Last year, I predicted a unique recruiting opportunity that’s now a reality. Because today…

I estimate that the DOGE candidate pool of government employees and contractors that will be considering a new job during the next few months Will rise to nearly 1 million!

The Size of This Talent Pool… Makes This a Unique Opportunity

Currently, the DOGE talent pool includes only the 300,000 federal workers who have already lost their jobs, and that number will grow significantly when you…

• Include the large number of still-employed government employees who will begin looking for a job because they see no future in government employment.
• Add the over 1 million remote federal workers who will lose their jobs if they don’t immediately return to the office full-time. 
• Include the hundreds of thousands of federal contract employees and downstream state and NGO employees who will soon lose their jobs due to DOGE-initiated funding cuts and the elimination of many government programs and regulations. 
• Add the projected headcount cuts in the remaining federal agencies that have yet to be touched by the DOGE group.

Overall, this new candidate pool will likely reach one million, making it the second largest “suddenly available talent pool” in decades (after the COVID talent pool).

The Quality of the Talent Pool… Also Makes This a Great Recruiting Opportunity

Beyond the extraordinary volume of recruiting targets, another key factor that makes this a great recruiting opportunity is the quality of the available candidates. They can be classified as quality candidates for four reasons.

• Their skills, training, and experience are completely up-to-date – because most government training and development remained intact through January 2025. That means that members of this “suddenly available talent pool” are already fully trained and that their skills and experience are current. To a corporate hiring manager, that means that these new hires can get up to speed quickly without the need for expensive training (compared to the typical longer-term unemployed candidate who can’t add much value for months until they are finally upskilled). 
• These candidates have rarely been available to civilian recruiters – because these employees have been loyal and mostly purpose-driven. Most government employees have rarely entered the civilian recruiting market. This may be the only time when a large number of them will be available to corporate recruiters. 
• This talent pool also includes many managers – because most governmental managerial jobs are filled internally through promotions. Typically, very few government managers and leaders enter the civilian recruiting marketplace. However, because the DOGE purge eliminated many entire agencies and teams. For the first time, corporate recruiters will have a shot at a large number of government managers and leaders.
• They are now suddenly active candidates – in the past, it has been difficult and time-consuming to recruit these government employees successfully. Most of them would have been passive candidates. However, now that most of them can be labeled as active candidates. Corporate recruiters will now find them much easier to find, convince to apply, and sell on a new job.

A Lower Level Of Recruiting Competition… Also Makes This A Great Opportunity

The DOGE purge will be a long-term cost-cutting approach. You can expect the current federal hiring freeze to last for at least a year. You can also expect that the cutbacks negatively impact many state agencies and NGOs. They may follow with their own long-term hiring freezes as a result of these widespread freezes. Most corporate recruiters will no longer face any recruiting competition from these traditional recruiting teams. If you act fast, you will also beat most corporate recruiters who, for some reason, have been slow to take advantage of this opportunity.

Recommended Actions

I suggest that your first, immediate action should be to quickly develop a targeted government employee recruiting program that enables your organization to cherry-pick from this huge, high-quality talent pool. I also suggest that it would be prudent to conduct an internal TA investigation covering why your team missed becoming one of the first to target this pool proactively. So that your TA team won’t miss out on similar unique recruiting opportunities in the future (like the upcoming worldwide massive corporate layoffs that will result from the new tariffs and trade wars).

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Here Is The Original “Opportunity Of The Decade” Article

If you would like to revisit my original article, which included many recruiting tips. You can click on this link or just continue reading the entire original article that is pasted below. You can also access a companion article that provides even more tips for recruiting government employees here.

Recruiting Opportunity Of The Decade – Target Anxious Federal Employees

(Who might leave because of pending position and budget cuts)

Dr. John Sullivan

Beat your talent competitors by being the first to implement a federal employee recruitment program. And take advantage of the huge federal employee exodus that is just beginning (in response to the “efficiency committee’s” announced massive position cuts). Be grateful that this mass influx of available talent is coming after many long months of candidate shortages.

Three Factors That Are Driving Federal Employees Into Civilian Jobs

In order to successfully recruit federal employees, you will need to be able to assure them that your new civilian job opportunity doesn’t contain any of the three negative factors driving many of the 2.3 million federal employees away from federal employment. Those three powerful drivers are:

Uncertainty over which jobs will be cut –There are currently real uncertainties over precisely where (in which jobs) the position eliminations promised by the efficiency committee will actually occur. Because no one knows whether their job is safe, this uncertainty will drive most federal employees to at least consider a new civilian job until it is cleared up. 

Their dream of making a substantial impact will fade – Even if a federal employee gets to keep their job, massive budget cuts and dramatic shifts in agency leadership, direction, and priorities will mean that employees who dream of having a substantial impact and making a difference will likely find these opportunities unreachable during the next few years.

If they stay, they may be continually attacked and treated harshly – And the final push factor will be the fact that if they stay, their new anti-government leaders will likely continuously attack them and treat them harshly because these leaders will, unfortunately, consider career employees to be “members of the deep state.”

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The Many Benefits From A “Federal Employee Recruiting Program” (FERP)

If you expect to convince your skeptical executives about the need for this (or any new recruiting program), you must be able to provide them with a list of the economic benefits that will give this program a high ROI. Note: In the following summary of benefits, the most impactful ones appear at the beginning of the list.

