First, realize that governments hire private contractors to save money. Training costs a lot of money by its very nature. Because of this, the federal government is naturally going to look for people they don’t have to train. In the absence of people who don’t need training, they’re going to look for people who have the most training so they minimize their costs. Therefore, getting independent training elsewhere is generally a good investment if you want to be a government contractor.
Furthermore, the government isn’t going to train for basic things like time management, work ethic or proper attitude. If you’re not coming in with a basic working skill set, the sort of skills you’d need anywhere you work, then they are not going to want to talk to you.
This cost-cutting mindset is why so many government contractors look to hire people previously employed by the government or the military. People with government and military backgrounds often don’t need more training regarding the exacting and legalistic standards the government often wants. For example, people who were in the military are already familiar with the broad points of the Uniform Code for Military Justice. This is important because military people have to abide by an entirely different legal system than civilians. If a civilian contractor doesn’t understand the military legal code, they can have unrealistic expectations of the military personnel they will be working with. People who were previously employed in the civilian sector of the government are already familiar with governmental policies and procedures on things like interdepartment communications.
In addition, they also often already know the major agencies, the acronyms for those agencies, and who’s who within them. This cuts down on a lot of training needs on those standard policies, procedures and agencies. In the absence of people who don’t need training, they’re going to look for people who have the most training so they minimize their costs.
On the other hand, the government will often pay for training in a specific, new procedure or product. For example, if a government agency hires a private contractor for data migration from an old computer system to a new one, the government will pay for the specific training necessary on the new software. They don’t have an unrealistic expectation that a contractor will be familiar with software that just got written unless the contractor in question is doing both the software writing and the data migration. Furthermore, the government will often pay for training in specific agency requirements on a particular job.
Applying a bit of common sense and logic will help any government contractor know what to bid on, what not to, and how to apply their people and skills most efficiently. Efficient government contractors keep getting jobs, while the inefficient generally find somewhere else to be.
Written by Sabre Consulting, Copyright 2008, All rights reserved. If you’d like to find out more about how
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