New Civilian Jobs and Career Platform

The U.S. Army has launched a new online tool to help soldiers transitioning into retirement and the civilian workforce, along with civilians looking for government jobs.

It’s a new talent management platform for use both in and out of the Army that’s described as a one-stop shop for jobs, benefits, retirement and professional development.

U.S. Army spokesperson Christopher Surridge, in a statement to Military.com, explained the benefits of a combined, two-way human resources hub.

“The objective is to serve as a central portal connecting hiring managers with talent pools, and providing employees and external candidates with greater visibility and access to opportunities,” Surridge said, adding the portal will “consolidate talent discovery and engagement across recruitment, selection, career development and retention.”

Platform Streamlines Army Human Resources

It’s called the EMPReS (Employee Management, Processing and Recruitment System) Hub, a modernized platform that streamlines many of the military’s human resource systems into one go-to portal.

Recent tracking data lists active-duty Army personnel at roughly 458,000, while the Department of Defense reports the Army reached its fiscal 2026 goal by signing 61,500 active-duty soldiers before a Sept. 30 deadline this year.

Karen Pane, who runs the Army’s Civilian Human Resources Agency, spoke at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington, and touted the new integrated hub as a way to do even better recruitment and job placement.

“It’s designed to bring automation, artificial intelligence and workforce tools together in support of civilian talent management,” Pane said at the conference. “Very soon, any manager, any leader, any employee inside, but also external, will be able to connect.”

The Army is modernizing its employment systems at a time when recruiting new civilian hires and new soldiers sees a resurgence.

In the late 2010s and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, recruitment suffered. In 2022, the Army brought in just under 45,000 new recruits when it needed 60,000, while the other branches also endured some of their worst recruiting years in decades, according to DoD figures.

The new EMPReS system is expected to ease the recruitment process while displaying job opportunities outside the Army. It replaces the Army’s external job board known as the Civilian Personnel On-Line (CPOL) platform, while consolidating more than 100 other legacy hiring and employment platforms across the federal government.

Under the CPOL platform, civilians looking for employment within the U.S. Army could apply online and track their resume progress with a status update. The EMPReS system absorbs those features while giving internal Army job-seekers access to civilian opportunities in a two-way service.

“They don’t have to remember all the websites. They’ll just have to go into EMPReS Hub, and they’ll have it there,” Pane said. “Everyone, whether you’re a junior person or a senior person, will be able to go in there and see what kinds of things are available.”

Additionally, the platform’s data will be moved to the cloud for storage. The Office of Personnel Management awarded Oracle a nearly $400 million, 10-year IT modernization contract to start that process.

Modernizing System While Keeping What Works

Organizers said the overall goal of the new talent management system is to bring multiple streams of hiring, recruitment and job-hunting under one umbrella, without completely discontinuing what’s working well.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Let’s fire CHRA. Let’s do this. Let’s do that.’ And I always say, ‘Well, time out before you fire anybody. What are the issues?” Pane said. “Let’s look at the data and see where it supports making changes.” Informed decision-making versus emotional.”

Already, Army officials said they can see some progress, with shorter timelines for hiring and clearer details in job postings. The new platform is also credited with helping the Army target certain specialties and skills among civilian and internal candidates they want to either recruit or retain.

Pane emphasized that humans will continue to oversee the platform, rather than relying solely on algorithms. She added that with anything new, there will be a learning curve.

“But in order to be creative, you sometimes have to have the possibility of failing,” she said, explaining the agency will learn from its mistakes. “Informed decision-making versus emotional.”