Insights

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’re on a federal career path aimed at the Senior Executive Service — or managing leaders who are — the five OPM Executive Core Qualifications are not an abstract HR framework. They’re the specific, evaluated criteria that determine SES selection. Understanding the ECQs in depth matters: for individual career planning, for agency succession pipelines,

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