Recruitment and Outreach Specialist

CSS, Inc•Durham, NC

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

CSS is seeking a Recruitment and Outreach Specialist to support the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service Management and Budget Office. This role will support workforce planning, recruiting outreach, talent pipeline development, recruitment communications, and outreach process improvement for administrative, professional, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics positions across NOS. The ideal candidate is a practical, organized, and relationship-oriented recruiting professional who can operate comfortably in a federal support environment. This position requires someone who can help translate workforce needs into actionable outreach plans, coordinate messaging for upcoming and posted roles, build and maintain recruiting tools and repositories, support outreach with educational and professional organizations, and improve the consistency and effectiveness of outreach and recruiting workstreams. This is a strong fit for someone with experience in talent acquisition, workforce outreach, recruitment operations, university relations, internship program support, professional social media recruiting, candidate relationship management, outreach process mapping, and recruitment analytics.

Requirements

Experience recruiting, sourcing, or supporting recruitment outreach for administrative, professional, technical, scientific, or STEM-related roles.
Experience developing recruitment messaging, outreach communications, candidate emails, professional social media posts, or role announcement content.
Experience building relationships with candidates, schools, professional organizations, workforce partners, or external talent networks.
Experience using LinkedIn or other professional social media platforms to identify prospective candidates, promote opportunities, or support talent outreach.
Experience using a CRM, applicant tracking system, spreadsheet-based tracker, or similar tool to manage candidate, stakeholder, or outreach interactions.
Experience supporting recruiting events, career fairs, information sessions, university relations, or professional association outreach.
Experience documenting or improving recruiting, outreach, candidate engagement, event coordination, communications, or talent pipeline workflows through process maps, checklists, SOPs, templates, or similar tools.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to draft clear outreach messages, reports, summaries, and process documentation.
Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities, timelines, stakeholders, and follow-up actions.
Ability to analyze recruiting or outreach data and present findings in a clear, practical format.
Ability to work professionally in a federal contractor support environment with government and contractor stakeholders.
Ability to acquire and maintain a low-risk background investigation.
Ability to travel occasionally to recruiting events, job fairs, conferences, or stakeholder meetings, as approved.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting federal recruiting, federal human capital programs, government contracting, or public-sector workforce initiatives.
Familiarity with federal hiring pathways, including Pathways, direct hire, Schedule A, veterans' preference or veterans' appointments, internships, or work-study programs.
Experience developing talent strategies, recruiting plans, outreach workflows, process maps, dashboards, or recruitment performance metrics.
Experience coordinating with communications or branding teams on recruitment campaigns, professional social media messaging, role announcements, or public-facing outreach.
Experience with GovDelivery, Google Workspace, Microsoft Excel, Power BI, Looker Studio, LinkedIn, CRM tools, applicant tracking systems, or other analytics and reporting tools.
Experience supporting university relations, student outreach, internship programs, early-career pipelines, or workforce development programs.
Ability to work with technical, scientific, administrative, communications, and leadership stakeholders and translate needs into actionable recruiting plans.

