LAS VEGAS — Hiring managers from throughout the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made 20 tentative job offers and offered a combined $215,941 in centralized incentives during the 2024 League of United Latin American Citizens National Convention and Exhibition June 26-28 in Las Vegas.
The annual national convention brings together a range of keynote speakers, discussion panels, sponsors and exhibitors in support of LULAC, the largest and oldest Hispanic advocacy organization in the U.S., with the three-day career expo being one just part of the multifaceted four-day convention and exhibition. The theme of this year’s convention was “Empowering the Next Generation.”
The USACE hiring effort, led by USACE’s Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence and conducted in partnership with the Army Civilian Career Management Agency, brought together hiring managers with a diverse set of backgrounds from various districts, divisions and centers across the enterprise.
Stephen Wheeler, team leader for the USACE Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence, said career fairs fulfill several needs, including ensuring districts are reaching a diverse pool of candidates and that hiring managers are leveraging a way to get talent on board quickly.
“For career fairs like this, whenever we can go out there and offer jobs on the spot, that makes us more competitive,” Wheeler said. “And then we’re able to offer our incentives, which makes us more competitive with the private sector. In today’s environment, you’ve got to be quick.”
At this event and others like it, hiring managers do this by using USACE’s Direct Hire Authority, which differs from the standard application and hiring process through USAJOBS.gov.
“Direct Hire Authority allows us to bypass the USAJOBS process and post our own vacancies and our own events,” Wheeler said. “Direct hire is a leaner process and is designed to be much quicker, end to end.”
How it works
Typically, each participating district and center provides the Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence, or TACE, with a list of the vacancies hiring managers need to fill. For each national event, TACE publishes a public notice, listing the vacancies districts and centers plan to hire for, along with a link for job seekers to register and provide pertinent information ahead of time.
Wheeler said hiring managers don’t even need to wait until an event to start evaluating job candidates; they can log into the Talent Acquisition Recruitment Platform to search for candidates who have already uploaded their resumes.
Additionally, job candidates themselves don’t necessarily need to physically attend the career fair to receive job offers. In fact, Wheeler said, most tentative job offers occurred virtually. Some events even have “digital twins,” he added, during which hiring managers are available online and in person simultaneously.
Conversely, since not all conference attendees may be aware of the career fair portion of the event, many of those who stopped by the USACE booth had not yet registered. At the LULAC career fair — as is the case at other events — hiring managers were on hand to provide the appropriate link for job seekers to register, apply, be interviewed and evaluated, and, in some cases, receive tentative job offers the same day.
Wherever hiring managers meet candidates in that process, Wheeler said the TACE team is there to help — not just with career fairs, but staffing questions, training, recruitment strategy and instructions on working with the TARP system. He added that TACE has a member assigned to each USACE division to provide support.
Although the option to attend career fairs is a powerful mechanism for recruiting talent, Wheeler said hiring managers don’t need to attend every event.
“Go to the event that’s right for your organization,” he said. “And there’s not really one strategy; there’s several and you need to develop that based on your needs.”
Advantages
Shaun Frost, chief of the Los Angeles District’s Construction Division, said he attended this event looking to fill entry-level engineering positions in the Engineering Division and possibly in the Construction Division, due to the younger audience at this event.
“We’re looking for interest in civil works design, construction and those who are interested in joining a team with a worldwide mission and who want to make an impact on the communities we serve,” said Frost, who added that USACE devotes significant resources to “grow the organization and to spread the word of our projects, mission, capabilities and how we serve the country.”
The team of USACE hiring managers was at the LULAC event not just to hire on the spot, but also to share with candidates about why USACE civilians are key to improving the overall quality of life for citizens, influencing the accessibility and functionality of vital infrastructure that communities rely on daily and actively participating in projects that shape the nation’s future.
“We have a large amount of work coming to the district in the near future, and we need a staff with a full range of experience and training to meet critical needs for the district,” Frost said. “Events like this allow us to contact a large number of people to see who would be interested in filling these roles.”
Facilitating this process for Frost and others were Wheeler and the rest of the TACE team, who specialize in the direct hire process at these events. Wheeler said hiring through DHA is not meant to replace USAJOBS, but to complement it based on the varying needs of hiring managers.
“At hiring events, the name of the game is direct hire,” Wheeler said. “And the TACE team is here to help in whatever way we possibly can.”
To learn more, visit https://www.usace.army.mil/careers. For a schedule of hiring events, visit https://www.usace.army.mil/Careers/Career-Fairs/. Learn more about working for USACE by visiting .