a

GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to the Subcommittee on Civil 

Service and Agency Organization, 

Committee on Government Reform, 

House of Representatives

June 2004 HUMAN CAPITAL

Additional 

Collaboration 

Between OPM and 

Agencies Is Key to 

Improved Federal 

Hiring

GAO-04-797
Congress, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and agencies have 

recognized that federal hiring has needed reform, and they have undertaken 

various efforts to do so. In particular, Congress has provided agencies with 

additional hiring flexibilities, OPM has taken significant steps to modernize 

job vacancy announcements and develop the government’s recruiting Web 

site, and most agencies are continuing to automate parts of their hiring 

processes. Still, problems remain with a job classification process that many 

view as antiquated, and there is a need for improved tools to assess the 

qualifications of job candidates. 

On the basis of our survey of members of the interagency Chief Human 

Capital Officers (CHCO) Council, agencies appear to be making limited use 

of two new hiring flexibilities that could help agencies in expediting and 

controlling their hiring processes (see figure below). Frequently cited 

barriers to using the new hiring flexibilities included (1) the lack of OPM 

guidance for using the flexibilities, (2) the lack of agency policies and 

procedures for using the flexibilities, (3) the lack of flexibility in OPM rules 

and regulations, and (4) concern about possible inconsistencies in the 

implementation of the flexibilities within the department or agency. 

Extent of Use of New Hiring Flexibilities 

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Number of agencies

Category rating

Direct hire

Little or

no extent

Some

extent

Moderate

extent

Great

extent

Very great

extent

No basis/

not applicable

Source: CHCO Council members' responses to GAO questionnaire.

The federal government is now facing one of the most transformational 

changes to the civil service in half a century. Today’s challenge is to define 

the appropriate roles and day-to-day working relationships for OPM and 

individual agencies as they collaborate on developing innovative and more 

effective hiring systems.

Improving the federal hiring 

process is critical given the 

increasing number of new hires 

expected in the next few years. 

The subcommittee asked GAO to 

report on the (1) status of recent 

efforts to help improve the federal 

hiring process and (2) extent to 

which federal agencies are using 

two new hiring flexibilities—

category rating and direct-hire 

authority. Category rating permits 

an agency to select any job 

candidate placed in a best-qualified 

category. Direct-hire authority 

allows an agency to appoint 

individuals to positions without 

adherence to certain competitive 

examination requirements when 

there is a severe shortage of 

qualified candidates or a critical 

hiring need. 

Last year, GAO made specific 

recommendations that OPM work 

with and through the CHCO Council 

to help agencies better use human 

capital flexibilities. This includes 

efforts to improve hiring processes. 

GAO is thus not making additional 

recommendations at this time. 

In comments on a draft of this 

report, OPM said that agencies must 

make fixing the hiring process a 

priority. OPM also expressed 

concerns about our survey of 

CHCOs. We disagreed with OPM’s 

contention that such officials are 

not knowledgeable enough to 

respond to our survey. Where 

appropriate, the report was revised 

to reflect OPM’s comments. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-797.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact J. Christopher 

Mihm at (202) 512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-797, a report to the 

Subcommittee on Civil Service and 

Agency Organization, Committee on 

Government Reform, House of 

Representatives 

June 2004

HUMAN CAPITAL

Additional Collaboration Between OPM 

and Agencies Is Key to Improved Federal 

Hiring 
Page i GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 6

Previous Work by GAO and Others Has Identified Key Problem 

Areas in the Competitive Hiring Process 12

OPM and Agencies Are Taking Steps to Improve the Hiring

Process 14

Agencies Appear to Be Making Limited Use of New Hiring 

Flexibilities 30

Conclusions 42

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 42

Appendixes

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 45

Appendix II: Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members of the Chief 

Human Capital Officers Council 49

Appendix III: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management 61

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 63

GAO Contact 63

Acknowledgments 63

Tables Table 1: New Federal Hires by Department or Agency for Fiscal 

Year 2003 11

Table 2: Governmentwide and Agency-Specific Direct-Hire 

Authorities Issued by OPM (June 2003 to Present) 38

Figures Figure 1: Typical Steps for Filling Competitive Selection 

Vacancies 8

Figure 2: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Extent to 

Which Their Agencies Are Using Category Rating 34

Figure 3: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Most 

Significant Barriers Preventing or Hindering Their 

Agencies’ Use of Category Rating 35

Figure 4: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Extent to 

Which Their Agencies Are Using Direct Hire 40

Figure 5: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Most 

Significant Barriers Preventing or Hindering Their 

Agencies’ Use of Direct Hire 41
This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further 

permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain copyrighted images or 

other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to 

reproduce this material separately.

Abbreviations

ACWA Administrative Careers with America

ARS Agricultural Research Service

CHCO Chief Human Capital Officer

CPDF Central Personnel Data File

DOD Department of Defense

DHS Department of Homeland Security

FS Forest Service

GS General Schedule

IT information technology

MSPB Merit Systems Protection Board

NAPA National Academy of Public Administration

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OPM Office of Personnel Management

PACE Professional and Administrative Careers Examination

Contents

Page ii GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process
Page 1 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

June 7, 2004 Letr

The Honorable Jo Ann Davis

Chairwoman

The Honorable Danny K. Davis

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Civil Service

and Agency Organization

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

High-performance organizations need dynamic, results-oriented 

workforces with the requisite knowledge and up-to-date skills to 

accomplish their missions and achieve their goals. To acquire such 

workforces, federal agencies must have effective hiring processes so that 

they can compete for talented people in a highly competitive job market. 

Improving the federal hiring process is critical given the increasing number 

of new hires expected in the next few years. In fiscal year 2003, the 

executive branch hired nearly 95,000 new employees. Yet, there is 

widespread recognition that the federal hiring process all too often does 

not meet the needs of agencies in achieving their missions, managers in 

filling positions with the right talent, and applicants for a timely, efficient, 

transparent, and merit-based process.

In May 2003, we issued a report on several key problems in the federal 

hiring process.1 To help address these problems, we recommended that the 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) take additional actions to assist 

agencies in strengthening the federal hiring process. We also reported that 

agencies must take responsibility for maximizing the efficiency and 

effectiveness of their hiring processes within the current statutory and 

regulatory framework. You asked us to follow up on this report and 

provide information on (1) the status of recent efforts to help improve the 

federal hiring process and (2) the extent to which federal agencies are

1 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Opportunities to Improve Executive 

Agencies’ Hiring Processes, GAO-03-450 (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2003).
Page 2 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

using new hiring flexibilities contained in the Homeland Security Act of 

2002—category rating and direct-hire authority.2

To respond to these follow-up issues, we interviewed officials from OPM 

and the interagency Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council. We 

also administered a questionnaire to the 23 agency members serving on the 

CHCO Council, and all but one responded.3

 In addition, we collected and 

reviewed OPM documents related to the federal hiring process, and we 

reviewed data from OPM’s central database of governmentwide personnel 

information. We conducted our work in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards. (See app. I for additional 

information on our objectives, scope, and methodology and app. II for the 

complete results of our CHCO Council survey.) 

Results in Brief Congress, OPM, and agencies recognize that federal hiring has needed 

reform, and they have undertaken various efforts to do so. In particular, 

Congress has provided agencies with additional hiring flexibilities, OPM 

has taken significant steps to modernize job vacancy announcements and 

develop the government’s recruiting Web site, and most agencies are 

continuing to automate parts of their hiring processes. Still, problems 

remain with the job classification process regarded by many as antiquated, 

and there is a need for improved tools to assess the qualifications of job 

candidates. In addition, despite agency officials’ past calls for hiring 

reform, agencies appear to be making limited use of hiring flexibilities 

enacted by Congress and implemented by OPM almost a year ago that 

could help agencies in expediting and controlling the hiring process.

OPM and agencies are continuing to address the problems with the key 

parts of the federal hiring process we identified in our May 2003 report. 

Significant issues and actions being taken include the following.

2

 Category rating permits an agency manager to select any job candidate placed in a bestqualified category rather than being limited to three candidates under the “rule of three.” 

Direct-hire authority allows an agency to appoint individuals to positions without adherence 

to certain competitive examination requirements when there is a severe shortage of 

qualified candidates or a critical hiring need. These two hiring flexibilities are contained in 

the Chief Human Capital Officers Act of 2002, Title XIII of the Homeland Security Act of 

2002, Public Law 107-296, Nov. 25, 2002.

3

 The CHCO Council member from the Central Intelligence Agency did not respond to the 

survey because his representative said the agency was an excepted service agency and thus 

the survey questions were not relevant.
Page 3 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

• Reforming the classification system. In our May 2003 report on 

hiring, we reported that many regard the standards and process for 

defining a job and determining pay in the federal government as a key 

hiring problem because they are inflexible, outdated, and not applicable 

to the jobs of today. OPM has revised the classification standards of 

several job series to make them clearer and more relevant to current job 

duties and responsibilities. In addition, as part of the effort to create a 

new personnel system for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 

OPM is working with DHS to create broad pay bands for the department 

in place of the 15-grade job classification system that is required for 

much of the rest of the federal civil service. OPM told us that its ability 

to more effectively reform the classification process is limited under 

current law and that legislation is needed to modify the current 

restrictive classification process for the majority of federal agencies. 

Fifteen of the 22 CHCO Council members responding to our survey 

reported that either OPM (10 respondents) or Congress (5 respondents) 

should take the lead on reforming the classification process, rather than 

the agencies themselves.

