National Government Agency — Government & Public Sector

Following a directive to establish an internal cybersecurity function, a government agency needed fifteen cleared specialists. Public sector pay bands sat 30 to 40% below private market rates, security clearance added months to onboarding, and the agency had never recruited in this discipline before.

Erdobar built the proposition around what the public sector can offer that the private sector cannot: mission significance, genuine autonomy over architecture decisions, and formal certification pathways funded by the employer. We targeted practitioners at career inflection points rather than those motivated primarily by compensation, and ran clearance processing in parallel with assessment to compress the timeline.

We also advised on a revised job architecture that allowed specialist technical progression without requiring a move into management. That change made the roles credible to experienced practitioners who would otherwise have seen a public-sector move as a career ceiling.

Outcome: All 15 roles filled within budget across nine months, average clearance-to-start reduced by seven weeks, and 13 of 15 still in post at 24 months.