Administration to announce hiring overhaul Tuesday
By Dawn Lim dlim@govexec.com May 10, 2010
The Obama administration on Tuesday will unveil a major overhaul of the federal hiring process, the Office of Personnel Management announced.
The hiring reform memorandum will ask agencies to do away with hand-graded knowledge, skills and abilities essays by Nov. 1, at least in the early stages of the hiring process, Jeri Buchholz, associate director for human resources operations and policy? at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said during a federal jobs fair Saturday on the National Mall. The fair was part of Public Service Recognition Week.
OPM Director John Berry said during Government Executive's Excellence in Government conference in April that he was surprised by the number of KSA defenders who emerged while he was working to reform hiring, but added he was determined to eliminate the essays, which have been required along with résumés.
Critics have said KSAs are cumbersome and turn away talented private sector employees not well-versed in the language of the bureaucracy. But defenders argue these statements are useful for narrowing the applicant pool, which has been large in the current economic climate. For instance, at NRC, 22,000 people applied for 252 positions in 2009.
Under the new guidelines, recruiters will have to find other ways to evaluate applications. Some might devise their own multiple choice tests, while others could require specific writing samples. The hiring overhaul will bring more flexibility into the recruiting process.
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=45245&oref=todaysnews
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