• Improving job announcements and Web postings. In our May 2003 

report, we noted that the lack of clear and appealing content in federal 

job announcements could hamper or delay the hiring process. OPM has 

continued to move forward on its interagency project to modernize 

federal job vacancy announcements, including providing guidance to 

agencies to improve announcements. In addition, OPM continues to 

collaborate with agencies in implementing Recruitment One-Stop, an 

electronic government initiative that includes the USAJOBS Web site 

(www.usajobs.opm.gov) to assist applicants in finding employment with 

the federal government. All 22 of the CHCO Council members 

responding to our survey reported that their agencies had made efforts 

to improve their job announcements and Web postings. In narrative 

responses to our survey, a CHCO Council member representing a major 

department said, for example, that the USAJOBS Web site is an 

excellent source for posting vacancies and attracting candidates. 

Another said that the Recruitment One-Stop initiative was very timely in 

developing a single automated application for job candidates. 

• Automating hiring processes. In our May 2003 report, we conveyed 

that manual processes for rating and ranking job candidates are time 

consuming and delay the federal hiring process. OPM provides to 

agencies on a contract or fee-for-services basis an automated hiring 

system, USA Staffing, which is a Web-enabled software program that 
Page 4 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

automates the steps of the hiring process. According to OPM, over 40 

federal organizations have contracted with OPM to use USA Staffing. 

Other federal agencies have relied on private vendors to automate their 

hiring processes. Twenty-one of the 22 CHCO Council members 

responding to our survey reported that their agencies had made efforts 

to automate significant parts of their hiring processes. 

• Improving candidate assessment tools. We concluded in our May 

2003 report that key candidate assessment tools used in the federal 

hiring process can be ineffective. We especially noted some of the 

challenges of assessment tools and special hiring programs used for 

occupations covered by the Luevano consent decree.4

 Although OPM 

officials said that they monitor the use of assessment tools related to 

positions covered under the Luevano consent decree, they have not 

reevaluated these assessments tools. OPM officials told us, however, 

that they have provided assessment tools or helped develop new 

assessment tools related to various occupations for several agencies on 

a fee-for-service basis. Although OPM officials acknowledged that 

assessment tools in general need to be reviewed, they also noted that it 

is each agency’s responsibility to determine what tools it needs to assess 

job candidates. The OPM officials also said that if agencies do not want 

to develop their own assessment tools, then they could request that 

OPM help develop such tools under the reimbursable service program 

that OPM operates. Twenty-one of the 22 CHCO Council members 

responding to our survey reported that their agencies had made efforts 

to improve their hiring assessment tools. 

Agencies appear to be making limited use of two new personnel flexibilities 

created by Congress in November 2002 and implemented by OPM in June 

2003—category rating and direct-hire authority. Data on the actual use of 

these new flexibilities are not readily available, but most CHCOs 

responding to our survey indicated that their agencies are making little or 

no use of either flexibility—a view confirmed by OPM officials based on 

4

 The Luevano consent decree is a 1981 agreement that settled a lawsuit alleging that a 

written test, Professional and Administrative Careers Examination (PACE), had an adverse 

impact on African Americans and Hispanics. See Luevano v. Campbell, 93 F.R.D. 68 (D.D.C. 

1981). The consent decree called for the elimination of PACE and required replacing it with 

alternative examinations. In response to the consent decree, OPM developed the 

Administrative Careers with America (ACWA) examination. The consent decree also 

established two special hiring programs, Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural, for 

limited use in filling former PACE positions.
Page 5 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

their contacts with agencies. The limited use of category rating is 

somewhat unexpected given the views of human resources directors we 

interviewed 2 years ago. As noted in our May 2003 report, many agency 

human resources directors indicated that the antiquated method of ranking 

and referring candidates was one of the key obstacles in the hiring process. 

Category rating was authorized to address those concerns. In our survey of 

CHCO Council members, 21 of the 22 respondents cited at least one barrier 

that they said prevented or hindered their agencies from using or making 

greater use of the new hiring flexibilities. Although no one specific barrier 

was cited by a majority of survey respondents for either of the two new 

hiring flexibilities, frequently cited barriers included (1) the lack of OPM 

guidance for using the flexibilities, (2) the lack of agency policies and 

procedures for using the flexibilities, (3) the lack of flexibility in OPM rules 

and regulations, and (4) concern about possible inconsistencies in the 

implementation of the flexibilities within the department or agency. 

In a separate report we issued in May 2003 on the use of human capital 

flexibilities, we recommended that OPM work with and through the new 

CHCO Council to more thoroughly research, compile, and analyze 

information on the effective and innovative use of human capital 

flexibilities and more fully serve as a clearinghouse in sharing and 

distributing information.5

 We noted that sharing information about when, 

where, and how the broad range of flexibilities is being used, and should be 

used, could help agencies meet their human capital management 

challenges. As we recently testified, OPM and agencies need to continue to 

work together to improve the hiring process, and the CHCO Council should 

be a key vehicle for this needed collaboration.6

 To accomplish this effort, 

agencies need to provide OPM with timely and comprehensive information 

about their experiences in using various approaches and flexibilities to 

improve their hiring processes. OPM—working through the CHCO 

Council—can, in turn, help accomplish this effort by serving as a facilitator 

in the collection and exchange of information about agencies’ effective 

practices and successful approaches to improved hiring.

5

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: OPM Can Better Assist Agencies in 

Using Personnel Flexibilities, GAO-03-428 (Washington, D.C.: May 9, 2003).

6

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Observations on Agencies’ 

Implementation of the Chief Human Capital Officers Act, GAO-04-800T (Washington, D.C.: 

May 18, 2004).
Page 6 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

The federal government is now facing one of the most transformational 

changes to the civil service in half a century, which is reflected in the new 

personnel systems for DHS and the Department of Defense (DOD) and in 

new hiring flexibilities provided to all agencies. Today’s challenge is to 

define the appropriate roles and day-to-day working relationships for OPM 

and individual agencies as they collaborate on developing innovative and 

more effective hiring systems. Moreover, human capital expertise within 

the agencies must be up to the challenge for this transformation to be 

successful and enduring.

The Director of OPM provided written comments on a draft of this report, 

which are reprinted in appendix III. In her written comments, the OPM 

Director said that OPM has done much to assist agencies to improve hiring 

and increase agency officials’ knowledge about hiring flexibilities available 

to them, and she highlighted various examples of OPM’s efforts in this 

regard. She also stressed that agencies must rise to the challenge, provide 

consistent leadership at the senior level, take advantage of the training 

opportunities offered by OPM, and make fixing the hiring process a 

priority. The OPM Director also commented that the report “appears to 

rely upon perceptions that are not consistent with the facts.” In technical 

comments, OPM explained that this concern related to the reporting of 

various narrative responses from our survey of CHCO Council members. 

We disagreed with OPM’s contention that such officials are not 

knowledgeable enough to comment on the issues we raised in our 

questionnaire. Additional information on OPM’s comments and our 

evaluation of those comments is presented at the end of this report. Where 

appropriate, we made changes to the report to address the comments we 

received. 

Background Federal civil service employees, other than those in the Senior Executive 

Service, are employed in either the competitive service or the excepted 

service.7

 The competitive service examination process is one of the 

processes intended to ensure that agencies' hiring activities comply with 

merit principles. In January 1996, OPM delegated examining authority to 

7

 Positions may be excepted from the competitive service by statute, by the President, or by 

OPM. 5 C.F.R. § 213.101. OPM may except positions from the competitive service when it 

determines that appointments into such positions through competitive examination are not 

practicable. 5 C.F.R. § 6.1(a). Examples of excepted service positions include chaplains, 

attorneys, and political appointees. 5 C.F.R. Part 213, Subpart C.
Page 7 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

federal agencies for virtually all positions in the competitive service. Under 

delegated examining authority, agencies conduct competitive examinations 

that comply with merit system principles, other personnel-related laws, and 

regulations as set forth in OPM’s Delegated Examining Operations 

Handbook. OPM is responsible for ensuring that the personnel 

management functions it delegates to agencies are conducted in 

accordance with merit principles and the standards it has established for 

conducting those functions. 

The federal hiring process involves notifying the public that the 

government will accept applications for a job, screening applications 

against minimum qualification standards, and assessing applicants' relative 

competencies or knowledge, skills, and abilities against job-related criteria 

to identify the most qualified applicants. Federal agencies typically 

examine or assess candidates by rating and ranking them based on of their 

experience, training, and education, rather than by testing them. Figure 1 

shows the typical steps for filling vacancies through the competitive 

examining process.
Page 8 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Figure 1: Typical Steps for Filling Competitive Selection Vacancies

● Writes position description 

 and establishes job 

 classification (occupation) 

 and pay grade level.

● Conducts job analysis:

Identifies job's important 

 roles, functions, and 

 tasks.

● Develops weighted 

 criteria to evaluate the 

 relative competencies, 

 and knowledge, skills, 

 and abilities of applicants.

● Writes crediting or 

 rating plan for making 

 consistent and job-

 related determinations 

 about the relative 

 qualifications of 

 applicants for a position.

Delegated examining unit

● Complies with OPM 

 procedures for 

 accepting and 

 documenting timely, 

 complete, and 

 preference-eligible 

 applications.

● Complies with OPM 

 content requirements.

● Determines 

 open/closing dates.

● Posts announcement 

 on USAJOBS, 

 governmentwide 

 automated 

 employment 

 information system.

Human capital office/ 

job manager

Prepare public notice

and job vacancy 

announcement 

Receive applications

Define job and set pay, 

qualifications 

and assessment 

criteria ● Electronically

● By mail

● In person

Source: GAO.
Page 9 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Human capital office

● U.S. citizenship and 

 basic OPM educational 

 and work experience 

 qualifications standards.

Selecting official

Assess qualified 

candidates

Candidate selection

Screen for eligibility 

and minimum 

qualification 

standards

Bring new hire 

on board

● Makes job offer.

● Conducts 

 pre-employment checks 

 and security clearances.

