The CIA is hiring, though its recruiters can’t comment in detail on why.
The McLean-based intelligence agency joined over 65 other employers at the University of Virginia’s Northern Virginia campus in Merrifield last month for a career fair that drew hundreds of college students as well as recent (and not-so-recent) graduates, all of them scrambling for a foothold in an uncertain economy.
Though it was organized by UVA, which opened its campus at the Inova Center for Personalized Health in February, the Virginia Universities Career Fair on Aug. 13 was open to students and alumni from half a dozen other schools as well, including Virginia Tech, James Madison University and the more local George Mason and Marymount universities.
In response to the Trump administration’s upending of the federal workforce, the universities partnered with the Northern Virginia Economic Development Alliance, the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA) and Virginia Career Works to help new and transitioning job seekers find available opportunities.
“It is a fact that we are in a tight job market. That is true,” UVA Northern Virginia Dean and CEO Gregory Fairchild said. “But even in tight job markets, employers are always looking for new talent. They’re always looking for growth.”
Tech, contractors represented at fair
The employers participating in the fair represented a range of industries, from hospitality and business to construction, law enforcement and education, including Fairfax County Public Schools.
According to David Lapinski, director of employer relations and experiential education for UVA’s Career Center, the university and regional economic development officials made a concerted effort to bring in technology companies, government contractors and other organizations affected by the federal government cuts, among other trends, such as the rise of machine learning and automation.
Those fields also generally coincided with what job candidates were seeking, based on surveys of the students and alumni who registered for the event.
“The highest-need areas that came back on that survey were areas focused around technology, focused around business areas, and then also focused around policy and government,” Lapinski said. “Those were the areas that we saw the highest need from a candidate perspective. So, that’s one of the reasons that we also wanted to focus on companies within those disciplines.”
As of July, the D.C. region had shed 19,100 federal government jobs, a 5% decline from the same time in 2024, according to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ most recent economic monitoring report. The region remains home to 359,800 federal jobs, but that’s the fewest since spring 2009.
The contraction has also affected private companies that rely on federal spending.
Nationwide, job listings for government contractors plummeted 44% from February to June of this year, according to the job search site Indeed. However, in Fairfax County at least, information technology still appears to be in demand, with the FCEDA listing over 11,000 openings compared to only 100 for aerospace and defense and 82 in the health and life sciences sector.
Among the companies actively hiring is Peraton, which employs about 18,000 people and has about 3,000 positions “open all across the board, from entry level to more senior” roles, recruiter Caroline Wade told FFXnow.
Headquartered in Herndon, the national security and IT company has been “impacted” by the federal government’s recent mass contract cancellations, Wade confirmed, but those terminations have been at least partially offset by new awards.
“We’re still growing, still winning projects, so we’re really excited to hopefully get some good candidates,” she said, noting that Peraton is particularly looking for software developers, engineers and other IT positions.
CMC Electronics, a Canadian company that specializes in building electronic systems for airplanes, has been spared from the federal workforce and spending cuts, because it focuses primarily on commercial projects, though it dabbles in military and defense work, human resources manager Sarah Wallis says.
Recently expanded to Reston, CMC jumped at the chance to participate in the inter-university career fair, hoping to raise its profile in the area and perhaps attract some former Federal Aviation Administration workers or others who might have relevant skills.
“Most of the people we talked to are students getting ready to graduate or students who have graduated within the last year or so,” Wallis said. “… It’s a lot of young people trying to gain their footing, which in this market is very difficult to do, but we’d like to be able to try to help them where we can to break into an awesome industry.”
Job seekers share experiences
More than 800 students and graduates registered in advance for the career fair, though UVA Northern Virginia staff expected that as many as 1,500 to 1,700 people would ultimately stop by, according to Fairchild.
In addition to getting the chance to meet and share their resume with potential employers, participants could get support through workshops and career coaching sessions.
When asked about challenges they’ve encountered while hunting for a job, some graduates mentioned perennial obstacles, such as applications being met with no response and the difficulty of finding true entry-level jobs that don’t demand three to five years of experience.
However, some say the D.C. region’s current economic climate has also affected their search. A James Madison University alum who graduated last year with an engineering degree has largely avoided applying for federal government jobs “because of all the uncertainty.”
A UVA graduate looking in the data science field says he received a job offer from a company “right around the Beltway” that was contingent on a federal government contract it ultimately wasn’t awarded, leaving him without a gig.
“Being aware of just how the economy is right now, the amount of layoffs that have been happening, it’s been a little bit tough,” the UVA graduate said, acknowledging that as a 2025 graduate, he doesn’t have much experience for comparison. “… Again, it’s only been two to three months for me, so hopefully, it doesn’t drag on.”
The career fair also drew some older alumni seeking to change careers. One who graduated from UVA in 2012 is hoping to pivot from math education to the corporate world after an extended maternity leave. She described this year as “an unfortunate time” to return to the job market, noting that lots of her family and friends have been affected by the federal worker cuts.
“In the world of A.I. resumes and things like that, I think a lot of people are blending together and it’s harder to stand out when you’re just connecting with somebody online,” she said. “So, I was really excited to have the opportunity to actually talk to people in person.”
Encouraging that face-to-face interaction was a key goal for UVA not only in organizing the career fair, but in establishing a campus in Fairfax County, where students can take courses in technology, education, health care and other programs.
According to Lapinski, it can be challenging to convince recruiters from Northern Virginia companies to make the trip to UVA’s main campus in Charlottesville.
“It allows for us to really be part of the Northern Virginia community, to engage with the employers up here, engage with industry up here,” he said.
Fairchild says he wants to send a message with UVA’s presence that the Fairfax area’s “economic footprint is one of the most vibrant in the state of Virginia and in the country.”
“When you think about who’s here in this footprint, we’ve got space companies here. We’ve got biotech companies here. This is an exciting place,” Fairchild said. “A lot of times, people tend to think about this area as being an adjunct to Washington, and it’s not that it isn’t that, but … it’s its own place. It’s its own vibrancy … We intend to tie into this vibrancy and help it grow.”
2025-09-05 11:34:00