Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) recent recruitment fair in New York City provided an opportunity for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to connect with high-quality job candidates. In turn, CIA officials made conditional offers of employment to individuals attending the fair. The New York City recruitment fair was the last in a series of job fairs designed to provide federal agencies and would-be federal employees an opportunity to meet.

"OPM's recruitment fairs provided agencies with yet another opportunity to gauge the quality of job applicants and for job applicants to learn more about federal agency missions," stated OPM director Kay Coles James. "It was OPM's intention that agencies use these fairs to not only meet potential employees, but to send hiring officials trained to actually hire new employees - particularly to fill mission-critical jobs."

At the New York City fair, the CIA collected around 380 resumes from individuals who expressed interest in the agency based on the CIA's needs for certain expertise, skills, and experience necessary for the agency's hiring needs. The CIA's recruitment and hiring team conducted interviews on the spot throughout the fair, and those interviews resulted in eleven conditional offers of employment that were sent to candidates within days. The offers are ‘conditional' because all CIA applicants must successfully accomplish security, medical, and other processing procedures before a final offer of employment can be made.

"Our continuing review of the other resumes collected at the fair has so far identified more than eighty additional candidates we have an interest in and are now arranging to interview," stated Bob Rebelo, CIA's Chief Human Capital Officer. "Along with the significant amount of diversity represented by those we encountered who were interested in careers with CIA, the range of skills we encountered was very impressive."

"The fact that eleven, highly-skilled and qualified people were given conditional job offers as a result of OPM's recruitment efforts is an excellent example of what federal agencies can do to streamline the federal hiring process," stated James. "One of the main reasons OPM conducted the fairs was to expedite critical hiring and the CIA stepped up to the plate and sent hiring officials committed to hiring interested and qualified Americans."

The recruitment fairs highlighted the federal government's many career opportunities and the varied fields of interest available to applicants. They also have showcased the government as an employer of first-choice.

In addition to providing job information and opportunities from over forty federal agencies and departments, the New York City recruitment fair featured computer linkups to the OPM USAJOBS website, www.usajobs.gov, and provided individual interview areas for career assessments, on-the-spot hiring, and workshops on interviewing, resume writing and the application process. A special outreach to veterans also was included, with an educational seminar explaining veterans' preference.