In a continued effort to raise awareness of EM’s hiring initiatives amid a swelling number of job vacancies, an employee of the cleanup program’s Workforce Management Office joined the “Gone Fission Nuclear Report Podcast” last week.
Office of Environmental Management
May 16, 2023
minute read time
In a continued effort to raise awareness of DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) hiring initiatives amid a swelling number of job vacancies, an employee of the cleanup program’s Workforce Management Office joined the “Gone Fission Nuclear Report Podcast” last week to discuss work to build the next-generation workforce.
Click here to access the podcast episode, titled "DOE EM is Hiring Today and Tomorrow."
"Ensuring an adequate workforce for the Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup program is a continuing concern and a high priority. There are decades of cleanup work left to do," podcast host Michael Butler said. "EM is now engaged in an aggressive program to hire more professionals. In this week's episode, we examine the need for workers and what EM is doing to make sure there are enough qualified employees now and in the decades ahead."
An aging workforce, a search to bring more diversity and inclusion into the cleanup program and shifting priorities around the EM mission are the main reasons for the urgent call for hiring across the cleanup complex.
“We need everyone and every skill as we continue to take this work into the future,” Dameone Ferguson, supervisory diversity manager for EM’s Workforce Management Office, told Butler while outlining the types of candidates EM is looking to hire.
Ferguson noted a few mission-critical roles EM is seeking to fill: interdisciplinary engineers, physical scientists, information technologists and contract specialists.
Read a related EM News Flash here about how EM is strengthening its procurement capabilities to ensure the cleanup program has talented, capable acquisition professionals now and in the future with the launch of the new EM Career Acquisition Program.
Michael Butler, host of the “Gone Fission Nuclear Report Podcast,” said EM Update's recent reports on the cleanup complex's hiring initiatives and challenges prompted him to cover the issue in his podcast. Click here to access the episode.
EM Workforce Management Office Supervisory Diversity Manager Dameone Ferguson has said EM is taking positive steps to attract, recruit and retain talent by leveraging its human capital plan to drive forth greater solutions to source for the next-generation workforce.
Ferguson and Butler delved into the hiring needs for both the federal and contractor workforce within EM during the podcast episode. Federal workers are needed to provide oversight and contractor employees are necessary to support the work being done at EM.
While recruitment efforts will not be slowing anytime soon, EM has already seen success from measures it has taken so far to find new employees, including in-person and virtual job fairs and partnerships with local ecosystems such as colleges, universities, professional societies and minority-serving institutions.
One example of that success is the Pathways Recent Graduates Program offered to current students, recent graduates and those with advanced degrees. Ferguson shared that over 1,100 candidates applied for 30 positions being advertised.
ONE-STOP JOB SHOP: An EM webpage titled EM Jobs, Internships & Fellowships offers a variety of resources on EM employment positions, internships and other programs as well as guidance on applying for jobs with EM. The site features useful links to EM and the broader DOE positions available on USAJobs, DOE veterans recruitment, graduate fellowship and postdoctoral research programs, and internships. In addition, the website houses past EM Update articles highlighting EM recruitment efforts, internships and more across the DOE complex.
"DOE EM is Hiring Today and Tomorrow:" Click here to listen to the “Gone Fission Nuclear Report Podcast” episode focused on EM hiring initiatives with podcast host Michael Butler and special guest Dameone Ferguson, supervisory diversity manager for EM’s Workforce Management Office.
Social media posts and EM Update newsletter articles — access some of them here, here and here — have also put a spotlight on the need for new employees. EM is working to fill more than 300 vacancies as more than half of its federal workforce is set to retire in the next three to five years.
When Butler asked Ferguson why people should work for EM, Ferguson replied, “People are looking for both purpose and passion and this mission we have within the EM organization is allowing people to do just that.”
Butler has said Gone Fission focuses on the EM program. Last fall, he hosted Ferguson and two other special guests from EM for an episode in honor of Veterans Day. They discussed how EM opens doors to veterans.
Open positions across EM and the broader DOE can be found here.
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