City of St. Louis Selected for National Program to Modernize Government Hiring

The Department of Personnel's Talent Acquisition team joins nine other cities in Work for America's Fall 2026 Talent Accelerator, Data-Driven Hiring for Cities.

The City of St. Louis has been selected as one of only 10 cities nationwide to take part in Work for America's (WFA) second Talent Accelerator program, Data-Driven Hiring for Cities. The Department of Personnel's Talent Acquisition team was chosen from a competitive pool of municipal applicants from across the country.

The eight-week workshop began on October 13 and runs through December 15, 2026.

About the Program

WFA's Talent Accelerator programs are free, virtual workshops that help city HR and operations teams make practical, near-term improvements to their hiring systems. This cohort focuses on how cities collect, manage, and use their hiring data.

By the end of the workshop, the City's Talent Acquisition team will have:

• Defined its priority hiring metrics
• Identified specific improvements to its data practices
• Delivered a briefing to Department leadership outlining its findings and recommended next steps

Selection to the cohort recognizes the City's commitment to investing in the systems that serve St. Louis residents, and to strengthening data-informed decision making across its hiring process.

Why the City of St. Louis Applied

The application was led by Aaron Swearngin, Talent Acquisition and Onboarding Manager. He applied with the Department's upcoming internal hiring dashboard in mind, along with its continuing work alongside the administration's analytics team.

“We were fortunate to be selected for such a competitive opportunity, and we are very grateful,” said Swearngin. “We thought it was important to further advance our understanding of how we use and interpret our own data, as well as how we present it to others. This is also a great opportunity for Talent Acquisition to collaborate with other municipal HR professionals, many of whom face the very same challenges we do. We are not alone, and this allows for the network building necessary to plan for impactful change.”

Building on an Established Partnership

The Department has worked with Work for America before, and Swearngin credits the organization with helping the team think differently about its everyday work.

“Work for America has opened new avenues for thinking and talking about our strengths and areas for improvement, helping us innovate a better approach to our everyday jobs,” he said. “They have also highlighted our progress in their national publications, which is great for employee morale.”

“Every city service depends on hiring the right people, and hiring well depends on understanding our own data,” said Brian Light, Director of Personnel. “I’m proud of our talent acquisition team for earning a place in this national cohort. The metrics and practices they develop over the next eight weeks will help us fill positions faster, measure what matters, and show residents and city leadership exactly how we are improving. We are filling city positions 2.5 times faster in 2026 than we did in 2024, and we’re always aiming to improve.”

The Fall 2026 Cohort

The City of St. Louis joins Baltimore, MD; El Paso, TX; Erie, PA; Jackson, TN; Little Rock, AR; Los Angeles, CA; Nashville, TN; Pompano Beach, FL; and the San Francisco Human Services Agency.

“There is no shared standard for excellent government hiring,” said Caitlin Lewis, Executive Director of Work for America. “These 10 cities will use existing data to set clear hiring metrics, track their progress, and take the first step toward a national baseline other cities can rally around.”

This workshop builds on WFA's inaugural Talent Accelerator, Transforming City Hiring Processes, in which cities mapped their end-to-end hiring processes to find bottlenecks and delays. WFA turned those findings into a free toolkit, Built to Hire: A Process Mapping Toolkit for Government Hiring Teams.

Read Work for America's full announcement. 

To explore careers with the City of St. Louis, visit stlouis-mo.gov/jobs.