● Brings new hire 

 on board.

● Convenes assessment 

 panels and/or uses 

 automated systems to 

 apply criteria in making 

 consistent, job-related 

 determinations on 

 relative merits of 

 applicants.

● Applies veterans’ 

 preference.

● Prepares a numerically

 ranked list of the 

 eligible candidates, or 

 under category rating, 

 assigns candidates to 

 one of at least two 

 quality groups.

● Sends a list of at least 

 three candidates to 

 selecting official, or 

 under category rating, 

 sends a list of all 

 candidates in the 

 highest quality group.

● Conducts interviews.

● Checks references.

● Makes selection from top 

 three available candidates, 

 or under category rating, 

 selects any candidate in 

 the highest quality group.

● Veterans may not be 

 passed over for 

 nonveterans without 

 justification and OPM 

 approval.
Page 10 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 contained new hiring flexibilities that 

could help agencies in expediting and controlling their hiring processes— 

category rating and direct-hire authority. Category rating is an alternative 

rating and selection procedure that can expand the pool of qualified job 

candidates from which agency managers may select. Under this procedure, 

an agency manager can select any job candidate placed in a best-qualified 

category rather than being limited to three candidates under the “rule of 

three.” Direct-hire authority allows an agency to appoint individuals to 

positions without adherence to certain competitive examination 

requirements when OPM determines that there is a severe shortage of 

candidates or a critical hiring need. Specifically, when making 

appointments under the newly authorized direct-hire authority, agencies 

still are required to provide public notice of the job vacancies and screen all 

applicants to ensure that they meet the basic qualification requirements of 

the position; however, agencies are not required to numerically rate and 

rank candidates nor apply the rule of three or veterans’ preference. 

The act also established a CHCO position in 24 federal agencies to advise 

and assist the head of each agency and other agency officials in their 

strategic human capital management efforts.8

 Additionally, the act created 

a CHCO Council to advise and coordinate these activities among the 

agencies. In accordance with the act, members of the CHCO Council 

include the Director of OPM, the Deputy Director for Management at the 

Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the CHCOs from executive 

departments, and additional agency members designated by the OPM 

Director. The functions of the CHCO Council are to offer advice and 

coordinate agencies’ activities concerning modernization of human 

resources systems, improving the quality of human resources information, 

and giving concerted attention to legislation affecting human resources 

operations. The CHCO Council currently has five subcommittees that help 

carry out its work, including a subcommittee on the hiring process.9

 The 

purpose of the hiring subcommittee is to identify actions it or the CHCO 

Council could take to improve recruiting and hiring in the federal 

government. 

8

 The CHCO provisions, along with the hiring flexibilities, are contained in the Chief Human 

Capital Officers Act of 2002, Title XIII of the Homeland Security Act.

9

 The CHCO Council has subcommittees on (1) the hiring process, (2) performance 

management, (3) leadership development and succession, (4) employee conduct and poor 

performers, and (5) emergency preparedness.
Page 11 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Since the mid-1990s, the number of new federal hires increased 

considerably—increasing from about 50,000 employees in 1996 to over 

143,000 employees in 2002. Federal hiring in the mid-1990s declined 

because many agencies were downsizing and did not need to fill positions. 

Increasingly, agencies began hiring new employees, particularly because of 

a slowdown in downsizing and growing numbers of employees retiring. In 

fiscal year 2003, the largest federal hirer was DOD, which brought on board 

more than one-third of all hires. The number of federal hires decreased in 

2003 over 2002, which was primarily because of the hiring of nearly 35,000 

airport screeners in 2002 into the newly created Transportation Security 

Administration. Table 1 shows the number of new federal hires by 

department or agency for fiscal year 2003.

Table 1: New Federal Hires by Department or Agency for Fiscal Year 2003

Department or agency

Competitive 

service

Excepted 

service Total

Department of Defense 22,764 12,525 35,289

Department of Veterans Affairs 8,910 5,902 14,812

Department of the Treasury 8,038 527 8,565

Department of Homeland Security 4,220 1,636 5,856

Department of Justice 4,739 1,010 5,749

Department of Agriculture 3,505 847 4,352

Social Security Administration 1,897 2,411 4,308

Department of Transportation 499 2,284 2,783

Department of Interior 1,818 688 2,506

Department of Health and Human Services 1,761 722 2,483

Department of Commerce 1,255 226 1,481

All others 4,166 2,640 6,806

Total 63,572 31,418 94,990

Source: OPM Central Personnel Data File.
Page 12 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Previous Work by GAO 

and Others Has 

Identified Key Problem 

Areas in the 

Competitive Hiring 

Process

Within government and the private sector, it has been widely recognized 

that the federal hiring process is lengthy and cumbersome and hampers 

agencies' ability to hire the high-quality people they need to achieve their 

agency goals and missions. Numerous studies and research over the past 

decade by OPM, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the National 

Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), the Partnership for Public 

Service, the National Commission on the Public Service, and GAO have 

noted concerns and problems with the federal hiring process, as the 

following examples illustrate. 

• In October 2001, the Partnership for Public Service released the results 

of a poll it had commissioned that found “many people view the process 

of seeking federal employment as a daunting one. Three-quarters of 

non-federal workers say making the application process quicker and 

simpler would be an effective way of attracting talented workers to 

government.”10

• In July 2002, NAPA reported that federal “hiring remains a slow and 

tedious process.” The report noted that “Many managers are attempting 

to rebuild a pipeline of entry level employees in this very competitive 

labor market, yet current hiring methods do not keep pace with the 

private sector.”11

• In September 2002, MSPB said that the federal hiring process has a 

number of key problems including “overly complex and ineffective 

hiring authorities” and “inadequate, time-consuming assessment 

procedures.”12

10 Hart-Teeter Research, The Unanswered Call to Pubic Service: Americans’ Attitudes 

Before and After September 11th (Washington, D.C.: October 2001).

11 National Academy of Public Administration, Summary of Human Resources 

Management Research for the National Commission on the Public Service (Washington, 

D.C.: July 2002).

12 U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Making the Public Service Work: Recommendations 

for Change (Washington, D.C.: September 2002).
Page 13 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

• In November 2002, OPM in its strategic plan for 2002 through 2007 

stated, “There is a general perception that our hiring process takes too 

long and may not provide well-qualified candidates.”13

• In January 2003, the National Commission on the Public Service said, 

“Recruitment to federal jobs is heavily burdened by ancient and illogical 

procedures that vastly complicate the application process and limit the 

hiring flexibility of individual managers.”14

Our May 2003 report on federal hiring summarized these concerns and 

added further evidence to confirm many of the problems and issues that 

have been identified over the past decade. As many of these and other 

studies have noted, and as many human resources directors pointed out in 

our prior interviews, nearly all parts of the competitive hiring process 

hamper effective and efficient federal hiring. Key problem areas identified 

in our May 2003 report included the following.

• Outdated and cumbersome procedures to define a job and set the pay 

are not applicable to the jobs and work of today.

• Unclear, unfriendly job announcements cause confusion, delay hiring, 

and serve as poor recruiting tools.

• A key assessment tool and hiring programs used for several entry-level 

positions are ineffective.

• Convening panels and the manual rating and ranking of applicants to 

determine best-qualified applicants is time-consuming.

• Numerical rating and ranking and the "rule of three" limit the choice of 

applicants and are viewed as ineffective.

As noted previously, our prior work surveying human resources directors, 

along with the work of others, indicated that the time-to-hire is too long for 

most federal hires. Comprehensive department or governmentwide data 

on time-to-hire are often not available; however, in fiscal year 2002, OPM 

13 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Strategic Plan 2002-2007 (Washington, D.C.: 

November 2002).

14 National Commission on the Public Service, Urgent Business for America: Revitalizing 

the Federal Government for the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: January 2003).
Page 14 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

compiled and analyzed data on time-to-hire and found that it typically took 

on average about 102 days for agencies to fill a vacancy using the 

competitive process. At that time, OPM measured time-to-hire from the 

period between when the request to hire or fill a position was received in 

the human resources office to the appointment of an applicant to the 

position. Additional time might be needed for a manager to obtain 

approval for the requested hiring action at the beginning of the process or 

for the new employee to receive a security clearance at the end of the 

process. OPM officials told us that better data are not available on time-tohire and that they are surveying federal agencies to assess how to gather 

systematic data on time-to-hire. 

OPM and Agencies Are 

Taking Steps to 

Improve the Hiring 

Process 

OPM and agencies are continuing to focus on the problems with the federal 

hiring process we identified in our May 2003 report. OPM has taken actions 

to address federal hiring across the board and for specific parts of the 

hiring process. For example, in February of this year, the Director of OPM 

issued a memorandum to the CHCOs of federal agencies offering 10 ways 

that agencies can immediately improve their hiring processes using 

authorities they already possess. Steps outlined in this memo include fully 

engaging the agency’s human resources staff and offering recruiting 

incentives such as recruitment bonuses, relocation expenses, and student 

loan repayments. In addition, to encourage agencies to improve their 

hiring processes, OPM is urging agencies to implement a new 45-day hiring 

model, which measures the time-to-hire period from the date the vacancy 

announcement closes to the date a job offer is extended. OPM officials 

said they would work closely with agencies to deploy all appropriate 

flexibilities to meet this goal. According to OPM, agencies will be scored 

under the Human Capital Initiative of the President's Management Agenda 

on their progress toward reducing time-to-hire. In addition, OPM is 

administering a survey of CHCOs on agency hiring practices to identify 

opportunities to use the flexibilities strategically, eliminate remaining 

outmoded practices, and generally expedite the hiring process.

