Federal Government Hiring Americans quicker and easier under reform

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Rob Shriver, Senior Legal Counsel to the Hiring Team, explains how the Office of Personnel Management's 2010 Hiring Reform initiative is going to change process and procedures for applicants, hiring managers and HR professionals.

To deliver the quality services and results the American people expect and deserve, the Federal Government must recruit and hire highly qualified employees, and public service should be a career of choice for the most talented Americans. After years of talking about reform, we're taking action. We're making it quicker and easier to connect the best candidates with Federal jobs.

Eliminating Narrative Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) Essay-Style Questions

To start, we're switching to resumes. You will be able to apply to almost any Federal job with just a resume and an optional cover letter. This will save applicants millions of person hours and money, too. Starting immediately, some agencies will no longer require narrative responses as a part of the initial application and all agencies will comply with this mandate by November 1, 2010. When applying to different types of jobs, you may still be required to answer a questionnaire or submit an online form so please pay close attention to the information listed under "How to Apply" in each job opportunity announcement.

Flexibility for Managers

We've also eliminated red tape so hiring managers can view and select more applicants. No longer will hiring managers be limited to view only the top three candidates (known as the Rule of 3), they will be presented with a pool of all of the best qualified candidates. Veterans will still be eligible for preference and encouraged to apply.

We've also launched shared lists of best qualified applicants for commonly filled government-wide occupations, which can speed up agency hiring by eliminating the need for applicants to apply more than once to a range of similar positions.

For more information

Visit the Hiring Reform website at http://www.opm.gov/HiringReform.

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PURPOSE

Permanent employees are generally hired into the Federal government under a career-conditional appointment. A career-conditional employee must complete three years of substantially continuous service before becoming a full career employee. Career-conditional employees are more vulnerable during layoffs than career employees.

SERVICE REQUIREMENT FOR CAREER TENURE

n employee must have 3 years of substantially continuous creditable service to become a career employee, i.e. obtain career tenure. The 3-year period must begin and end with non-temporary employment in the competitive service. Generally, substantially continuous creditable service must not include any break in service of more than 30 calendar days. If an employee does not complete the 3-year period, a single break in service of more than 30 calendar days will require the employee to serve a new 3-year period. (Periods of time in a non-pay status are not breaks in service and do not require the employee to begin a new 3-year period. However, they may extend the service time needed for career tenure.) Career-conditional employees automatically become career employees upon completion of this service requirement.

REQUIRED PROBATIONARY PERIOD

The first year of service of an employee who is given a career-conditional appointment is considered a probationary period. The probationary period is really the final and most important step in the examining process. It affords the supervisor an opportunity to evaluate the employee's performance and conduct on the job, and to remove the person without undue formality, if necessary. A person who is transferred, promoted, demoted, or reassigned before completing probation is required to complete the probationary period in the new position. Prior Federal civilian service counts toward completion of probation, if it is in the same agency, same line of work, and without a break in service.

ACQUIRING COMPETITIVE STATUS

Competitive status is a person's basic eligibility for assignment (e.g., by transfer, promotion, reassignment, demotion, or reinstatement) to a position in the competitive service without having to compete with members of the general public in an open competitive examination. When a vacancy announcement indicates that status candidates are eligible to apply, career employees and career-conditional employees who have served at least 90 days after competitive appointment may apply. Once acquired, status belongs to the individual, not to a position.

For more information on career and career-conditional appointments, probationary period, tenure, and competitive status consult Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), 5 CFR Part 315.

AS OF: 01/15/2010

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Resume and application tips:

Resume
As you may have noticed if you have begun your Federal job search, agencies have varying and unique application procedures to meet their hiring needs. One application format may be acceptable for one agency and not another. In the past, this proved to be frustrating for job seekers applying to multiple positions.


Building Your Resume On USAJOBS
In an effort to drive the Federal hiring process toward a universal application format, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) gathered together several agencies from around the government to create one resume format that would include all of the crucial data required for Federal application into one uniform resume format.

The product that resulted was the USAJOBS Resume Builder. The USAJOBS Resume Builder allows you to create one uniform resume that provides all of the information required by government agencies. Instead of creating multiple resumes in different formats, you can build your resume once and be ready for all job opportunities.

