The Defense Contract Management Agency is on a hiring spree. It needs 200 civilian employees experienced in overseeing contracts and the production of items needed by the military services.
Air Force Col. Jamie Adams says the agency wants people experienced in contract management so they can be deployed to various hot spots, including Iraq, 90 days after they are hired.
“There is a certain amount of training and preparation involved in getting ready to be deployed, so we want people who already know how to do the job,” Adams said.
Current federal employees and ex-military with three years of service are eligible to apply for the jobs.
The 200 jobs DCMA wants to fill are not new positions but vacancies created by retirement and promotions among the contract management agency’s 11,000 civilian employees. What’s different is that the jobs are now designated as emergency-essential positions, which means the employees will be required to be deployed for up to six months at a time outside the country as frequently as every 18 months.
DCMA now has about 40 civilians who work outside the country in potentially dangerous places such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Employees volunteer for those positions. DCMA hopes making deployment part of the job description will make it easier to get the right person in the right place in the future.
For instance, to go overseas, an employee has to pass a physical and meet other requirements.
“A lot of times people want to volunteer but have some physical limitation,” Adams said. “The new hires will have to meet the deployment requirements as a condition of employment.”
Because it must hire highly qualified people willing to work in arduous and possibly dangerous locations, DCMA is adding incentives to its normal salary and benefits package. For instance, new employees will receive temporary promotions to the next grade level while deployed.
“Working in these kinds of locations requires a higher degree of independence, and the job is more complex,” said Katherine Greenlaw, human resources specialist for DCMA.
The employees will also receive 40 hours of time off when they return and qualify for danger pay and foreign post differential pay. Both pays range from 5 percent to 25 percent of base pay depending on environmental factors such as severe weather and the level of danger involved. The State Department sets the rates for the additional salary, Greenlaw said.
While other agencies have run into delays in getting security clearances for new hires, she doesn’t expect any problems.
“Security clearances are getting done in about a week for our new hires,” Greenlaw said.
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