OPM and agencies have also taken actions to address various key parts of 

the federal hiring process. These parts, which are discussed in this section, 

include reforming the classification system, improving job announcements 

and Web postings, automating hiring processes, and improving candidate 

assessment tools. Our May 2003 report on federal hiring outlined 

recommendations to OPM dealing with these key parts of the hiring 

process. While OPM has placed concerted attention on three of these key 

parts of the hiring process, focused attention and action by OPM to 
Page 15 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

improve assessment tools, as we recommended in our May 2003 report, 

could further help agencies in identifying the best candidates for federal 

jobs.

Reforming the Classification 

System Could Better 

Facilitate Filling Positions 

with the Right Employees

We previously reported the conclusion of many that the standards and 

process for defining a job and determining pay in the federal government 

are a key hiring problem because they are inflexible, outdated, and not 

applicable to the jobs of today. The classification system is intended to 

categorize jobs or positions according to the kind of work done, the level of 

difficulty and responsibility, and the qualifications required for the position, 

and is to serve as a building block to determine the pay for the position. 

Generally, defining a job and setting pay in the federal government must be 

based on standards in the Classification Act of 1949, which sets out 15 

grade levels of the General Schedule (GS) expressed in terms of the 

difficulty and level of responsibility for each specific position.15 The 

federal classification process and standard job classifications were 

generally developed decades ago when typical jobs were more narrowly 

defined and often clerical or administrative in nature. However, jobs in 

today's knowledge-based organizations often require a much broader array 

of tasks that may cross over the narrow and rigid boundaries of job 

classification standards and make it difficult to fit the job appropriately 

into one of the over 400 federal occupations. According to a recent OPM 

study, a key problem with federal job classification is that, under present 

rules, characteristics such as workload, quality of work, and results are not 

classification factors that can affect the overall level of basic pay for a 

position.16 Given this limitation, the resulting job classifications and 

related pay might hamper efforts to fill the positions with the right 

employees.

Our May 2003 report noted some actions that OPM and agencies had taken 

to address the federal job classification process. For example, we reported 

that some agencies had automated their complicated classification 

processes to reduce the time it takes to carry out this task. The 

Department of the Army, for instance, created a centralized database that 

15 The GS is the federal government’s main pay system for “white-collar” positions. Each of 

the 15 grades of the GS are divided into 10 specific pay levels called “steps.”

16 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, A Fresh Start for Federal Pay: The Case for 

Modernization (Washington, D.C.: April 2002).
Page 16 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

gives human resources managers at Army access to active position 

descriptions and position-related information to help in classifying jobs. In 

addition, we noted that OPM had revised the classification standards for 

several job series, including health care professions and law enforcement, 

to make them clearer and more relevant to current job duties and 

responsibilities. At that time, OPM pointed out that the classification 

standards and process needed to be reformed and that changes to the 

Classification Act of 1949 were needed to make fundamental changes to 

how jobs are defined and pay is set. Our report noted, however, that OPM 

recognized the need to maintain the GS system in the absence of an 

alternative and well-managed transition to a new system. 

In our May 2003 report, we also recommended that OPM study how to 

improve, streamline, and reform the classification process. In response to 

our questions about the status of OPM’s actions on this recommendation, 

OPM said that it has recently taken several actions to address the job 

classification process. OPM stated that most classification standards are 

being issued as “job family” standards, which OPM said allows it to study 

related occupations together to identify both commonalities and 

differences. OPM also said that it is working closely with agencies to 

ensure that classification standards reflect the current nature of federal 

work. OPM noted, for example, that it is working with a number of 

agencies to develop a new job family standard for administrative work in 

the occupational series covering investigative work. In addition, OPM said 

that it is exploring an integrated approach to classification and 

qualification standards. By integrating these two functions into a single 

occupational standard, OPM hopes to make more clear the link between 

the work conducted in an occupation, the competencies required to 

perform that work, and the requirements that individuals must 

demonstrate to be placed into these positions. OPM believes an integrated 

approach for classification and qualifications standards will improve the 

quality of the federal workforce through competency-based qualifications 

that identify the full range needed for successful job performance. This 

new approach thus could better enable federal agencies to hire the right 

person at the right time. 
Page 17 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

OPM also recently collaborated with DHS to help reform its personnel 

system. The Homeland Security Act, which created DHS, provided it with 

significant flexibility to design a modern human capital system. 

Specifically, DHS may deviate from the classification and most pay rate 

requirements contained in Title 5 of the U.S. Code.17 Under proposed 

regulations, DHS would create broad pay bands for much of the 

department in place of the 15-grade GS system now in place for much of the 

civil service. Several OPM-sponsored demonstration projects over the past 

20 years have demonstrated the efficacy of pay banding systems that were 

similar to the system being proposed by DHS.18 Last September, we 

reported that DHS’s process for designing its new human capital system 

involved significant collaboration with OPM and generally reflected the 

important elements of a successful transformation, including effective 

communication and employee involvement.19 A new OPM initiative is to 

collaborate with DOD as that department also develops and implements its 

new personnel system—the National Security Personnel System.20 In 

testimony earlier this year, we stressed that DOD could benefit from 

employing a collaborative and inclusive process similar to that used by 

DHS.21

17 Public Law 107-296, Nov. 25, 2002. Title 5 is the title of the U.S. Code that stipulates 

civilian personnel law for much of the federal civil service.

18 See our recent report describing several personnel demonstration projects: U.S. General 

Accounting Office, Human Capital: Implementing Pay for Performance at Selected 

Personnel Demonstration Projects, GAO-04-83 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 23, 2004).

19 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: DHS Personnel System Design Effort 

Provides for Collaboration and Employee Participation, GAO-03-1099 (Washington, D.C.: 

Sept. 30, 2003). Also, we reported on key practices and steps that can help agencies 

implement successful transformations in modernizing their human capital policies in the 

following reports: Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to Assist Mergers and 

Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: July 2, 2003); and 

Highlights of a GAO Forum: Mergers and Transformations: Lessons Learned for a 

Department of Homeland Security and Other Federal Agencies, GAO-03-293SP

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 14, 2002).

20 The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 authorized DOD to establish 

a new civilian personnel system that is flexible, contemporary, and consistent with merit 

system principles. Public Law 108-136, Nov. 24, 2003.

21 U.S. General Accounting Office, Department of Defense: Further Actions Needed to 

Establish and Implement a Framework for Successful Financial and Business 

Management Transformation, GAO-04-551T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 23, 2004).
Page 18 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Additionally, in April 2004, OPM released a draft publication entitled OPM’s 

Guiding Principles for Civil Service Transformation, which, as its title 

suggests, proposes a set of principles for reshaping the civil service 

system.22 In this draft document, OPM states that the modernization of the 

federal job classification process should begin with governmentwide 

legislation that mirrors the flexibilities provided to DHS and DOD. OPM 

also indicates that reform in the areas of pay and performance management 

systems should be a top priority, and that if agencies governmentwide do 

not receive reforms similar to those that DHS and DOD have received in 

this area, agencies risk being at a competitive disadvantage in recruiting a 

talented workforce. Furthermore, OPM’s draft document suggests that 

there is no need for further testing of pay-for-performance approaches in 

the federal government and that it is now time to extend the DHS and DOD 

pay-for-performance frameworks to other agencies that are ready to 

modernize their human resources systems. 

Views of the CHCO Council 

Members

In our April 2004 survey of the members of the CHCO Council, 13 of the 22 

respondents said that they were aware of efforts that OPM has made to 

reform the federal classification process (see app. II for further 

information). In narrative responses to our survey questions relating to job 

classification, one CHCO Council member representing a large department, 

for example, recognized OPM’s work to develop job family standards. 

Conversely, a Council member representing an independent agency said he 

was not aware of any significant OPM-led reforms related to classification. 

For those respondents who said they were aware of any OPM efforts to 

reform the classification process, we also asked about the extent to which 

OPM’s efforts had helped their agencies and about their level of satisfaction 

or dissatisfaction with such OPM efforts and related proposals. In 

narrative responses to our survey questions, a CHCO Council member 

representing a large department said, for example, that OPM had 

relinquished any responsibility for reforming the process and that it has 

been up to Congress to legislate reforms for specific agencies. Another 

respondent said that OPM is making modest progress to change the 

classification process within the purview of its authority but that changes 

to existing law are necessary for real reform to occur. 

We also asked the CHCO Council members for their views about who 

should currently take the lead in furthering reform of the classification 

22 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Draft: OPM’s Guiding Principles for Civil Service 

Transformation (Washington, D.C.: April 2004).
Page 19 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

process in the federal government. Fifteen of the 22 CHCO Council 

members responding to our survey reported that either OPM (10 

respondents) or Congress (5 respondents) should take the lead on 

reforming the classification process, rather than the agencies themselves. 

In narrative responses to our survey questions, one Council member 

representing a major department said, for example, that CHCOs should be 

closely involved in this effort and that OPM’s efforts could be improved 

with the input and shared responsibility of the agencies. Another 

respondent encouraged Congress to pass legislation granting other 

agencies still under Title 5 rules a comparable degree of flexibility to that 

provided to DHS, DOD, and other agencies given authority for personnel 

reform. Another Council member representing a department suggested 

that any reform effort on the part of OPM or others should focus on linking 

true classification reform and pay for performance. Another respondent 

said that an independent group or task force should take the lead in 

furthering reform of the classification process.

