Getting a job with the federal government can be a nightmare because of the lengthy and complicated hiring process, but the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit is finding ways to bypass the obstacles.

Gil Vega, the chief information security officer at the agency, said he is using a range of hiring flexibilities not available to all agencies to hire IT security professionals. These include the ability to match some private-sector salaries, and offer relocation payments and signing bonuses, Vega told govinfosecurity.com.

He said he has been able to attract folks from the private sector with these tools, and by selling them on the importance of the mission.

"Where we found success is in hiring many professionals hand-selected from some of the top Fortune 500 companies across Washington, from New York, places in California," Vega said. "We have been able to bring in very highly qualified technically proficient security professionals using this direct hire authority and other recruitment flexibilities that we have."
 
For more on one agency's IT hiring successes:
- see this govinfosecurity.com article