Innovation Ecosystem Job Board Launches to Connect Federal Talent to Opportunities
In a previous post, we announced an initiative to connect scientists, engineers, technologists, and skilled federal workers and contractors who have recently departed government service with the emerging innovation ecosystems across America that could use their expertise. With the support of FAS, we are now excited to share the launch of the Innovation Ecosystem Job Board. This unique job board contains opportunities from across the nation with the explicit goal of matching in-demand science and technology talent with open positions across the nation’s innovation ecosystems, in roles ranging from lab researchers and data scientists to workforce development practitioners and science communicators.
These innovation ecosystems – namely Tech Hubs and NSF Engines – are advancing critical technologies spanning from advanced manufacturing to quantum computing to biotech, all vital for our national and economic security. To accomplish this work, they operate as multi-stakeholder coalitions that bring together universities, industry, nonprofits, and other partners, all searching for talent to help them fulfill their missions.
These coalitions face growing talent needs, particularly for mission-driven roles that can help drive progress across critical technology areas. Meanwhile, we’re witnessing an exodus of thousands of experienced federal talent from agencies like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes for Health, and the Department of Energy whose knowledge gained from years of managing and working in multimillion-dollar technical programs could be lost entirely if not effectively redeployed.
This initiative directly addresses both challenges by collaborating with innovation ecosystems to identify their immediate talent needs while simultaneously engaging displaced federal workers through job fairs and targeted outreach to understand their backgrounds and geographic preferences. It’s a purposeful approach that ensures mission-driven federal talent can continue contributing to America’s technological leadership. By connecting talent to need, we help strategically imperative innovation ecosystems access the experienced professionals necessary for success.
We will be updating this job board regularly with opportunities from additional Tech Hubs, NSF Engines, and other innovation ecosystems. While our outreach is specifically to former federal workers and contractors, this job board is open to all, and we encourage others on the job hunt to take a look.
As economic policy wonks, we understand that there are often frictions that hinder matching between individuals with the right skills and geographic preferences and the jobs that exist. We are taking this seriously and will engage in what we’re calling “light-touch matching”. Please feel free to fill out this interest form (whether you have applied to a listing on the job board or not), and we will flag profiles that generally align with relevant innovation ecosystems and their needs.
Our process:
We spent the last several months talking to and learning from other talent connectors, innovation ecosystem builders, and the talent themselves. Through facilitated federal roundtables with former federal workers, we understood more deeply their diverse skill sets, their unwavering commitment to mission-driven work, and the unique challenges they face in their current job transition. Work for America’s research on federal workers also validated our hypotheses: these are experienced professionals (59% of survey respondents have a decade or more of experience), are geographically distributed (53% already live outside the DC-Virginia-Maryland area), and are mobile (54% are open to relocating). Job fairs additionally provided us an opportunity to meet individuals leaving the federal government and hear about their backgrounds and interests.
Simultaneously, we reached out to several innovation ecosystems to explore if they had immediate talent needs. Some ecosystems shared their most critical postings among their partners; others had recently conducted surveys of their coalitions to assess available positions and passed that information on to us; still others are actively developing comprehensive approaches to capture all the talent needs across their expansive coalitions. We reviewed and aggregated these opportunities into the job board which is now available and will be regularly updated. We are grateful for all these ecosystems that have engaged in this initiative and we look forward to continuing the conversation with more ecosystems and skilled former federal professionals alike.
Like anything new, this is an experiment. Does this effort in the end successfully match candidates and employers based on skills and geography? If you use this tool, please let us know how it goes!
Maryam Janani-Flores (mjananiflores@fas.org) is a Senior Fellow at FAS and former Chief of Staff at the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Meron Yohannes (myohannes@fas.org) is a Digital Services Alumni Fellow at FAS and most recently served as Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
Innovation Ecosystem Job Board connects scientists, engineers, technologists, and skilled federal workers and contractors who have recently departed government service with the emerging innovation ecosystems across America.
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