§10303 Cybersecurity Recruitment and Retention

Summary

Creates new recruiter jobs inside the Bureau of Global Talent Management to hire and keep people with skills in cybersecurity, engineering, data science, application development, artificial intelligence, critical and emerging technology, and technology and digital policy. These recruiters must focus on filling key tech roles, recruit from colleges and the private sector, work with the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. Digital Service on hiring strategies, and train supervisors on how to use the Department’s hiring tools. The Secretary must send a plan to the right congressional committees within 180 days after December 23, 2022. Congress approved $750,000 for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027 to pay for this. Within one year after December 23, 2022, and then once a year for five years, the Secretary must report to those committees with: the hiring authorities the Department can use and which ones were used in the past five years; counts of hires by job and pay level; counts of placements by bureau and office; how many people drop out of the hiring process and why; how many candidates were or were not interviewed by subject experts; and recommendations to cut dropout rates by 5 percent each year, add needed hiring authorities, allow public-trust hires until clearances are ready, and train supervisors. The law also adds computer programming languages to the Recruitment Language Program and provides language incentive pay. The Secretary must list the languages, the pay rate, and how many people get the pay within one year after December 23, 2022 and yearly for five years. Congress says better programming language skills will improve the Department’s cybersecurity and help diplomats talk about cyber issues with foreign audiences.