ACT-IAC is contributing to that body of knowledge with 13 ideas for recruiting and retaining acquisition pros. The leader of the group who put together a white paper on the subject is Jeff Shen, Vice President of Red Team Consulting. Jeff and I talked about the 13 ideas, including:

--hiring people who have degrees other than business degrees
--a referral program that pays bonuses to people who bring talent to agencies
--internship and mentorship programs and training
--using information gathered at exit interviews to amass data on why people leave the agencies
--rotational assignments that let people "recharge their batteries" at a different assignment
--good old cold hard cash - paying a premium to supervisory contracting officers for added responsibilities

You can hear the whole conversation with Jeff by clicking the audio link.