Responsibilities

Work with the Workforce Management Division and program office representatives to understand specialized hiring needs, hard-to-fill positions, skill gaps, and succession planning needs.
Support the development and maintenance of a formal Talent Strategy that addresses workforce gaps, recruiting trends, and organizational talent pipeline needs.
Analyze information from prior hiring efforts, stakeholder input, surveys, reports, and outreach activities to identify opportunities for improvement.
Help translate workforce priorities into practical recruiting actions, timelines, outreach targets, and measurable next steps.
Develop strategic recruiting plans for upcoming NOS job announcements and anticipated workforce needs.
Develop and refine messaging related to upcoming, open, or recently posted roles in coordination with Workforce Management Division stakeholders and communications personnel.
Draft candidate-facing outreach language, role summaries, announcement language, professional social media content, email templates, talking points, and event follow-up communications.
Support professional social media outreach through platforms such as LinkedIn and other approved professional channels to help increase awareness of NOS opportunities.
Coordinate with communications staff to ensure recruitment messaging is clear, accurate, professional, and aligned with approved public-facing standards.
Help maintain a schedule or content plan for recruitment communications tied to role announcements, hiring timelines, outreach events, and recruiting priorities.
Review available communication and engagement data to help refine outreach language and improve engagement with qualified candidate communities.
Continue and expand outreach with educational institutions, professional associations, workforce organizations, and other external partners that have upcoming or planned job fairs, recruiting events, career panels, or information sessions.
Maintain an outreach calendar of upcoming recruiting events, job fairs, conferences, and partnership opportunities.
Identify and recommend appropriate recruiting events, outreach platforms, professional networks, and paid or no-cost advertising options.
Support virtual and in-person recruiting events, career fairs, information sessions, and targeted outreach activities.
Assist with event planning, logistics, candidate engagement, contact capture, follow-up, and post-event reporting.
Monitor budget, travel, and event constraints and recommend cost-conscious outreach alternatives when needed.
Identify, research, and engage external organizations and recruiting channels that align with NOS workforce needs.
Support outreach to prospective applicants and help convert passive interest into active applications for appropriate opportunities.
Support outreach for administrative, professional, technical, scientific, and STEM-related roles.
Identify qualified candidates eligible for federal hiring pathways and encourage them to apply and compete for appropriate positions.
Support outreach related to special hiring authorities and federal employment pathways, such as direct hire, Schedule A, veterans' appointments, Pathways, internships, and other entry-level hiring authorities, as appropriate.
Help build and maintain long-term candidate pipelines for mission-critical skill areas.
Develop, maintain, and improve tracking tools for recruitment and outreach activities, including data elements, metrics, status updates, contact information, event outcomes, and monthly progress reporting.
Maintain a centralized recruitment and outreach repository that serves as a reliable source of information for Workforce Management Division staff.
Support development and refinement of outreach trackers, contact lists, organization profiles, event calendars, candidate engagement records, reporting templates, and related recruiting documentation.
Use available analytics, including outreach platform metrics, professional social media engagement data, event results, and campaign information, to assess engagement, identify trends, and recommend improvements.
Prepare clear summaries, dashboards, or visualizations that help leadership understand recruiting progress, risks, opportunities, and recommended next steps.
Map and document outreach and recruiting workstreams to improve visibility, consistency, accountability, and handoffs across the recruiting lifecycle.
Document current-state and future-state processes for role announcement planning, outreach messaging, professional social media coordination, educational and professional organization outreach, event planning, candidate inquiry response, contact capture, follow-up, tracking, and reporting.
Identify bottlenecks, duplicated effort, unclear ownership, missed follow-up points, inconsistent messaging, data gaps, and repository or tracking issues that may affect outreach and recruiting effectiveness.
Develop and maintain process maps, flow charts, checklists, templates, and standard operating procedures that support repeatable recruiting and outreach execution.
Recommend practical improvements to strengthen recruiting coordination, improve candidate and partner follow-up, increase use of recruiting data, and support more consistent outreach for upcoming and posted roles.
Coordinate with Workforce Management Division stakeholders, communications staff, and program office representatives to clarify roles, timelines, decision points, and handoffs for outreach and recruiting activities.
Use lessons learned from job announcements, professional social media outreach, job fairs, recruiting events, and partner engagement to refine recruiting workflows and improve future outreach cycles.
Support ongoing maintenance of the recruitment and outreach repository so that process documentation, contact lists, event information, messaging templates, and reporting tools remain current and usable.
Support development and execution of internship, work-study, and early-career outreach efforts.
Assist with planning for future intern cohorts, including outreach strategy, process documentation, candidate engagement, program readiness, and coordination with internal stakeholders.
Help identify opportunities to engage students early in their degree programs and build long-term talent pipelines for mission-critical skill areas.
Support program materials, schedules, communications, tracking, and reporting related to intern and entry-level talent development.