WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Air Force Materiel Command continues to expedite civilian hiring timelines across the enterprise, ensuring the organization has the skilled manpower it needs now to execute its critical missions in support of the warfighter.

“Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and executing hiring activities in a virtual setting, our teams continued to make great progress on our enterprise goal to bring on new talent faster,” said Bill Snodgrass, AFMC director of manpower, personnel and services. “Our personnel experts at the headquarters, center and installation levels leveraged special hiring authorities to fill critical positions, ensuring our command has the talent necessary to execute our national defense mission. I could not be more proud of their efforts during this challenging year.”

In Fiscal Year 2021, AFMC decreased hiring timelines by 14% over FY20, which is a 42% improvement since dedicated efforts to improve processes began in 2018. For the nearly 12,500 hiring actions managed by AFMC servicing teams over the course of this year, the average time it took to fill a position from recruitment to on-boarding was 63 days, nearly two weeks faster than command positions serviced by non-AFMC civilian personnel units.

In addition to reducing servicing timelines, the command also made strong progress in leveraging Expedited and Direct-Hire Authorities this fiscal year, filling nearly 8,000 vacancies at a 54-day cycle time. These specialized authorities enable expedited hiring of individuals for hard-to-fill positions that require specific experience or qualifications when there is a shortage of qualified candidates.

“Speeding up the hiring process relieves the burden on our current employees who have to pick up the slack until vacancies are filled, allows current employees ready for promotion to compete for new jobs and helps ensure we don’t lose new talent as a result of a prolonged hiring process.  Recruiting and filling positions faster doesn’t mean we abandon hiring standards, but it does mean we continue to push for hiring process improvements,” said Snodgrass. 

Additional changes to AFMC talent management policies in 2021 are expected to further progress hiring goals in the upcoming year. 

Recently, the command refined its existing centralized selection and hiring process, moving recruitment responsibility for entry-level, developmental positions to Centralized Hiring Cells in an effort to increase diversity across the field while improving employment timelines. Approximately 2,000 developmental positions will be filled annually through CSCs at each AFMC center.

AFMC has also made concerted efforts to improve new employee on-boarding and acculturation, leveraging the USAF Connect mobile application, a digital new employee handbook and diverse technologies to ensure new employees are able to get in the office, on the network, trained and be mission-effective on day one.

“We continue to look at our hiring and on-boarding processes as part of a holistic endeavor to improve human capital efforts across AFMC,” said Snodgrass. “Talent management matters. If we can continue to make our processes better, we will benefit from having the best and brightest on our teams long into the future.”

To learn more about civilian opportunities, individuals can visit the Air Force Civilian Service website at https://afciviliancareers.com/. AFMC partners regularly with AFCS to list open, direct hire vacancies and for virtual hiring fairs. Additional opportunities can be found on the USAJOBs website using the search term: Air Force Materiel Command.