The Air Force Test Center, headquartered at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., launched the Centralized Selection Program Oct. 1, 2021.
The program aims to increase diversity and speed up the hiring process for civilians to build the Air Force Materiel Command We Need.
AFTC further refined AFMC’s centralized selection and hiring process with the CSP to ensure it hires the right people to fill critical, entry-level developmental positions across the test enterprise, faster and more efficiently.
Centralized hiring will eliminate the time that first-line supervisors currently put into the hiring process.
“This should improve the overall experience for our new hires in their first few years on the job and will reduce the amount of administrative work for supervisors, allowing them to focus on execution of the test mission,” said Dr. Eileen Bjorkman, AFTC’s Executive Director. “Consolidating resources at a centralized level will increase our ability to reach out to a greater number of universities and recruiting events, increasing the diversity of our hiring pool.”
Supervisors will continue to identify available job vacancies with AFTC Talent Acquisition Recruiters and coordinate with them to fill out the proper request forms for recruitment.
Centralized Selection Cells, which will accomplish the hiring, are comprised of panel members who are subject matter experts appointed by AFTC’s Center Senior Functionals and are not first-line supervisors.
Subject matter experts possess the functional and organizational knowledge to make the best selection for the organization. Human Resource employees will also be a part of the selection panels initially.
Jobs in the following categories will use the hiring program: Contracting, Communications, and Information/Cyber Operations Support, Financial Management, Intelligence, Logistics, Program Management, Science and Engineering, Test and Evaluation, Medical, and Civil Engineering.
“We are optimistic our ramped up recruiting efforts to support the Centralized Hiring Cells will pay huge dividends in reaching talent,” said Dave Eisenstadt, AFTC Director of Personnel. “Our focused recruiting efforts will match talent to openings. This will apply to all our installations. We are really excited to test out our new recruiting juggernaut. We’ve got the team in-place and we have the tools.”
The purpose of centralized hiring is to aide in reducing favoritism and the potential impact of bias, improve in the diversity of new hires, and allow us to hire into critical positions faster.
“I want to assure the entire Test community we have the right people working this centralized hiring initiative and our goal is to make the process better and faster. If we miss the mark don’t hesitate to give us feedback,” said Eisenstadt.
Direct feedback on AFTC’s centralized Hiring efforts can be sent to AFTC’s Enterprise Recruiting organizational email address at AFTC.Enterprise.Recruiting@us.af.mil.
The AFMC Centralized Selection Process Guide dated July 23, 2021, which includes AFTC Supplement dated Aug. 21, 2021, can be found here- https://www.my.af.mil/gcss-af/USAF/content/AFTC_CSP
The CSP will be continuously evaluated to measure success as well as monitor areas of the process that may need adjustment or improvement.