National Security Agency Virtual Fairs

Government Executive writer Katherine McIntire Peters wrote a detailed article on the National Security Agency. The article discusses how recruiters from the National Security Agency have utilized virtual career fairs. Lori Weltmann, manager of the Recruitment Services Division at NSA, comments on how the virtual fairs energized her employees and after attendings several fairs they made the decision to move forward with their own. In February 2009, NSA hosted its first virtual job fair. The success of this fair led to a virtual intelligence career fair that included participation by 8 other intelligence agencies.

The statistics from the career fair are positive. The article notes "More than 8,000 people registered for the first virtual fair, and 5,000 actually attended -- a return rate of about 64 percent, higher than the industry average of 50 percent for such events," Weltmann stated. The number of resumes from the event was impressive. NSA received 2,200 resumes within 12 hours after the first fair and a more targeted virtual fair 10 days later generated another 300 resumes. The NSA spent a couple of weeks reviewing the resumes and chose about 200 candidates for a "career invitational" in April 2009. Of those, about 150 showed for interviews with hiring managers offering conditional job offers on the spot.

The NSA virtual model can be deemed effective as the article states, "When more than one hiring manager offered candidates jobs, that's when we knew we reached the skills they were looking for," Weltmann noted.