National Security Employment: Improving the Candidate Experience Journey Through the Personnel Vetting Process

This report provides the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council Program Management Office with an initial examination of organizational characteristics and processes that may attract new generations to the national security workforce and promote a positive candidate experience throughout the personnel vetting and screening process. Rapidly evolving social and cultural norms will require government organizations to consider characteristics not typically accounted for across the hiring and screening process. The key objectives of this research project were to (1) identify prominent (and emerging) factors for consideration when attracting, hiring, and engaging new generations of the national security workforce, (2) highlight relevant private-sector engagement practices that help to maintain candidate interest during recruitment and hiring processes, and (3) develop a tailorable candidate experience framework that can help departments and agencies think about how to approach cross-cutting vetting and screening challenges and inform future candidate experience initiatives.1