The size of this talent pool is record-breaking – This potential federal employee recruiting pool contains a whopping 2.3 million potential job seekers. And because they will come from many agencies and job families. That breadth of talent should be able to positively impact each of your talent needs.

The training and experience of the candidates will be up-to-date – Over the last few years, many organizations have been forced to hire the unemployed. Whose training and experience were out-of-date, so they needed time to upskill. Fortunately, the currently employed members of this federal talent pool won’t need much time to get up to speed. I would also note that your targeted federal employees have remained in government through numerous government shutdowns, changes in direction, and budget cuts. You will quickly learn that these candidates are highly resilient.

Targets will be easy to find and communicate with – Because almost all federal workers will soon face a real possibility of losing their jobs because of the efficiency committee, massive budget cuts, or both. Many in this federal talent pool will quickly become active candidates. That means they will be easy to find with job posts on large job boards and the same popular social media sites that civilian job seekers frequent. And with so many active candidates looking, your recruiting function is most likely to face a “sorting problem” rather than a “finding problem.”

Attracting them might only require offering stability, security, and respect – This latest job trauma will shift the career focus of most federal employees toward career stability. Fortunately, that means that to land them, all you will need to do is convince them that, as your employees, they will be treated with respect. And that your organization offers more stability and a higher level of job security than they would have experienced had they stayed. And incidentally, because corporate pay is generally higher than federal pay, compensation won’t likely be a major issue. 

Federal employees can be found in most geographic locations – Because government agencies and contractors can be found working and living in almost every major city. Finding government workers to fill your talent needs in almost all geographic areas will be relatively easy.

You will find an abundance of diverse candidates – Because government agencies have been leaders for years in attracting and promoting a higher-than-average percentage of diverse professional and hourly employees. Utilizing this source will likely help you meet your diversity goals.

These new hires may help you deal with the government – Because most corporations are now heavily regulated. If you specifically target federal employees from the federal agencies your organization frequently deals with, these new hires may provide your corporation with valuable information and even some insight on how to work effectively with this and other agencies. You may also find their existing network of colleagues back at their former agency extremely helpful.

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Implementation Tips For A Federal Employee Recruiting Program (FERP)

If you’re interested in learning more about how to implement this type of recruiting program, here are a few of my implementation recommendations.

• Standardize the process – Every large organization should develop a standalone ‘Federal Employee Recruiting Process’ that can be activated as soon as the latest threat to government stability appears.
• It will be easy to get your jobs in front of them – Fortunately, most federal employees learn about new government and civilian jobs the same way the rest of us learn about new jobs. And many of them will be actively looking. So they will see your civilian job posts on large job boards. For example, there are over 2.4M federal employees on LinkedIn, and Glassdoor.com rates many federal agencies. You can also get your jobs in front of them on popular social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. As always, employee referrals will work extremely well. Especially if you inform your employees that you are specifically asking for the referral of federal workers, in the same light, a LinkedIn search for government employees who are “open to work” will also work extremely well. And when they allow it, use federal employee unions (e.g., the American Federation of Government Employees) to spread the word about your open jobs. Finally, it also makes sense to include an attention-getting phrase like “Applications from federal employees are welcome” on your corporation’s career site and even in your job posts. 
• Make your recruiting process data-driven – Like all modern recruiting processes, this one must be data-driven in order to be successful. So, it’s essential that you develop performance metrics. Eventually, use these performance metrics to demonstrate to your executives that, after they join your organization, these federal new hires perform above average in productivity, leadership, teamwork, and retention.
• Prepare for interviewees who are “out of practice” – Because there aren’t many promotional opportunities in many agencies, many of your federal candidates will have been long-term employees in the same job classification. They will not have spent much time interviewing for jobs. So be warned that many of these candidates might appear rusty and nervous during their interviews. Your interviewers should also be aware of and tolerant of the fact that federal employees will initially overuse government acronyms throughout their conversations and interviews.
• Forward-looking employees can be caught early – The best in this federal talent pool are forward-looking. They will quickly see the writing on the wall and be among the first to begin job searching. So, if you launch an early recruiting effort, you will capture these federal employees who routinely plan ahead.
• Consider offering a sign-on bonus – With high inflation rates and the absence of raises for federal employees before September of this year, many of your federal recruiting targets will have been living paycheck to paycheck. So, offering them a sign-on bonus will make it much easier to recruit and get them to say yes.

You can find even more tips on how to recruit government employees here.

If you only do one thing – conduct a quick search on LinkedIn of federal employees who currently work in the General Services Administration (GSA). Then, track the percentage of them who have labeled themselves as “open to work.” Use this percentage as an indicator of the size of the “actively looking” federal talent pool.

Final Thoughts

The smartest talent leaders see recruiting opportunities long before their talent competitors. And when they see an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage, they act quickly. So, if you are a talent leader, I ask you… 

Have you acted on this largest recruiting opportunity in the last decade? 

If not, I suggest you might benefit from following me on LinkedIn.

Dr John Sullivan – This first appeared in the 11/25/24 issue of Aggressive Talent Management 

End of original article.

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Notes for the reader

This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was labeled “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company.

Also, please take the time either to follow up or request a connection with Dr. Sullivan on LinkedIn.

And please help spread these ideas by sharing this with your team/network and by posting it on your favorite social media channel.