- USAJOBS Resume Builder

Resume and KSA (knowledge, skills & abilities) tips:

Pay Attention to Keywords
Whether you're writing your first resume, updating an existing one, or answering a position's Knowledges, Skills, and Abilities (KSA's), stop and think about which keywords you need to add. You could be the most qualified person for the position, but you could be lost in a sea of applicants without the right keywords.

A Single Keyword Communicates Multiple Skills and Qualifications

When a recruiter reads the keyword "analyst," he or she might assume you have experience in collecting data, evaluating effectiveness, and researching and developing new processes. Just one keyword can have tremendous power and deliver a huge message.

Study Job Announcements

This is the best way to determine important keywords. Review several job announcements and their questions for your ideal position. The jobs don't have to be in your geographic target area. The idea is to find skills, experience, education and other credentials important in your field. You will probably find keywords frequently mentioned by different agencies. Focus on the "requirements," "skills" or "qualifications" sections of job ads, and look for "buzzwords" and desirable credentials for your ideal job.

Be Concise

Don't confuse telling your story with creating your autobiography. Recruiters are inundated with applications and are faced with weeding out the good from the bad. The first step involves quickly skimming through submissions and eliminating candidates who clearly are not qualified. Therefore, your application needs to pass the skim test. Look at your resume and/or KSA's and ask yourself:

Can a hiring manager see my main credentials within 10 to 15 seconds?
Does critical information jump off the page?
Do I effectively sell myself on the top quarter of the first page?
The Sales Pitch

Because applications are quickly skimmed during the first pass, it is crucial your resume and KSA's get right to work selling your credentials. Your key selling points need to be prominently displayed at the top of the first page of the resume and directly address each question asked in the KSA section. For example, if an advanced degree is an important qualification, it shouldn't be buried at the end of a four-page resume. If a KSA question asks about your writing ability, immediately detail your experience instead of enjoyment of it.

Use an Editor's Eye

Many workers are proud of their careers and feel the information on a resume should reflect everything they've accomplished. However, a resume shouldn't contain every detail and KSA's should only address the question at hand. So be judicious. If your college days are far behind you, does it really matter that you pledged a fraternity or delivered pizza? The editing step will be difficult if you are holding on to your past for emotional reasons.

Use Numbers to Highlight Your Accomplishments

If you were a recruiter looking at a resume or an answer to a KSA, which of the following entries would impress you more:

Wrote news releases.
Wrote 25 news releases in a three-week period under daily deadlines.
Clearly the second statement carries more weight. Why? Because it uses numbers to quantify the writer's accomplishment, giving it a context that helps the interviewer understand the degree of difficulty involved in the task. Numbers are powerful resume tools that will help your accomplishments draw the attention they deserve from prospective employers. With just a little thought, you can find effective ways to quantify your successes on your resume.

Think Money

For-profit, nonprofit, and government organizations alike are and always will be concerned about money. So as you contemplate your accomplishments and prepare to present them on your resume or in your KSA's, think about ways you've saved money, earned money, or managed money in your internships, part-time jobs and extracurricular activities so far. A few possibilities that might appear on a typical college student's resume:

Identified, researched and recommended a new Internet Service Provider, cutting the company's online costs by 15 percent.
Wrote prospect letter that has brought in more than $25,000 in donations to date.
Managed a student organization budget of more than $7,000.
Think Time

You've heard the old saying, "Time is money," and it's true. Companies and organizations are constantly looking for ways to save time and do things more efficiently. They're also necessarily concerned about meeting deadlines, both internal and external. So whatever you can do on your resume or in your KSA's to show that you can save time, make time or manage time will grab your reader's immediate attention. Here are some time-oriented entries that might appear on a typical college student's resume:

Assisted with twice-monthly payroll activities, ensuring employees were paid as expected and on time.
Attended high school basketball games, interviewed players and coaches afterward, and composed 750-word articles by an 11 p.m. deadline.
Suggested procedures that decreased average order-processing time from 10 minutes to five minutes.