Defense Intelligence Agency boosts recruiting efforts
Faced with an array of threats and an aging workforce, the Defense Intelligence Agency is planning to sharply increase its recruitment efforts in coming years, agency officials said Tuesday.
The agency usually hires about 400 new people each year, but officials are planning to bring up to 500 new personnel aboard in fiscal 2005 -- primarily analysts and intelligence specialists. DIA officials said they are focusing on recruits with military backgrounds or South Asian, East Asian or Middle Eastern language skills.
Intelligence agencies have become a favorite target for politicians and military experts over the failure to discover any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The threat of such weapons was the primary justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq last year, and a debate is now flaring over whether the intelligence on Iraq was inaccurate or manipulated by the White House.
Retired Army Brig. Gen. Frederick Wong, chief of the DIA Human Resources Office, said that the planned surge in hiring by DIA is in response to a new world of threats and military operations, not political pressure from Washington.
"We are certainly doing that because of the war on terrorism and Operation Iraqi Freedom," Wong said.
The agency also wants to maintain a workforce of the "best and brightest," with a lucrative pay-for-performance initiative, according to Wong. The Pentagon is currently planning an overhaul of its civilian personnel system, but DIA is already pushing its own performance-based program. Last year, about 15 percent of eligible agency employees received bonuses.
DIA has about 7,500 employees deployed worldwide -- including more than 1,000 now serving in Iraq.
Within the agency, more than 1,000 military personnel and members of the Senior Executive Service cannot receive bonuses, leaving a pool of 4,000 eligible civilian employees. More than 70 employees received bonuses between $10,000 and $25,000; more than 500 civilian employees received bonuses between $3,000 and $10,000, according to agency officials.
DIA hopes that the bonus system - along with morale, welfare and career development programs - attracts talented recruits and helps retain the current personnel.
"What we do upfront doesn't matter if we can't retain this workforce," Wong said. "Today's workforce, we know, does not stick around unless they have a very good reason to."
Wong said that the agency "can come close" to competing with private sector salaries, but also relies on patriotism to attract potential recruits.
Brett Holmgren, a DIA terrorism analyst with Arabic language skills, agreed with Wong's assessment. Holmgren graduated from the University of Wisconsin in December 2003 and started working for the agency in January. He praised the agency's career development programs and said that the planned growth provided "a great opportunity." In the end, however, the opportunity to work for a government intelligence agency was key to his taking the job.
"Personally, for me, in a post-[Sept.11] environment it played a huge role," Holmgren said.
Wong said that a desire to serve the country is also responsible for bringing former military personnel to the agency.
"That's a term that I'm hearing more and more," Wong said. "They want to serve."