Recruiting and retaining IT staff at a public agency

Reference article · 5 min read

Most agencies that struggle to hire information technology staff are not losing candidates on salary alone. They lose them to a class specification written for work the agency no longer does, a posting that reads like a legal notice, a hiring sequence that runs for months while the candidate accepts something else, and a first year that offers nothing to learn. Those are agency decisions, and most of them can be changed without new money.

The levers below belong to an IT director and an HR partner working together. Several touch civil service rules, merit system requirements, or a collective bargaining agreement, so confirm the process with human resources and counsel before committing to a timeline.

Start with the classification, not the posting

A class specification that has not been reviewed in years quietly caps your recruiting. Common symptoms: one analyst class covering everything from report writing to platform engineering, minimum qualifications naming retired products, and a degree requirement standing in for a skill now learned outside a degree program.

Do a job analysis first. Sit with incumbents, list what they actually did last quarter, and write the specification against that.
State minimum qualifications as demonstrable skills. Where your rules permit, include equivalency language so relevant experience, apprenticeship, military service, or certifications can substitute for a degree.
Ask for deep classes. A class with multiple levels, or a flexibly staffed series, lets you promote a developing employee without running a new recruitment.
Expect a process. Classification changes usually run through HR and sometimes a personnel or civil service commission, and where positions are represented they may require notice or meeting and conferring. Start that conversation early.

Then write the posting for a person, not for a file. Lead with the systems the hire will touch and what the first year looks like. Publish the salary range, which is public anyway, and state telework, on-call, and schedule expectations plainly.

Compress the hiring timeline

Speed is the lever agencies most often control and least often measure. For your last several IT recruitments, count calendar days from requisition approval to accepted offer, and mark where the days went.

Post continuously for chronic vacancies. Open until filled recruitments with periodic application review reduce the wait for the next cycle.
Calendar the panel before the posting closes. Interview scheduling is often the largest single block of dead time.
Collapse rounds. One structured panel with a short practical exercise usually tells you more than three sequential conversations.
Pre-clear the offer. Agree in advance on the step placement range a hiring manager may offer, so selection does not wait on another approval.
Keep candidates informed. People withdraw during silence. A short status note at each stage costs nothing.

Be honest about pay, and specific about everything else

Public salary schedules are transparent, so do not negotiate against a number the candidate can look up. Be direct about where you sit relative to private employers, then be specific about what you offer instead: employer contributions to retirement and health coverage, leave accrual, predictable hours, tuition or certification support, and work that is not reorganized every quarter. A total compensation statement showing employer contributions alongside base pay is easy to produce and more persuasive than an adjective.

Where pay is genuinely out of line for a specialty, the usual remedies are reclassification, a market or equity adjustment, hiring above the range minimum, and differentials for hard to fill roles. Each is governed by local rules and may be bargainable. Do not oversell: a candidate who accepts on a misunderstanding leaves within the year.

Build a bench instead of only buying one

Registered apprenticeship. The U.S. Department of Labor and state apprenticeship agencies recognize information technology occupations, and public employers can sponsor or join a program. Standards and available occupations change, so confirm current requirements with the administering agency.
Interns and student workers. Partner with community college, career technical education, and university programs, and treat the internship as a pipeline with a defined path to a permanent job.
Internal movement. A service desk technician who wants to move into systems or security is the least expensive senior hire you will make. Write the path down: what to learn, what to demonstrate, what opens up.
Knowledge transfer from vendors. Put it in the contract as named agency staff, scheduled sessions, and written runbooks, not as a line item called training.

Retention is mostly management, not money

People leave managers, dead ends, unrelieved on-call rotations, and tools they are embarrassed by. Hold short stay interviews, ask what would make someone consider leaving, and act on at least one answer. Read exit interviews as a set rather than one at a time. Protect training time on the calendar, and cross-train so no one person is the sole owner of a critical system.

How to start

Inventory IT positions, vacancies, and the class specifications attached to them.
Mark the specifications that no longer describe the work, and rewrite one as a pilot.
Measure time to hire on recent recruitments and fix the two longest gaps.
Bring HR and, where applicable, labor relations in at the beginning.
Commit to one internal promotion path and one apprenticeship or internship slot this fiscal year.

If you bring in outside help for a classification and compensation study or for contract staff, require the deliverables you will need afterward: comparator methodology and data you can rerun, draft specifications in your own format, and clear terms on converting contract staff to permanent employment.

HQT provides software development, cloud and enterprise IT, cybersecurity, and data services to state and local agencies, and can structure engagements so agency staff can operate the system afterward.

Frequently asked questions

How long should it take to hire an IT position in local government?

There is no universal benchmark, and comparing yourself to another agency's number is less useful than measuring your own. Count calendar days from requisition approval to accepted offer for your last several IT recruitments and identify where the time actually goes. In most agencies the largest delays are waiting for the next application review cycle, scheduling interview panels, and internal approval of the salary offer, all of which can be shortened without changing any rule.

Can we hire IT staff without requiring a college degree?

Often yes, but it depends on the class specification and on your civil service or merit system rules rather than on the hiring manager's preference. Many agencies add equivalency language allowing relevant experience, an apprenticeship, military service, or certifications to substitute for a degree. Changing minimum qualifications is usually a classification action that runs through human resources and sometimes a personnel commission, so start with HR and confirm what your rules and any labor agreements require.

How do we compete with private sector salaries for IT roles?

Start by being accurate rather than optimistic, since public salary schedules are generally public and candidates can check your range. Present total compensation, including employer retirement and health contributions, leave, and predictable hours, alongside the base figure. Where a specialty is genuinely out of line, the usual remedies are reclassification, a market or equity adjustment, hiring above the range minimum, or a differential for hard to fill roles, each subject to local rules and possibly to bargaining.

Do apprenticeships work for government IT jobs?

The U.S. Department of Labor and state apprenticeship agencies recognize information technology occupations, and public employers can sponsor a program or join an existing one. An apprenticeship pairs paid work with structured instruction and gives an agency a way to develop staff it would otherwise have to recruit. Program standards, eligible occupations, and any available funding change over time, so confirm current requirements with the administering federal or state agency before planning around them.

What can we do about retention if we cannot raise pay this year?

Much of what drives IT staff out is not compensation alone: it is the lack of a visible next step, on-call rotations with no relief, no protected time for training, and tools that make the work harder than it should be. Hold short stay interviews with current staff, ask directly what would make them consider leaving, and fix at least one thing they name. Writing down a promotion path, cross-training so one person is not the sole owner of a critical system, and putting training time on the calendar cost little and are within a department's control.