On December 23, 2027, federal agencies hiring into the competitive service will be required by law to test applicants with a technical assessment: a position-specific exam built from a job analysis, rather than a questionnaire in which applicants rate their own skills. The requirement comes from the Chance to Compete Act of 2024, Public Law 118-188, which was signed on December 23, 2024 and is now a little more than a year from its main deadline.

The act applies to federal hiring, not to private employers. But federal agencies hire engineers, scientists and technologists across the government, and the act also orders a review of whether degree requirements on scientific, technical and professional federal jobs are justified. Both make it relevant to students, graduates and the programs that prepare them.

What changes in how applicants are examined

The law amends section 3304 of title 5 of the U.S. Code and defines its terms. A technical assessment is a tool specific to the position that lets an applicant demonstrate job-related skills, knowledge, abilities and competencies, is based on a job analysis, and does not rely solely or principally on a self-assessment from an automated examination. That last clause rules out a self-rating questionnaire as the main screen.

A subject matter expert, defined as an employee or selecting official who understands the duties and skills of the position and is designated by the hiring unit, may build the assessment together with the agency's human resources staff. The act lists the forms it can take: a structured interview, a work-related exercise, a procedure that measures job-related qualifications and interests, or another assessment that lets applicants demonstrate job-related technical skills. The result can be used either to decide whether an applicant has a passing score or to rank applicants under the government's category rating system.

The timeline in the law

  • December 23, 2024 to December 23, 2027: an interim period in which agencies must prefer technical assessments to the maximum extent practicable. An agency that uses another kind of assessment must say why in the job posting.
  • Within 18 months of enactment (by June 2026): the Office of Personnel Management was to send Congress a plan for moving federal hiring to technical assessments, with job classifications prioritized and a timeline for full implementation.
  • Within one year: OPM was to study whether agencies can share and customize assessments, including a possible online platform for doing so.
  • From December 23, 2027: examining agencies must use technical assessments for competitive service positions. An agency can get a waiver for a particular job series only if the head of the agency personally certifies to OPM and Congress that a technical assessment is impracticable, naming the series, the number of positions and the reason. A waiver lasts three years.

The degree requirement review

Section 4 of the act directs OPM to review the examinations for every competitive service position that an agency has determined needs a minimum education requirement because the work is scientific, technical or professional, and to decide whether data, evidence or other information justifies keeping that requirement. OPM must consult agencies, employee representatives, outside experts and other stakeholders, and was to send Congress recommendations within a year of enactment. The act does not itself remove any degree requirement.

How progress is to be reported

OPM must publish on a public website, each year for five years, a report on how agencies are implementing the act and the difficulties they have run into. It must also publish yearly data on which types of examinations agencies used, broken down by applicant demographics against a baseline of data available as of October 1, 2020, using only closed and audited hiring actions. Agencies send OPM that data quarterly. If a report is late, OPM must post a notice saying why and when it will appear. Separately, the Government Accountability Office must report to Congress within three years on how the act has been implemented and its effect on competitive service hiring.

The act also lets agencies set up talent teams to improve examinations and job announcements and share lists of qualified applicants, and lets OPM run a governmentwide team that develops technical assessments.

What it means for job seekers and programs

For an applicant to a federal engineering, computing or science job, the practical effect is that more postings will screen with structured interviews, work samples or job-specific tests written by people who do the work, and fewer with self-rated checklists. Postings during the interim period must explain when they use something else. Career services offices and faculty advising students on federal careers can read OPM's published implementation reports to see which job series have moved and which hold waivers.

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