Recruiting, Educating, and Retaining Cyber Security Professionals in the
Federal Workforce: Lessons Learned but not yet Applied
Diana L. Burley, Ph.D.
Graduate School of Education and Human Development
The George Washington University
Report GW-CSPRI-2011-1
February 2, 2011
Abstract
Cyber security risks pose some of the most serious economic and national security
challenges of the 21st Century. In order to effectively meet this challenge, the United States must
develop a comprehensive and coordinated effort to recruit and retain cyber security professionals
in the federal workforce (Partnership for Public Service/Booz Allen Hamilton 2009). This talk
will explore the impact of one such effort, the Federal Cyber Service Scholarship for Service
(SFS) program. Although service corps programs like SFS are an effective recruitment method,
they do not guarantee that the new service corps members will remain in the federal cyber
security workforce after the public service commitment period expires. However, given the high
cost of this recruitment and socialization tool, it is critical to gain insight about the retention of
federal cyber corps members. Thus, this talk will present the results of a study that investigated
the turnover intentions among future members of the federal cyber corps. We will explore how
individual, job-related and organizational factors influence their ex-ante intention to stay.
Through our discussion, the talk will place the study results within the larger context of the cyber
security workforce.
Work supported by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the
School of Engineering and Applied Science of The George Washington University
Support for this research was provided through National Science Foundation Division of
Undergraduate Education Award# 0943284
