Workshop urges federal employees to “translate and integrate” skills for nonfederal careers

Karen Lee, executive director and founder of Feds Forward, opened a virtual workshop for federal employees and contractors on career transitions, saying the core assignment is to “translate and integrate” federal experience into language and roles that nonfederal employers understand.

The session framed a four-part approach: translate (restate federal accomplishments as market-facing outcomes), research (learn industries, organizations and roles), connect (informational conversations and sustained relationships), and select and target (pick functions and employers that match skills and values). Lee said mindset matters: "Your public service identity is not defined by where you get your paycheck," and urged participants to treat their experience as transferable expertise.

Karen Esser of Feds Forward demonstrated the organization's career-wizard platform, which asks candidates to upload a detailed federal resume and answer a set of questions to generate tailored career insights: hard and soft skills, work-style guidance and suggested job titles along with nonfederal language for resumes and interviews. Esser said more detailed inputs yield more useful matches and pointed attendees to fedsforward.org for the tool and curated resources.

From the employer perspective, Catherine Manfree, introduced as chief of staff to the CHRO for people strategy and analytics at Capital One, said successful pivots often require open-mindedness about roles and clarity about what candidates are optimizing for. She summarized a hiring heuristic as “you plus me equals us,” advising applicants to make explicit both why they are right for a role and why the role is right for them. Manfree urged candidates to use plain-language explanations of agency missions and scale when talking to private-sector interviewers.

On practical application materials, Manfree recommended front-loading concrete impact and outcomes on resumes and avoiding bullet points that read like team descriptions without clarifying an applicant’s individual contribution. She suggested a brief contextual sentence near the top of a resume explaining an agency’s purpose and the population it serves to give nonfederal readers an anchor for scale and scope.

Panelists noted platforms and networks that can help with the process: Civicmatch (Work for America) for state and local job matching, and Fairfax County’s human resources info sessions for application guidance. The workshop closed with links and a follow-up survey to gather feedback and additional needs from attendees.

Next steps: organizers encouraged participants to complete the FedsForward career wizard, research target organizations, cultivate informational contacts, and register for local events and workshops to practice translating federal experience into roles outside government.