BIG CHANGE IN FEDERAL JOBS HIRING PROCESS!

By Elizabeth Newell enewell@govexec.com
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 

President Obama on Tuesday released a long-anticipated hiring reform memorandum, replacing requirements that federal job applicants respond to essay questions with a résumé based approach more in line with private sector practices.

The human capital officials in the audience erupted in applause when Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry announced the elimination of knowledge, skills and abilities statements. "Now, for the first time in history, you will be able to apply for almost every federal job with a simple résumé and a cover letter," Berry said. "This will save applicants millions of person hours as well as money."

Berry said Monster, the company OPM hired to run the USAJobs website, has prepared the site to accept résumé immediately.

The memo also does away with the rule of three, where managers must choose hires from among the top three applicants, as determined by an earlier scoring and selection process. Instead, agencies must use a category rating approach to keep the best qualified applicants in a pool of potential hires even if officials have selected another candidate for the vacancy in question. "Right now, once you made it through the meat grinder of this process, all these good candidates, who are well qualified -- they're best qualified -- we throw them out and make them start over again," Berry said. "We're going to stop that and now allow departments to immediately draw out of that pool."

Read the rest of the article here...

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Our federal government is hiring tens of thousands of new employees
at a steady pace, with job openings available for every interest area and at virtually every agency.