HR leaders launch DLA Careers site to increase recruiting, expand talent pool

In the competitive landscape of today's job market, the Defense Logistics Agency is increasing its online presence to attract top talent. On July 8, the agency adopted LinkedIn as a key tool to ramp up its recruiting efforts and broaden its talent pool by launching a new DLA Careers page.

DLA has used LinkedIn for years to promote its mission and operations. Incorporating the new DLA Careers page will serve as a centralized hub where job seekers can find comprehensive information about vacancy announcements, benefits, workplace culture and opportunities for career growth.

"Across the government, everyone defaults to USAJOBS, which is not very good at marketing, just good at listing [jobs]," said Caleb Foshee, DLA's acting director of human resources. "With LinkedIn, we will be able to tailor the content towards recruitment and education for our current employees to include job opportunities, benefits and announcements. We can also capitalize on folks who might or might not be interested in DLA because they don't know what we do."

It will not replace the application process within USAJOBS but will serve as a funnel to the website by reaching an audience that may not otherwise look to USAJOBS for new career opportunities, Foshee said.

He added that many veterans and members of the public are not familiar with what DLA does unless they are from the logistics or acquisition career fields.

"This is also another way for us to educate them or anyone else who may not understand that we are a 95% civilian agency," he said.

Supervisory HR specialist Drema Sergent said DLA's flagship page on LinkedIn is great because it tells DLA's story overall, but the additional DLA Careers page will help users better understand what it's like to work for the agency and will offer guidance and tips for applying. DLA can also use the page to target audiences, as it will do later this month with posts that apply specifically to veterans, she added.

Recruiting challenges

Leaders hope the new resource helps address recruiting challenges. Competition for talent within the private sector and other government agencies has created a hurdle for the agency's recruitment teams, said Melissa Lalonde, director of HR operations.

"Some of our current job postings are not getting the quantity or the quality of applicants that we have had in the past," especially for those hard-to-fill roles that certifications or special education, she added.

Lalonde said people sometimes reach out to her with interest in applying for DLA positions but are unsure how.

"It's about trying to get awareness of DLA, of our positions, to people that visit LinkedIn more often than they would USAJOBS," she said. "We can capture interested applicants directly, without them having to [only] search USAJOBS to see other jobs that they can also apply for."

Sergent added that the HR team hopes to also use LinkedIn to partner with other organizations and leverage new tools and strategies.

The DLA Careers page has already reached a milestone since the launch.

"In just three days, we have already surpassed 250 followers," Foshee said. "We are hoping to consistently double that to 500, 1,000 and even more over time."

LinkedIn has 1 billion members, making it the largest professional networking platform in the world. The site enables employers to connect with job seekers, search for potential candidates and advertise job openings in one location. According to the website, roughly 140 job applications are submitted every second.