College Recruitment Service

On 14 September 2020, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) awarded a single, firm fixed price, follow-on contract to Stryder Corp doing business as Handshake, a Small Business. The award consists of a Base Year and three (3) Option Years, and has a total contract value of $10,453,417.00 (including all options). The Period of Performance for the Base Year is 15 September 2020 through 14 September 2021. Among other things, this College Recruitment Service contract will provide the Intelligence Community (IC) with the ability to use an internet accessible university platform capability that bridges the recruiting gap for students and IC elements by allowing communication between students and recruiters in a one-stop-shop environment. The university platform will help the IC better understand and analyze its return on investment (ROI) on outreach and recruitment efforts. The enhanced digital platform and metrics collection capability will also allow the IC to reach a greater number of targeted applicant groups to help shape its future workforce. All contractor services will be performed from an off-site, non-Government location. As previously stated in the Government's Notice of Intent to Sole Source, an IC pilot contract was previously established with Handshake for its Software as a Service (SaaS) college recruitment platform to deliver personalized candidate experiences to potential IC applicants and to simplify the recruiter on-campus, conference, and interview experience. During the pilot contract, Handshake's SaaS was specially tailored to meet the IC's needs and implemented by certain IC elements. The purpose of the follow-on contract is to provide the resulting highly specialized SaaS to the entire IC to meet an initiative from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to develop more robust processes for the IC to collaboratively recruit and hire. This action was conducted in accordance with FAR Part 6.302-1 - Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. This exception was applicable due to the fact that award to any other contractor would have likely resulted in unacceptable delays, as well as a duplication of cost that was not expected to be recovered through competition. Additionally, Handshake is the only known contractor that is capable of meeting all of the Government's essential requirements. Establishing an IC-wide contract for this capability has been an initiative that ODNI has been working towards for many years. The IC pilot contract with Handshake was established to assess the potential benefit and feasibility of these services. Given the positive results and the benefits gained from the pilot contract and Handshake's specialization of its SaaS offering for the IC, the Government was ready to implement the final stage of its initiative where this capability was made available to the whole IC. Award to any other source for a college recruitment SaaS would have likely resulted in duplication of costs and unacceptable delays. Handshake had already been proven during the pilot contract. If a follow-on IC-Wide contract had not been awarded to Handshake at this stage of the initiative, then the Government would have had to conduct a source selection and award another similar pilot contract before that SaaS could be made available to the entire IC. Going through the pilot process again would have been necessary for any new contractor as their services would have needed to be determined beneficial and feasible, and their SaaS offering customized, before making it available to the entire IC. This approach would have resulted in unacceptable delays considering the amount of time that would have been required to plan and conduct a source selection, and the period of performance of a new pilot itself. Such a competition and award of a new pilot contract would have cost the Government a lot of time and money just to get back to the same point it was already at. Separately, market research revealed that Handshake is the only known contractor that is capable of meeting all of the Government's essential requirements, which includes but not limited to; the capability to post jobs to 1000+ colleges and universities simultaneously, posting and managing events, conducting event check-in, and conducting unlimited video content. Although there were similar offerings in the marketplace, none of those offerings had all of these unique and essential characteristics required by the Government. The Government will continue searching the marketplace for competitive alternatives. Following the conclusion of this follow-on effort, the Government will compete future requirements to the extent practicable. This notice does not constitute a request for proposals, quotations, or bids and does not commit NGA to contract for any supplies or services.