In tough economic times, both the virtual career fair and the Skype interviews serve as a cost effective way for the agency to broaden its pool of potential hires while eliminating costs associated with traditional career fairs as well as travel costs for interview applicants from across the globe.
"NGA wanted to reach a diverse and highly skilled population," said Ee Yeh, program manager in NGA's Recruitment Center. "The virtual fair allowed us to reach populations that we would not normally be able to reach through traditional career events to cater to local professionals."

Sponsored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Virtual Career Fair was an online recruitment event, similar to the online world of Second Life, and allowed participants to speak virtually with recruiters and subject matter experts from participating intelligence agencies.
NGA conducted more than 100 interviews using Skype in the Washington, D.C. area.

We analyzed recruitment data to determine which career fields would be the best to showcase at the fair for a higher return on investment," Yeh said.

As a result, NGA showcased opportunities for contract specialists, image scientists and intelligence analysis, which included imagery, geospatial, marine and aeronautical analyst positions. Almost 8,500 participants visited NGA's three booths, and more than 600 people submitted applications.
In addition to cost savings, the Skype interviews serve as a great follow up to the Virtual Career Fair, which showcased NGA's innovation while increasing awareness about the agency and its GEOINT mission.
Overall registration to the online event was just under 30,000 people with an actual attendance of more than 16,000 people participating.

"Since this was our first event, we have been capturing lessons learned so that we can improve for future events," Yeh said.

NGA is a DoD combat support agency and a member of the National Intelligence Community. The agency's mission is to provide geospatial intelligence, which is the exploitation of satellite or airborne images, fused with other intelligence and geospatial information like mapping, charting and geodesy, to help warfighters and national decision makers visualize what they need to know. NGA is the nation's eyes.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Washingtonian magazine selected NGA as one of its "great places to work" in November 2009, where the "pay, mission, culture, flexibility and the benefits were the best part of working at their agency." NGA also has major facilities in the Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and St. Louis, Mo., areas with NGA support teams worldwide. Visit our Web site at www.nga.mil.