz Allen using certifications to help upskill employees?
The reality is certifications are not easy to get. They demonstrate that somebody is committed to gaining skills; in some areas, like security, they’re a requirement. But we have them in all kinds of areas. The popular ones are data science, A.I., machine learning, and cybersecurity. We incentivize employees to gain these certifications and badges to demonstrate proficiency. If it’s an area that we need people to go build those skills, we’ll incentivize them to do that, whether it’s with a bonus or a salary increase, because they do have skills that are of higher value in the market. We value such efforts highly, and 58% of our employees have at least one certification.
Correction, July 14, 2023: A previous version of this article misstated the number of employees at Booz Allen and its workforce initiative, MilTech.
Amber Burton
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton
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