Details on federal hiring changes expected this week

Draft guidelines for minimizing agencies' reliance on college degrees when hiring for civil service positions should come this week, according to a senior Office of Personnel Management official.

OPM Deputy Associate Director for Strategic Workforce Planning John York, speaking at a Sept. 16 FCW event, said the guidance -- which covers implementation of President Donald Trump's June 26 executive order on "Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates," was nearly ready for agency review. The guidance will be finalized by Christmas, he added.

The executive order calls on federal agencies "to prescribe a minimum educational requirement for employment in the Federal competitive service" only when a degree or other educational qualification "is legally required to perform the duties of the position in the State or locality where those duties are to be performed."

Instead, York explained, the "EO requires agencies to develop skill- and competency-based assessments for every job they advertise in the competitive service." This new approach could be especially beneficial when filling IT jobs, he added, noting that "in many parts of the government, cybersecurity experts are hired by a system that pre-dates the existence of cybersecurity."

Many details must still be worked out regarding a change that York called "the biggest shift in federal hiring in almost 40 years." Those include standards for the assessments, and the development or procurement of the systems for administering such tests. He said OPM was working toward shared services to support agency's assessment efforts.