The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has introduced the first guidance document of its kind for the IT workforce: IT Career Path—You are IT! This guidance provides employees with the framework to navigate the enterprise’s complex IT landscape to experience a long, meaningful career at the agency. IT Career Path also serves to help establish DHS among the best workplaces in the nation for IT professionals.
Recognizing that rewarding careers take concerted effort from both the organization and the employee, the IT Career Path highlights what it takes to succeed at DHS, enabling employees to make informed decisions concerning their professional development. The guidance features career profiles for 11 IT functional areas across three career levels—individual contributor, manager, and senior leader. The profiles are designed to help employees determine how to best prepare for new opportunities in a particular function, providing insight into typical roles, major responsibilities, general sphere of influence, competencies that contribute to success, and critical development experiences.
Knowing not all careers follow a logical path, we also created career maps that enable employees to consider career options both inside and outside their current IT function. These maps show relationships between functional areas and offer insight into related roles and competencies. Together, the career profiles and maps simplify a sometimes convoluted path and enable employees to chart a course for developing the right skills, as well as how to best prepare themselves for their next career opportunity.
We enlisted input from more than 100 IT and human capital professionals to ensure the accuracy of our IT Career Path. A job analysis determined what competencies are critical success factors; focus groups provided an understanding of what it takes to grow a career within DHS IT, and a cross-functional action team developed the documentation which was vetted by IT and HR professionals across the enterprise.
The initiative is one of many supporting the DHS IT Strategic Human Capital Plan, a collaborative effort begun two years ago to establish a Department-wide vision for IT human capital programs and processes. We are building a strong human capital foundation that ensures we hire the best talent, use their skills effectively, and create opportunities with meaningful impact on the DHS IT mission. Dedicated to strengthening the recruitment, development, retention, and recognition of our IT workforce, the plan also is designed to transform the agency’s IT environment—which many do not readily consider when seeking employment and planning their career—to enhance the agency’s attraction to today’s professionals.