Status of Our Prior 

Recommendation to OPM

OPM has implemented the recommendation that we made in last year’s 

report for OPM to study how to improve, streamline, and reform the 

classification process. The draft Guiding Principles for Civil Service 

Transformation document released by OPM in April lays out some 

significant proposals for changes to the civil service system, which 

encompasses issues related to job classification. OPM told us that when 

drawing conclusions about OPM’s efforts to reform the job classification 

process, it is important to recognize OPM’s limited latitude under current 

statute. OPM pointed out that it does not have the option of 

accommodating the persistent broadening of work levels that has occurred 

in organizations throughout the post-industrial workplace by establishing 

standards that reflect fewer, broader levels of work. OPM has noted that its 

ability to more effectively reform the classification process is limited under 

current law and that legislation is needed to modify the current restrictive 

classification process for the majority of federal agencies. OPM officials 

said that they must maintain the 15-grade GS system and make it possible 

for agencies to classify their GS positions reliably according to law in as 

straightforward a manner as possible. 
Page 20 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Improved Job 

Announcements and Web 

Postings Can Serve as 

Better Recruiting Tools

In our May 2003 report, we noted that the lack of clear and appealing 

content in federal job announcements can hamper or delay the hiring 

process. During the work for that report, our interviews with several 

agency human resources directors revealed that federal job 

announcements are frequently incomprehensible and make it difficult for 

applicants to determine what the jobs require, and therefore do not serve 

as effective recruiting tools. We cited reports23 from MSPB that said 

vacancy announcements often included poor organization and readability, 

unclear job titles and duties, vague or restrictive qualification standards, 

and the use of negative language or tone that might deter many qualified 

candidates. MSPB also said that some job announcements were lengthy 

and difficult to read online, contained jargon and acronyms, and appeared 

to be written for people already employed by the government. MSPB 

further noted that many of the announcements it reviewed did not include 

information on retirement and other benefits, such as vacation time and 

medical and health insurance, which might entice people to apply. As we 

pointed out in our previous report, making vacancy announcements more 

visually appealing, informative, and easy to access and navigate could 

make them much more effective as recruiting tools. 

Prior to the issuance of our last report on federal hiring, OPM had initiated 

some actions to help make job announcements easier to access and 

understand. OPM initiated an interagency project to modernize federal job 

vacancy announcements, including providing guidance to agencies to 

improve announcements. OPM also worked to obtain contractor support 

to enhance its USAJOBS Web site with the goals of making it easier and 

quicker for people to find federal jobs and enhancing the site’s “eyecatching” appeal. This effort is part of the Recruitment One-Stop initiative, 

which, as the name implies, would provide a one-stop Web site for federal 

job seekers by implementing a single application point that includes 

vacancy information, job application submission, application status 

tracking, employment eligibility screening, and applicant database mining. 

23 U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Competing for Federal Jobs – Job Search 

Experiences of New Hires (Washington, D.C.: February 2000); and Help Wanted: A Review 

of Federal Vacancy Announcements (Washington, D.C.: December 2002).
Page 21 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

More recently, OPM also has taken additional steps to make job 

announcements and Web postings more user friendly and effective. In 

August 2003, OPM revamped the USAJOBS Web site to feature a quicker 

job-search engine, sorting capabilities, and accessibility for disabled users. 

Other new features included allowing applicants to create and save 

application letters and store up to five resumes online as well as making 

posted resumes searchable by agency recruiters. In an effort to centralize 

and streamline the process, OPM had also originally proposed to have 

executive branch agencies shut down their agency-unique job search 

engines and resume builders. This raised concerns by competing private 

vendors offering their own recruitment and hiring software to agencies. 

According to OPM, in response to these concerns, it informed agencies that 

they were free to adopt any online recruiting and hiring system they wish as 

long as the system eventually was integrated with the governmentwide 

online recruitment system.24

In March, we reported on the progress of various electronic government 

initiatives, including the OPM-led Recruitment One-Stop initiative.25 We 

noted OPM’s goal to increase customer satisfaction with the federal 

application process through Recruitment One-Stop. According to OPM, the 

customer satisfaction rating26 for the USAJOBS Web site had increased 

from a score of 68 on December 15, 2003, to a score 75.5 as of May 14, 2004. 

We also reported that a resume-mining tool to identify candidates had been 

implemented as part of the Web site but the tool had not been widely used 

to date. OPM told us that the addition of the resume-mining tool was one of 

many recent changes to the USAJOBS Web site and OPM had not yet fully 

trained agencies on the use of this tool. Nevertheless, according to OPM, 

since launching the new USAJOBS technology in August 2003, more than 

24 Concern over OPM’s original proposal also generated a restriction precluding OPM from 

using its fiscal year 2004 funds to prohibit any agency from contracting with companies to 

provide online employment applications and processing services. Departments of 

Transportation and Treasury, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2004, Pub. L. 

No. 108-199, div. F, title VI, § 628, 118 Stat. 349, 356-7 (Jan. 23, 2004).

25 U.S. General Accounting Office, Electronic Government: Initiatives Sponsored by the 

Office of Management and Budget Have Made Mixed Progress, GAO-04-561T (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 24, 2004).

26 The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) rates customer service with a score of 

0 to 100. The satisfaction score for the USAJOBS Web site is determined using a 90-day 

average based on Web site visitors’ responses to an online survey. OPM officials stated that 

although they have increased customer satisfaction for the Web site, their intention is to 

significantly surpass the governmentwide average score of 71.
Page 22 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

500,000 new resumes have been created and over 325,000 of the resumes 

are searchable. OPM reported that anecdotal information received from 

agencies using the resume-mining tool was very encouraging. For example, 

one agency reported to OPM that it had identified excellent job candidates 

using the resume-mining tool and had recently hired an employee using this 

feature.

Views of the CHCO Council 

Members

In our April 2004 survey of the members of the CHCO Council, all of the 22 

respondents said that their agencies had made efforts to improve their job 

announcements and Web postings. Our survey also asked the CHCO 

Council members about the extent to which OPM had assisted their 

agencies in improving job announcements and Web postings and their level 

of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with that assistance (see app. II for further 

information). In narrative responses to our survey questions on improving 

job announcements and Web postings, a CHCO Council member 

representing a major department said, for example, that the USAJOBS Web 

site is an excellent source for posting vacancies and attracting candidates. 

Another respondent said that the Recruitment One-Stop initiative was very 

timely in developing a single automated application for job candidates. 

Another commented that OPM has encouraged agency participation in 

revamping the vacancy announcement text and in usability testing of the 

Recruitment One-Stop site. A Council member representing a major 

department added that OPM’s continued support is needed in providing 

guidance and templates to agencies on streamlined, easy-to-understand 

language for job postings. Overall, more survey respondents reported 

some degree of satisfaction with OPM’s assistance in improving job 

announcements and Web postings than on any other part of the hiring 

process that we surveyed.

Status of Our Prior 

Recommendation to OPM

OPM has implemented the recommendation that we made in last year’s 

report for OPM to continue to assist agencies in making job 

announcements and Web postings more user friendly and effective. OPM’s 

efforts in this area are demonstrated by the CHCO Council members’ 

relative level of satisfaction with OPM’s assistance in improving job 

announcements and Web postings compared to other parts of the hiring 

process that we surveyed. Nonetheless, OPM told us that agencies 

themselves have the front-line responsibility for improving the content of 

their own job announcements. OPM suggested that agencies assign an 

individual to review and modify their job announcements to make their 

postings understandable and more interesting to potential job candidates.
Page 23 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Automation Could Help to 

Streamline Agencies’ Hiring 

Processes

In our May 2003 report, we reported that manual processes for rating and 

ranking candidates are time consuming and delay the federal hiring 

process. Prior to assessing applicants based on their relative merits, 

agencies must conduct a screening process to determine if applicants meet 

eligibility requirements (such as U.S. citizenship) and the basic or minimum 

education or work experience qualifications that OPM established for such 

a position. As we reported, in a manual hiring system, human resources 

staff would have to review all the applications and document why an 

applicant did or did not meet minimum qualifications. If there is a large 

number of applicants, carrying out this process can be time consuming. We 

also pointed out that once the applicants' eligibilities are determined, 

agencies typically undertake a labor-intensive effort to establish and 

convene assessment panels and manually rate and rank the candidates 

based on their relative merits. Some of the delay in convening the 

assessment panels is due to assembling the appropriate managers and 

subject matter experts, coordinating their availability, and factoring in the 

exigencies of other demands. Once formed, the panel sorts through all of 

the applicants' paperwork, assesses the applicants, and determines a 

numerical score for each applicant by rating the education and experience 

described by the applicant against the evaluation criteria in the crediting 

plan for the position.

The use of automation for agency hiring processes has various potential 

benefits, including eliminating the need for volumes of paper records, 

allowing fewer individuals to review and process job applications, and 

reducing the overall time-to-hire. Automation can facilitate almost every 

step of the federal hiring process. For example, an automated hiring 

system could electronically determine if an applicant met the basic 

qualifications and electronically provide timely notification to the applicant 

of the status of his or her application. Automation could also streamline 

the process by electronically rating and ranking applicants, or placing them 

in quality categories, eliminating the need to form panels to assess the 

applicants. In addition, automated systems typically create records of 

actions taken so that managers and human capital staff can easily 

document their decisions related to hiring. Nonetheless, agencies need to 

recognize the importance of careful planning and implementation when 

automating their hiring processes. As we have previously reported,
Page 24 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

agencies should first validate their requirements and look at reengineering 

their administrative processes before developing any information systems 

to support their processes.27

In our May 2003 report, we related that OPM had taken some actions to 

help agencies automate and streamline their hiring processes. OPM 

developed an automated hiring system, called USA Staffing, which federal 

agencies may purchase from OPM. USA Staffing is a Web-enabled software 

program that automates the steps of the hiring process, including 

recruitment, assessment, referral, and applicant notification. Beginning in 

September of 2000, OPM invited human resources officials from federal 

agencies to OPM-sponsored USA Staffing demonstrations, where human 

resources officials could learn about the advantages of using USA Staffing. 

According to OPM, over 40 federal organizations have contracted with 

OPM to use USA Staffing. Other federal agencies have relied on private 

vendors to automate their hiring processes. 

