Insights

If you are preparing for the Senior Executive Service, the guidance you may have studied even a year ago no longer applies. In 2025, the Office of Personnel Management restructured both the Executive Core Qualifications and the way candidates apply. Understanding the current framework is now the difference between a competitive package and one built […]

What Federal Agencies Get Wrong About Developing Their Acquisition Workforce Federal agencies spend billions of dollars on contract administration every year. The people responsible for managing those contracts — Contracting Officers’ Representatives — are required by law to be trained and certified. FAC-COR exists for a reason. And yet, the acquisition workforce in many agencies

The federal cybersecurity workforce gap is not a new problem. But it’s an accelerating one. Threat sophistication is increasing. Agency attack surfaces are expanding as systems modernize. And the pipeline of cybersecurity-trained federal workers — particularly those with active clearances — is not keeping pace. The federal response has been policy-heavy and training-light. FISMA requirements,

Federal agencies have committed hundreds of billions of dollars to IT modernization over the past decade. Cloud migration, zero trust architectures, legacy system replacement, digital service delivery — the technology investments are real and, in many cases, significant. The workforce piece is lagging. Technology modernization without workforce modernization doesn’t deliver on its promise. New systems

Federal human resources is one of the most complex and heavily regulated HR environments in the world. Title 5, OPM policy, agency-specific supplemental guidance, union contract constraints, SES authorities, veterans’ preference rules — the regulatory framework is dense and constantly evolving. Agencies manage most of this in-house. But there are circumstances where a federal HR

If you are on a federal career path aimed at the Senior Executive Service — or developing the leaders who are — the OPM Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) are the specific, evaluated criteria that shape SES selection. As of 2025, both the criteria and the way they are assessed have changed substantially. Effective October 1,

What Is FAC-C Certification? The Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting (FAC-C) is the federal government’s professional certification for civilian contracting professionals — the acquisition workforce members who write solicitations, evaluate offers, negotiate terms, award contracts, and administer them through closeout. It’s the contracting counterpart to FAC-COR (which certifies the people who monitor contracts) and FAC-P/PM