I am very pleased to see that Senators Akaka and Voinovich are beginning to unravel the federal application process. They are talking about NO MORE KSAs! And I hope that they put a limit on the Questionnaire questions also. And … if they could take off 8,000 characters from the essay limits, that would be great too. They are also saying that announcements are written in language difficult for people to read – RIGHT, please write in Plain Language. What do you think about this? Kathryn
Akaka, Voinovich Introduce Bill to Streamline Federal Recruitment and Hiring
March 30, 2009
Washington, D.C. – Today U.S. Senators Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) and George V. Voinovich (R-OH) introduced the Federal Hiring Process Improvement Act of 2009, a bill to streamline the federal recruitment and hiring process.
“Too many federal agencies have built entry barriers for new workers and invented evaluation processes that discourage qualified candidates,” Senator Akaka said. “Like the private sector, agencies need to take advantage of modern technology to find and hire the right candidates. By streamlining and simplifying the hiring process, this bill will be an important step toward making the federal government the employer of choice.”
“Over and over, we hear of the problems in the federal hiring process. It takes too long; it is too burdensome, and so forth,” Senator Voinovich said. “The quality of technology has improved, but our processes have not. This does nothing to dispel any preconceived notions that the federal government is nothing but a bureaucratic system. It is time to convey to the thousands of men and women at all stages of their career looking for work that the federal government is more than just an employer, but a place where Americans can utilize and grow their skills in service to their nation.”
Among other provisions, the Federal Hiring Process Improvement Act seeks to address these issues by requiring agencies to:
* Develop strategic workforce plans, including hiring projections and critical skills gaps in the workforce;
* Post brief, clear job announcements in plain writing;
* Allow applicants to submit resumes and cover letters,
and no longer require “knowledge, skills, and abilities” essays;
* Provide timely notification to applicants on the status of their applications;
* Take no more than 80 days from the time a managers decides to fill a vacancy to the time an offer is made;
* Keep an inventory of all applicants who elect to be considered for other federal vacancies; and
* Measure the effectiveness of hiring efforts and reforms.
FEDERAL HIRING IMPROVEMENT BILL – READ HERE
Write Senator Akaka here
Good news for federal job seekers.
KSAs seem difficult for many people!
Kathryn, I’m with you on the number of questions that require essay responses on the Questionnaires. I’m applying for a TSA Program Analyst job, and there are more than twenty questions that require essay responses. To make it worse, the questions are clumped 4 and 5 at a time, with a single essay space in which to “provide a short example for each question.”
Yeesh. I’m former Federal trying to get back in, and I’m having bad flashbacks. . .
Hi David, I’d like to ask the Senators to keep the questions to under 20. With no more than 2 essays (if they must), and the questionnaire character count recommendation under 2,000. It’s all about metrics, right? Federal HR metrics are out of control. Thanks for your note. Kathryn
HOLY S&#!
No more KSA’s? That would UNBELIEVABLE.
I could not agree with you more. The valuable individuals that are being missed because they do not have the time to go through the labor intesive KSA processing is devastating. You also have to make sure that all the agencies MUST follow OPM guidelines, not just as a guideline, but as mandate. Many agencies to not follow time in grade when jobs are advertised whether you are a current federal employee or new to the process. OPM are just not being followed, used as guidelines only. This is absolutely unsatisfactory.
Individuals cannot wait 5 to 8 mos to get an answer, we need jobs now, we need to find out what we can write, what keywords are the HR technicians looking for? A real hiring agent does not even see the KSA’s if the right words are not used. Thank goodness someone really is taking this seriously.