Head Staff's Guide to Federal Jobs Part 3 Evaluation and Examination

Head Staff’s Guide to Federal Jobs

Part 3 Open to the Public- Competitive Hiring Evaluation and Examination

ABOUT ME- I was pretty tickled when reddit gave me the name Head Staff since I retired as the chief of staffing for a federal agency- along the way I worked for 6 different Federal agencies, including OPM. I have over 35 years of Federal HR experience. Or I could just be a random person. What I hope to do is clear up some common myths about Federal hiring and make it less frustrating for you. Looking for a job sucks. It really does.

Ok- do we remember where we are? Competitive Hiring in the Federal Service. These are announcements open to the general public. Sometimes called Delegated Examining or DE because OPM has delegated this authority to agencies.

So, you have applied to a position and been found eligible- you meet the minimum requirements for the job. If you are applying under a direct hire position, you take the off ramp now and go to the selecting official. You have also officially moved from being an applicant to a candidate- congratulations!

If you did not apply to a direct hire position- then you and the agency are governed by 5 USC 3304 (b)-

“An individual may be appointed in the competitive service only if he has passed an examination or is specifically excepted from examination under section 3302 of this title.”

5 USC also states that the President may prescribe rules for open, competitive examinations for testing applicants for appointment in the competitive service which are practical in character and as far as possible relate to matters that fairly test the relative capacity and fitness of the applicants for the appointment sought.

We tend to think of examinations as a test- but in this case, they are a way that the agency (or the HR office acting on behalf of the agency) tries to determine who is the best qualified for the job. The wheat from the chaff, the cream from the milk, the sheep from the goats. Pick your analogy. Does it work?- well if you got the job, you think it did.

Evaluations can take many different forms. The most common is a questionnaire. With automated systems, sometime this is done at the same time as qualifications requirements. Sometimes an online assessment like USAHire is used. Sometimes a HR specialist applies a rating schedule manually. Sometimes a panel of subject matter experts assists HR, sometimes a panel interview is used as part of the assessment or a writing sample. The How You Will Be Evaluated section of the announcement will explain what evaluation methods will be used.

Usually with a questionnaire, the first part are screening questions for qualifications- asking you if you are qualified based on education or experience or ever held a certain grade level or similar type questions. These questions are no part of the rating process- you don’t get any points- they are to help automate the qualifications process.

Anyone who has been around applicants’ questionnaires for a while knows there are serious problems with this approach- the most common being what we euphemistically call applicant “self-inflation”.

On June 26, 2020, Executive Order (EO) 13932 - Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment

and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates was issued. The EO reminded agencies of their legal

obligation to use valid, competency-based assessments and directed them to scale back reliance

upon educational qualifications as a substitute for competencies in the Federal hiring process.

The EO directed the following:

In assessing candidates, agencies are directed to refrain from relying solely on candidate

self-assessments of their qualifications (e.g., occupational questionnaires). Applicants are

to clear other assessment hurdles in order to be considered qualified in examinations and

thus eligible for preference and referral.

By May 30, 2022, agencies are supposed to have 50% of their assessments using more than questionnaires. By December 31, 2022- they are supposed to be at 100% compliance. So I would expect to see what are called multiple hurdle approaches- a questionnaire and-

· A structured interview

· Or a writing sample

· Or some sort of test like USAHire or…???

After assessments are completed, candidates are placed in a quality category and veterans’ preference Is applied. In most cases, the assessments are scored and given a point value and that is how the candidate is placed. But those two concepts veterans’ preference and category rating will require another series of posts.

As always, comments, corrections and suggestions welcome.