Views of the CHCO Council 

Members

In our April 2004 survey of the members of the CHCO Council, 21 of 22 

respondents said that their agencies had made efforts to automate 

significant parts of their hiring processes. For those responding that they 

had made such efforts, we also asked about the extent to which OPM had 

assisted their agencies in automating their hiring processes and their level 

of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with that assistance (see app. II for further 

information). In narrative responses to our survey questions about 

automating hiring processes, one Council member representing a cabinetlevel department concurred with OPM’s current approach to support thirdparty vendors who can provide robust and streamlined rating and ranking 

systems that complement and supplement the Recruitment One-Stop. 

Another Council member said that current OPM policy or regulations that 

impede the automation of the federal hiring process should be streamlined 

and simplified for both the applicant and human resources practitioner. 

Other comments included the following.

• Individual departments and agencies should manage the automation 

process themselves, even though not all agencies have comparable 

information technology (IT) infrastructures.

27 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Effective Use of Flexibilities Can Assist 

Agencies in Managing Their Workforces, GAO-03-2 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 6, 2002).
Page 25 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

• Agencies should decide how to best accomplish automation of their 

hiring processes instead of forcing integration into one system. 

• OPM and the departments and agencies have a shared responsibility for 

automation of hiring processes. 

Status of Our Prior 

Recommendation to OPM

OPM has implemented the recommendation that we made in last year’s 

report for OPM to assist agencies in automating their hiring processes. 

OPM has continued to promote the use of automated systems, including 

USA Staffing and customer systems to meet agency needs. OPM’s efforts in 

this area are demonstrated by its work in providing services to over 40 

federal organizations that have contracted with OPM to use USA Staffing. 

OPM officials said that OPM has developed and would soon implement a 

new Web-based version of USA Staffing, which would link and automate 

the recruitment, examining, referral, notification, and hiring processes.

Improved Assessment Tools 

Could Help Agencies in 

Identifying the Best 

Candidates for Jobs

In our May 2003 report, we concluded that key candidate assessment tools 

used in the federal hiring process can be ineffective. Agencies can use 

various approaches to assess job candidates under the federal merit-based 

hiring process. These applicant assessment tools include written and 

performance tests, manual and automated techniques to review each 

applicant’s training and experience, as well as interviewing approaches and 

reference checks. Using the right assessment tool, or combination of tools, 

can assist the agency in predicting the relative success of each applicant on 

the job and selecting the relatively best person for the job.

Our May 2003 report particularly discussed the ineffectiveness of candidate 

assessment tools associated with filling occupations covered by the 

Luevano consent decree. We noted that the Administrative Careers with 

America (ACWA) self-rating examination that is used to competitively fill 

most positions covered by the Luevano consent decree was cumbersome, 

delayed hiring, and often did not provide quality candidates. This ACWA 

rating-schedule examination contains 157 multiple-choice questions that 

are designed to distinguish among qualified applicants on the basis of their 

self-rated education and life experience. In our May 2003 report, we noted 

that many agencies reported that the primary reason they did not use the 

ACWA examination was their past experiences with the quality of the 

candidates. For positions that are not covered by the Luevano consent 

decree, agencies typically examine candidates by rating and ranking them 

based on experience, training, and education, instead of administering 

tests.
Page 26 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Our May 2003 report also discussed the challenges associated with the 

special hiring programs established under the consent decree—

Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural. Many agency human 

resources officials we interviewed for our May 2003 report said the 

Outstanding Scholar program was a quick way to hire high-quality college 

graduates for positions covered by the Luevano consent decree without 

using the complex OPM examination process. However, OPM and MSPB 

have commented that this is an inappropriate use of the authority. 

Outstanding Scholar allows candidates who meet the eligibility criteria—

baccalaureate grade point average and class standing—to be directly 

appointed without competition. According to MSPB, such criteria are 

questionable predictors of future performance, and they deny 

consideration to many qualified applicants. For similar reasons, MSPB also 

has concerns about the Bilingual/Bicultural program, which permits 

agencies to directly hire applicants who obtained a passing examination 

score, without further regard to rank, when the position needs to be filled 

by an incumbent with bilingual or bicultural skills and the applicant has the 

requisite job skills. MSPB has recommended abolishing both the 

Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural programs because they are 

not merit based and because other competitive hiring methods have been 

more effective in hiring minorities.

In general, both OPM and MSPB are concerned about the validity of 

candidate assessment tools for all occupations and advocate that agencies 

improve their assessment instruments. OPM told us that because of budget 

constraints, it has only been able to develop assessments on a reimbursable 

basis when other agencies provide OPM with the needed resources. OPM 

also said that many agencies do not have the technical expertise, funding, 

or time to develop valid assessment tools. MSPB noted that the 

government's interest is not well served if agencies do not have the 

resources and expertise to make high-quality case examining 

determinations.
Page 27 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Given the problems with these key candidate assessment tools and special 

hiring authorities for Luevano-covered positions, we recommended in our 

May 2003 report that OPM review the effectiveness of the Outstanding 

Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural Luevano consent decree hiring authorities. 

As we noted in our report, OPM recognized that it needed to do more 

overall to improve candidate assessment tools. In its fiscal year 2003 

performance plan, OPM included a strategic objective that, by fiscal year 

2005, governmentwide hiring selections are to be based on comprehensive 

assessment tools that assess the full range of competencies needed to 

perform the jobs of the future. Since the issuance of our report last year, 

OPM told us that, as part of the consent decree, it collects data annually on 

how agencies used the Outstanding Scholar hiring authority; however, OPM 

has not reevaluated assessment tools related to Luevano-covered positions. 

OPM acknowledged that assessment tools in general need to be reviewed, 

but commented that it is primarily the agency’s responsibility to address 

these issues and recommended that agencies perhaps form consortia to 

improve their assessment tools. OPM officials noted that several agencies, 

such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Customs 

Service, created their own assessment tools for Luevano positions.28 OPM 

officials also said that if agencies do not want to develop their own 

assessment tools, then they could request that OPM help develop such 

tools under the reimbursable service program that OPM operates. 

In technical comments to our draft report, OPM stated that the ACWA 

rating schedules are valid assessments that have been approved by the 

Department of Justice and that meet professional and legal requirements 

for test development and validation. OPM added that it has efforts 

underway to automate the ACWA system as the second phase of its 

Recruitment One-Stop initiative. Nonetheless, many agency human 

resources officials that we interviewed for our previous work on federal 

hiring told us that the ACWA rating schedule was cumbersome, delayed 

hiring, and often did not provide quality candidates. Thus, although the 

ACWA rating schedule might meet legal and test-development 

requirements, it does not appear to effectively meet the needs of many 

agency human capital officials in their efforts to readily identify and quickly 

hire high-quality job applicants.

28 The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Customs Service are now part of 

the Department of Homeland Security.
Page 28 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Views of the CHCO Council 

Members

In our April 2004 survey of the members of the CHCO Council, 21 of the 22 

respondents said that their agencies had made efforts to improve their 

hiring assessment tools. For those responding that they had made such 

efforts, we also asked about the extent to which OPM had assisted their 

agencies in developing improved hiring assessment tools and their level of 

satisfaction or dissatisfaction with that assistance (see app. II for further 

information). In narrative responses to our survey questions on improving 

assessment tools, a Council member representing a cabinet-level 

department said, for example, that the department has used OPM’s 

reimbursable service to develop occupation-specific assessment tools with 

good success. A respondent representing another department said OPM 

should tackle the ACWA assessment tool for hiring into occupations 

covered by the Luevano consent decree, because the assessment tool 

places far too much emphasis on experience at the expense of education 

and potential. According to another Council member, departments and 

agencies are fully competent to procure or develop assessment tools, and 

no additional OPM policy or regulation is necessary for the improvement of 

such tools. Other members made the following comments.

• OPM is best positioned to take the lead in improving assessment tools 

for jobs that are common across the government.

• OPM should take the lead governmentwide for the development of 

improved assessment tools, but agencies should take the lead for their 

own agency efforts. 

• Both OPM and the departments and agencies have responsibility for 

developing assessment tools. 

• Although OPM should not mandate specific assessment tools, as the 

federal human resources expert, OPM should take a strong role in 

providing information, assessments, analyses, and suggestions for 

agencies in using automated tools to assess job applicants. 

Status of Our Prior 

Recommendations to OPM

OPM officials told us that they believe OPM has implemented the 

recommendation that we made in last year’s report for OPM to develop and 

help agencies develop improved hiring assessment tools. OPM officials 

also told us that OPM has implemented another recommendation we made 

in last year’s report for OPM to review the effectiveness of the Outstanding 

Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural Luevano consent decree hiring authorities. 

Although we agree that OPM has provided assistance to agencies in 

improving their candidate assessment tools and has collected information 
Page 29 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

on agencies’ use of the special hiring authorities, major challenges remain 

in this area, particularly with the continued use of the ACWA exam. OPM 

needs to take further action to address these recommendations, such as 

actively working to link up agencies having similar occupations so that they 

could potentially form consortia to develop more reliable and valid tools to 

assess job candidates.

Our Prior Recommendation 

on Enhancing the Use of 

Human Capital Flexibilities 

in the Federal Government 

We have reported that agencies need to streamline and improve their 

administrative processes for using flexibilities and review self-imposed 

constraints that may be excessively process oriented. In our December 

2002 report on the effective use of human capital flexibilities, we reported 

that some of the barriers to effective strategic human capital management 

in the federal government do not stem from law or regulation but are selfimposed by agencies.29 We noted, for example, that the source of these 

barriers can sometimes be agencies’ lack of understanding on the 

prerogatives that they have. Clearly, as we have previously reported, 

agencies need to become better informed about the human capital tools 

and flexibilities available to them and make better use of them than they 

have in the past. Agencies need to learn more about what is being done in 

the human capital area by agencies that have taken the initiative—which 

approaches have worked, which have not, and what lessons can be drawn 

from others’ experiences and used to improve their organizations’ 

approaches to managing their human capital. 

