Bipartisan legislation introduced in the House and Senate would direct the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to create a centralized artificial intelligence (AI) and technology talent hiring team to streamline federal tech-related hiring.
The AI Talent Act was introduced Dec. 10 by Reps. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., Jay Obernolte, D-Calif., Pat Fallon, R-Texas, and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, and Sens. Andy Kim, D-N.J., and Jon Husted, R-Ohio.
Talent teams established under the proposal would aim to improve recruitment, assessments, job announcements, and candidate evaluations. A centralized team within OPM would pool hiring, offer training and support to agency hiring teams, and develop shared resources, according to a press release.
“The United States can’t fully deliver on its national security mission, lead in responsible AI, and compete in the AI race if our federal agencies don’t have the talent to meet this moment,” Jacobs said. “Right now, the government is competing with the private sector, which can hire faster and pay more, leaving critical roles unfilled and U.S. potential untapped.”
Currently, the United States is facing a shortage of more than 500,000 cyber-related professionals, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, with recent findings from ISAC2 that skills gaps needed to keep up with the rapidly evolving technology landscape are also growing.
To help address those shortfalls, the legislation would allow federal agencies to share qualified candidate pools to reduce duplicate hiring cycles and enable technology experts to develop and oversee skills-based assessments to determine candidates’ technical proficiency.
A shared online platform would “reuse and customize” technical assessments given across the government.
By using experts to administer assessments, the legislation would phase out the current use of self-assessments while allowing for a few publicly posted waivers.
While OPM would provide a centralized hiring team, agencies could also create talent teams in other “high-need areas,” according to the legislation, which could include cybersecurity, data science, health care, and IT.
“To keep that edge and protect our national security, we must have the world’s best AI talent,” Fallon said in a statement. “Right now, an outdated, bureaucratic hiring system is pushing that talent elsewhere. The AI Talent Act fixes this so that we can recruit, retain, and deploy innovators who will ensure that our nation remains the global leader in AI for decades to come.”
Building the cyber workforce has been a bipartisan issue, and multiple legislative proposals have recently sought to address it. A few recent proposals have included creating AI scholarships and teaching resources and eliminating educational requirements for tech-related jobs in the federal government.