Most cleared employers agree that hiring takes too long. At ClearanceJobs’ Connect Colorado event in Colorado Springs, Jen Sovada, a talent acquisition leader building the U.S. public sector business for an international cybersecurity company argued the real problem isn’t the labor market — it’s the filter employers apply to it.
Roles in AI, autonomy, data analytics, and cyber resilience often sit open for 45 to 75 days, she said, because job descriptions still reflect a hiring model built decades ago: a specific degree, a familiar job title, a predictable career path. Meanwhile, much of today’s strongest AI and analytics talent comes from research, open-source projects, bootcamps, and self-directed “side hustle” work that never fits that template.
Her challenge to recruiters and hiring managers: move from proxy-based hiring, which screens for credentials, to evidence-based hiring, which screens for demonstrated capability. That means revisiting degree requirements inherited from old templates, building real work-sample and scenario-based assessments, and asking hiring managers to name the specific skills that actually predict success in a role — rather than defaulting to what worked last time.
The same rethink applies to clearance requirements. Not every role at a product-driven company needs a clearance on day one, she noted; services businesses embedded with government customers do, but product companies can often segment their workforce, reserving clearances for customer-facing roles while building internal pathways that grow the cleared talent pipeline over time. She also described how her own company uses code review, FOCI mitigation controls, and insider-threat auditing to responsibly integrate international talent into U.S. government work.
Her closing challenge to the audience: pick one hiring requirement — a degree, a clearance level, a template nobody has revisited — and re-examine it this quarter. In a labor market this competitive, she argued, the companies willing to question their own assumptions will be the ones that win the talent war.