This process is where OPM can also play an important role. In a separate 

report we issued in May 2003 on how OPM can better assist agencies in 

using personnel flexibilities, we recommended that OPM work with and 

through the CHCO Council to more thoroughly research, compile, and 

analyze information on the effective and innovative use of human capital 

flexibilities, including those related to federal hiring.30 We noted that this 

should involve more fully serving as a clearinghouse in sharing and 

distributing information about when, where, and how flexibilities are being 

used, and should be used, to help agencies meet their human capital 

management needs. As we recently testified, OPM and agencies need to 

continue to work together to improve the hiring process, and the CHCO

29 GAO-03-2.

30 GAO-03-428.
Page 30 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Council should be a key vehicle for this needed collaboration.31 To 

accomplish this effort, agencies need to provide OPM with timely and 

comprehensive information about their experiences in using various 

approaches and flexibilities to improve their hiring processes. OPM—

working through the CHCO Council— can, in turn, help accomplish this 

effort by serving as a facilitator in the collection and exchange of 

information about agencies’ effective practices and successful approaches 

to improved hiring.

Agencies Appear to Be 

Making Limited Use of 

New Hiring 

Flexibilities

On the basis of our interviews with OPM officials and the responses to our 

survey of CHCO Council members, federal agencies appear to be making 

limited use of category rating and direct-hire authority, two new hiring 

flexibilities authorized by the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Data on the 

actual use of these two hiring flexibilities are not readily available, partly 

because of the recency of their authorization. OPM officials we met with 

expressed the OPM Director’s frustration that agencies are not attempting 

to use the flexibilities that OPM worked to have written into law for 

agencies’ use. Our survey of CHCO Council members confirmed the view 

that agencies are not making extensive use of new flexibilities. Also, 21 of 

the 22 survey respondents cited at least one barrier that they said 

prevented or hindered their agencies from using or making greater use of 

the new hiring flexibilities. Some of the barriers they identified included 

(1) the lack of OPM guidance for using the flexibilities, (2) the lack of 

agency policies and procedures for using the flexibilities, (3) the lack of 

flexibility in OPM rules and regulations, and (4) concern about possible 

inconsistencies in the implementation of the flexibilities within the 

department or agency. OPM officials said that they believe the primary 

reason agencies are not using these new flexibilities is that agency officials 

are unfamiliar with them and do not have sufficient knowledge and skills 

related to these flexibilities to maximize their use. OPM officials said that 

OPM provided agencies with guidance for using the flexibilities, such as 

training sessions at recruitment fairs and procedures in the OPM Delegated 

Examining Operations Handbook. 

31 GAO-04-800T.
Page 31 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Use of Category Rating 

Could Provide Agencies 

with a Larger Pool of HighQuality Candidates from 

Which to Select

Category rating is an alternative rating and selection procedure that can 

provide agency managers will a larger pool of qualified job candidates from 

which to select than numerical ranking and the rule of three, while also 

protecting veterans’ preference. Under category rating, job candidates are 

assigned to quality categories—such as “best qualified” or “highly 

qualified”—following an assessment of their knowledge and skills against 

job-related criteria. The names of all candidates in the highest quality 

group are then sent to the selecting official and are available for selection. 

If the highest quality group contains a veteran, the veteran must be hired 

unless an objection to hiring the veteran is sustained by OPM.32 If the 

number of candidates falling into the highest quality group is inadequate, 

applicants from the next highest quality group of eligible candidates can 

also be referred to the agency manager for selection.

In our May 2003 report on hiring, we pointed out that among several 

candidate-assessment-related issues, one of the largest obstacles in the 

federal hiring process was the rule of three and numerical rating system 

that limited managers’ choice of quality candidates. Our report noted that 

many of the human resources directors we interviewed from the 24 largest 

federal agencies raised concerns that the rule of three and numerical rating 

had a negative impact on hiring high-quality people. Under procedures 

using the rule of three, once the assessment panel has rated the candidates, 

the agency’s human resources office applies applicable veterans’ 

preference points, ranks candidates, and refers a sufficient number of 

candidates to permit the selecting official to consider three candidates that 

are available for appointment. The selecting official is required to select 

from among the top three ranked candidates available for appointment. If 

a candidate with veterans’ preference is on the list, the selecting official 

cannot pass over the veteran and select a lower ranking candidate without 

veterans’ preference unless the selecting official’s objection to hiring the 

veteran is sustained by OPM.

32 Compensable veterans with a disability of 10 percent or more who are rated as eligible 

“float to the top” of the highest quality group except in cases involving hiring for 

professional or scientific positions at or above grade GS-9.
Page 32 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Over the past decade, the use of category rating procedures to assess job 

applicants was tested in selected agencies through an OPM-sponsored 

demonstration project and was generally found to be an effective rating 

approach.33 As we noted in our May 2003 report, the Department of 

Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Forest Service (FS) 

tested and implemented category rating in lieu of numerical ranking and 

the rule of three under such a demonstration project. The final 5-year 

evaluation of the project showed that (1) the number of candidates per job 

announcement increased, (2) more candidates were referred to managers 

for selection, (3) hiring speed increased, and (4) there was greater 

satisfaction with the hiring process among managers. On average, there 

were from 60 percent (ARS) to 70 percent (FS) more applicants available 

for consideration under the demonstration project quality grouping 

procedure than under the standard rule of three and numerical ranking. 

Also, a higher percentage of veterans were hired in ARS and about the 

same percentage of veterans were hired by FS compared with using the 

rule of three process. In the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Congress 

provided the authority for all federal agencies to use category rating as an 

alternative to the rule of three. 

OPM has provided guidance to agencies on the use of category rating 

systems to assess job applicants. In June 2003, OPM published interim 

regulations for agencies on the use of category rating, and OPM revised 

related guidance in its Delegated Examining Operations Handbook for 

agencies when using this alternative rating procedure. In addition, OPM 

officials told us that in July 2003, OPM provided on-site briefings to agency 

program managers, human resources officials, and contractors on issues 

related to using category rating procedures. In February 2004, OPM 

included this new hiring flexibility in its memorandum to agencies as one of 

the top 10 things agencies could do to improve federal hiring. OPM said it 

would issue final regulations on the use of category rating before its interim 

regulations sunset in June 2004. Officials said the changes to the final 

regulations will be editorial in nature and will not alter the procedures that 

agencies are to follow when using this alternative rating system.

Data on agencies’ actual use of category rating are not readily available. 

The Homeland Security Act requires each agency that establishes a 

category rating system to report annually to Congress for the first 3 years 

33 OPM is authorized to waive civil service laws and regulations to permit agencies to test 

alternative personnel management approaches. 5 U.S.C. § 4703.
Page 33 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

on its experiences, including (1) the number of employees hired under the 

system, (2) the impact the system has on hiring of veterans and minorities, 

and (3) the way managers were trained in administration of the system. 

However, according to OPM, no agencies have yet reported on their use of 

such category rating systems. Moreover, data on agencies’ use of category 

rating are not maintained in the Central Personnel Data File (CPDF), OPM’s 

centralized database of information on federal civilian employees. 

Views of the CHCO Council 

Members

Given the lack of available data on the extent to which agencies are using 

the newly authorized category rating flexibility, we asked about this issue 

in our April 2004 survey of the CHCO Council members. As shown in figure 

2, a majority (13 of 22) of the officials responding to our survey said that 

their agencies were using category rating to “little or no extent.” (See app. 

II for further information on the survey results.) In narrative responses to 

our survey questions about category rating, several respondents said that 

their agencies were not using category rating but were considering options, 

developing procedures, or establishing pilot programs. For example, a 

CHCO Council member responded that his department had developed 

procedures for implementing category rating and had included this 

flexibility as a tool for implementation in the department’s hiring plan for 

fiscal year 2004. According to this official, category rating will be 

particularly useful for those occupations for which the department 

anticipates hiring multiple applicants as well as for positions that have 

highly specialized experience requirements. Another Council member 

representing a cabinet-level department said that the department had 

drafted a policy on the use of category rating and was establishing a 

program to pilot the use of this hiring flexibility with at least one 

occupation. This respondent said that the department’s human resources 

office was working with other bureaus within the department to identify a 

cross-section of occupations for which category rating would be an 

appropriate process for rating job applicants. 
Page 34 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Figure 2: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Extent to Which Their 

Agencies Are Using Category Rating

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Little or

no extent

Some

extent

Moderate

extent

Great

extent

Very great

extent

No basis/

not 

applicable

Number of agencies

Source: CHCO Council members' responses to GAO questionnaire.

Question: To what extent is your department/agency using the newly 

authorized category rating flexibility in its hiring process? 

We also surveyed CHCO Council members about the most significant 

barriers, if any, preventing or hindering their agencies from using or making 

greater use of the newly authorized category rating flexibility in their hiring 

processes. Although the responses provided by the Council members 

varied (see fig. 3), the most frequently cited barriers to using category 

rating were (1) the lack of policies and procedures within the department 

or agency for using the flexibility, (2) the lack of OPM guidance for using 

the flexibility, (3) a need to reprogram automated systems to handle the 

new process, (4) rigid OPM rules and regulations, and (5) concern about 

possible inconsistencies in implementation. In narrative responses to our 

survey questions about category rating, a few respondents said that their 

agencies were not using or making greater use of category rating because 

of key stakeholders’ lack of understanding about the application of 

veterans’ preference and the Luevano consent decree. OPM officials told 

us that each agency needs to determine how the applicant’s ACWA test 

points relate to the “best qualified” quality categories under category rating. 

