NSA Courts Tech-Savvy Set

The National Security Agency is using high-tech tools to recruit tech-savvy IT and cybersecurity professionals. The agency announced last week that the new tools, which include smartphone tagging and a job search application, are designed to support NSA's largest hiring effort in recent years.

The NSA Career Links application delivers real-time NSA career updates, such as information on employment opportunities, career fairs and agency news, directly to a user's smartphone. Users also can view videos highlighting NSA employee experiences. Another tool features smartphone tagging on many of NSA's print advertisements. Job hunters can use their smartphones to scan these tags, which will launch a video related to the advertisement's content.

"This fiscal year for us is going to be a tremendous hiring year. We are looking for people in the science, technology, engineering and math skill fields," said Kathy Hutson, associate director for human resources. "We are using a variety of marketing tools from traditional marketing tools like billboards to our newest digital recruitment tools. Our need for these skills is enormous; therefore, we need to be using cool high tech tools."

Wired Workplace is a daily look at issues facing the federal information technology workforce. It is written by former Government Executive reporter Brittany Ballenstedt and published on Nextgov.com. Click here to read the latest entries.