New ‘LinkedIn for government’ helps Americans get into public service

After bouncing around employers for much of her career, Joya Patel says she finally felt settled when she joined the Department of Health and Human Services in 2023. That was especially true after being promoted to its director of communications the following year.

“I never had a plan in life,” she says, “but after working at HHS for the amount of time that I did I finally did have a plan. And it was just ripped away from me.”

On February 14, 2025, Patel became one of thousands of federal workers laid off by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in what has since been called the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

“Initially, I was like, ‘Okay, this must be a joke,’ because you can’t email people on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. telling them they’re let go from the government and not to report back,” she says.

“My initial feeling was anger, because I had no say. And the letter said something about performance, but that couldn’t be true. I had recently been promoted, my performance evaluations were great, and I had won several awards.”

In the months that followed, Patel found herself attending networking events and happy hours around Washington with others grappling with the same fate. One of those events was hosted by Work for America, a nonprofit created in 2024 to help state and local governments find talent.

“I was thinking, Maybe it’s a good time to get out of D.C.,” Patel says. “So I made my profile and was looking at what options were there for me.”

After Patel signed up for Work for America’s job search platform, Civic Match, one of its staffers reached out to share a job posting for a new strategic director of communications with the city of San Diego and encouraged Patel to apply.

“They speak directly with the hiring manager and flag [you] as a Civic Match candidate so that you stand out in the candidate pool,” says Patel, who landed the job in April. “It is a wonderful opportunity, and I’m very happy that it came my way.”

No Prior Public Sector Experience Required

In its first two years, Work for America provided career resources to more than 13,000 displaced federal workers and ultimately helped 500 of them find new opportunities with the 440 city, county, and state employers that hire through its Civic Match platform. 

Of course former federal employees aren’t the only ones facing significant workforce disruptions.

“While there was a unique moment of opportunity to capture talent exiting D.C., we’ve now built pretty permanent infrastructure that governments keep coming back to, and keep posting hundreds and hundreds of jobs on each month,” says Caitlin Lewis, Work for America’s founder and executive director. “In the midst of so much economic uncertainty in the job market fueled by layoffs and AI fears, public service can and should be emerging as a source of optimism for job seekers.”

That is ultimately what inspired Lewis to launch a major expansion of Civic Match, opening up the platform to all Americans seeking employment in state and local government—not just those with prior public sector experience.

“We have been drinking from the fire hose the last couple of years, meeting the need of a ton of folks looking for state and local jobs all at once,” Lewis says. “We are excited to be expanding that platform to folks who are looking for their first job and are scared about layoffs and the implications of AI; to those who have been in the tech sector for a decade and want to do something more directly connected to their community; to those who are priced out of the city they’ve lived in and want to move back home.”

The Benefits of a Career in the Public Sector

While each position and employer is unique, working for the public sector typically comes with a trade-off: Salaries tend to be lower, but benefits tend to be more generous, especially pensions.

According to a recent survey conducted by public sector financial management provider MissionSquare, 64% of public sector workers say their wages are competitive, while 92% say the same about their benefits.

Many workers, however, now have a third priority: career stability. According to research by outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, AI has been cited in 24% of layoff announcements this year. According to a MissionSquare survey of state and local government employers, however, just 3% say they are leaving positions vacant due to AI.

“When you think about the roles in the public sector, they are predominantly things like teachers, police, firefighters, street [maintainance],” explains Shari Hensrud, MissionSquare’s chief investment officer. “A lot of those roles can’t be replaced with AI—unless we get to a world of RoboCop.”

Though employment in the private sector has been sluggish as of late, public sector demand remains high. According to the MissionSquare study, 31% of state and local employers had to reopen recruitment very or somewhat frequently this year to fill open positions.

Why the public sector needs its own LinkedIn

The MissionSquare study also highlights a persistent challenge among public sector employers: hiring speed.

According to a 2026 study by the Society for Human Resource Management, it takes the average employer 39 days to fill a nonexecutive position. But according to Work for America, local governments average 130 days.

Part of the problem, according to Lewis, is that the country’s 90,000 state and local entities have their own hiring practices. Each typically leverages different job boards and platforms, making it difficult for job seekers to find roles that suit their skills and experience.

“There has not, to date, been a place where someone who’s broadly interested—and maybe even geographically flexible—can search what type of opportunities are available to them within the public sector,” she says.

Lewis hopes opening Civic Match to nongovernment workers will help state and local governments close their talent gaps. She adds that the platform is free for both job seekers and employers, but will eventually offer premium services for a fee.

“You can think of Civic Match as LinkedIn for government,” she says. “I want to make sure every local government has the talent they need to deliver services that people depend on and any job seeker looking for mission-driven work can find their way into local government—and that it’s seen as an aspirational career path for the next generation.”

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