Other comments from CHCOs included the following. One respondent said 
Page 35 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

that each agency has had to research best practices and lessons learned 

prior to implementing this alternative rating system. Finally, a Council 

member from a major department said that agencies need a 

governmentwide champion to advance the use of category rating in their 

hiring processes. 

Figure 3: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Most Significant Barriers Preventing or Hindering Their Agencies’ Use of 

Category Rating

01234567

Lack of an OPM clearinghouse

Reluctance within agency

to change

Lack of expertise needed for

implementation

Lack of OPM technical

assistance

Concern about possible

inconsistencies in implementation

Rigid OPM rules and regulations

Need to reprogram

automated systems

Lack of OPM guidance

Lack of agency policies

and procedures

Source: CHCO Council members' responses to GAO questionnaire.

Question: What are the three most significant barriers, if any, preventing or hindering your department/agency from using or making greater use in its hiring 

process of the newly authorized category rating flexibility? 

Note: Respondents could select up to three barriers.

In our survey of CHCO Council members, we also asked about the extent to 

which OPM had assisted their agencies in using category rating and their 

level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with that assistance (see app. II for 

further information). In narrative responses to our survey questions about 

category rating, a CHCO Council member representing a major department 
Page 36 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

said, for example, that the department was reluctant to use category rating 

until OPM provided further guidance on use of the flexibility. Another 

Council member noted that the interim regulations on category rating that 

OPM issued in June 2003 would expire after 1 year and wanted to know 

when OPM would publish the final regulations. Another respondent said 

that OPM responded to ad hoc questions related to the technical 

application of category rating, but generally defers to the agency to make 

the final determination. This respondent suggested that it would be 

beneficial for OPM to broadly address technical issues for agencies rather 

than on an ad hoc basis. Another respondent commented that additional 

training on the use of category rating should be provided to agencies. 

Another respondent remarked that unresolved questions around the use of 

category rating may be common to all agencies and that OPM should 

provide additional implementing guidance in the form of questions and 

answers.

Use of Direct-Hire Authority 

Could Speed Hiring for 

Shortage Occupations and 

Critical Needs through New 

Assessment and Rating 

Requirements

A provision of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 provides authority that 

allows agencies to appoint candidates directly to positions where OPM 

determines there is a severe shortage of candidates or a critical hiring 

need.34 When making appointments under the newly authorized direct-hire 

authority, agencies are not required to numerically rate and rank applicants 

nor apply the rule of three or veterans’ preference. However, under these 

direct-hire appointments, agencies would still be required to provide public 

notice of the vacancies and screen all applicants to ensure that they meet 

the basic qualification requirements of the position. 

Under OPM’s interim regulations, when making determinations to allow 

agencies to use direct-hire authority, OPM may decide on its own that a 

severe hiring shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need exists, either 

governmentwide or in specified agencies, or for one or more specific 

occupations, grade levels (or equivalents), or geographic locations. 

Alternatively, an agency may, in a written request to OPM, identify the 

position or positions for which it believes a severe shortage or critical 

hiring need exists. Under OPM’s rules, to demonstrate that a severe 

shortage of candidates exists for a position or group of positions, an agency 

must provide information showing that it is unable to identify candidates 

34 Section 1312(a)(1) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (amending 5 U.S.C. 3304). This 

provision also permits OPM to delegate the authority to make such determinations under 

OPM criteria.
Page 37 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

possessing the competencies required to perform the necessary duties of 

the position despite extensive recruitment, extended announcement 

periods, and the use, as applicable, of hiring flexibilities such as 

recruitment and relocation incentives. To prove that a critical hiring need 

exists, an agency must demonstrate that it has a critical need for the 

position or positions to meet mission requirements brought about by an 

exigency such as a national emergency, threat or potential threat, 

environmental disaster, or other unanticipated or unusual events. 

As with category rating, OPM has provided agencies with guidance on the 

use of direct-hire authority in their hiring processes. In June 2003, OPM 

published interim regulations implementing direct-hire authority and 

included revised guidance in its Delegated Examining Operations 

Handbook. Additionally, OPM covered issues related to using direct-hire 

authority in the onsite briefings it provided to agency program officials, 

human resources staff, and contractors in July 2003. As with category 

rating, OPM said it would issue final regulations on the use of direct hire 

before its interim regulations sunset in June 2004. Officials said the 

changes to the final regulations will be editorial in nature and will not alter 

the criteria in determining whether there is a severe shortage of candidates 

or a critical hiring need.

Since the issuance of its June 2003 interim regulations on the use of directhire authority, OPM has approved three governmentwide direct-hire 

authorities and seven agency-specific direct-hire authorities (see table 2). 

The three governmentwide authorities allow all federal agencies to use 

direct-hire procedures for specific medical occupations, information 

security positions, and jobs requiring fluency in Arabic and other Middle 

Eastern languages related to ongoing reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The 

OPM-approved agency-specific authorities to use direct hire cover a range 

of occupations, grade levels, and locations at six agencies, such as 

veterinarians and related positions at the Department of Agriculture 

principally to address mad cow disease. OPM officials informed us that 

they had not formally declined any agency requests for direct-hire authority 

since the interim regulations were issued in June 2003. However, they did 

point out that they had not approved all of the occupations that Agriculture 

had requested for direct hire.
Page 38 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Table 2: Governmentwide and Agency-Specific Direct-Hire Authorities Issued by OPM (June 2003 to Present)

Governmentwide direct-hire authorities issued Agency-specific direct-hire authorities issued

Medical occupations

• All grade levels at all locations for the following:

Diagnostic Radiologic Technologist (GS-0647)

Medical Officer (GS-0602)

Nurse (GS-610, GS-620)

Pharmacist (GS-0660)

Information security positions

• Information Technology Management (Information 

Security) GS-2210, grade levels GS-9 and above at all 

locations

Iraqi Reconstruction Efforts positions

• Jobs that require fluency in Arabic or other related 

Middle Eastern languages. Various Wage Grade and 

GS positions at all locations

Securities and Exchange Commission

• Grade levels GS-9 and above at all locations for the following occupations:

Accountants (GS-0510)

Economists (GS-0110)

Securities Compliance Examiners (GS-1831)

• Information Technology Specialist (GS-2210) positions at grade levels 9 and 

above in the Office of Information Technology

Department of Agriculture

• All locations for the following occupations:

Veterinary Medical Officer (GS-0701, grades 9 through 13)

Animal Health Technician (GS-0704, grades 2 through 10)

Plant Protection and Quarantine Officer (GS-0436, grades 5 through 13)

Plant Protection and Quarantine Aid/Technician (GS-0421, grades 2 

through 7)

General Biological Science (GS-0401, grades 9 through 13)

Biological Science Technician (GS-0404, grades 2 through 7)

Microbiologist (GS-0403, grades 9 through 13)

Entomologist (GS-0414, grades 9 through 13)

Botanist (GS-0430, grades 9 through 13)

Plant Pathologist, GS-0434 (grades 9 through 13)

Ecologist (GS-0408, grades 9 through 13)

Chemist (GS-1320, grades 9 through 13)

Department of Energy

• Substation Operator positions (BB-5407) at Bonneville Power Administration

Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight

• Accountant and Examiner positions in the Washington, D.C., area

Department of Justice

• Information Technology Specialist (GS-2210) positions at grade levels 9 and 

above in the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and 

Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.

Department of Health and Human Services

• Certain critical positions in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 

responsible for implementing the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, 

and Modernization Act of 2003.

Source: OPM.

While the Homeland Security Act requires agencies to report to Congress 

on their use of category rating, the act does not require agencies to report 

to Congress on their use of direct hire. However, agencies are required to 

report to OPM on the use of direct hire for inclusion in OPM’s centralized 

personnel database. OPM reported that its review of data in the CPDF 

indicated that as of December 31, 2003, fewer than 50 individuals had been 
Page 39 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

hired under the new direct-hire authority. It is possible that when new 

personnel authority codes are added to personnel actions reported by 

agencies for the CPDF, there could be a lag in personnel officials’ use of the 

new code and as a result the actual use of the authority may be 

underreported. 

The use of direct-hire authority was also listed in the OPM Director’s 

February 2004 memorandum to agency CHCOs as one of the top 10 things 

agencies can do to improve hiring. In the memo, the OPM Director urged 

agencies to look at their hiring plans, identify opportunities to use direct 

hire based on the standards in the regulations, and, if appropriate, ask OPM 

for the authority to use it. The memo also suggested that agencies consider 

using direct-hire authority at one of the federal job fairs that OPM was then 

sponsoring across the country. The memo noted that OPM officials were 

somewhat surprised by how few agencies had contacted OPM to request 

authority to use direct-hire procedures.

Views of the CHCO Council 

Members

Given the lack of available data on the extent to which agencies are using 

the new direct-hire authority, we asked about this issue in our April 2004 

survey of the CHCO Council members. As shown in figure 4, a majority (17 

of 22) of the officials responding to our survey said that their agencies were 

using direct hire to “some extent” or to “little or no extent.” (See app. II for 

further information on the survey results.) In narrative responses to our 

survey questions about direct hire, several respondents stated that their 

agencies had used direct-hire authority to fill various medical positions and 

small numbers of IT security positions. Several respondents also said that 

their agencies had not yet used direct-hire authority but were assessing the 

options for doing so. For example, a CHCO Council member representing 

an independent agency said that the agency had not thus far decided if it 

still had positions in a shortage category and would make such a 

determination after completing its workforce analysis and strategic 

assessments. A Council member from a cabinet-level department said that 

it had determined a need for direct-hire authority for acquisition specialists 

and was developing a request to OPM. Another Council member 

representing a large department said that the department’s components 

were aware of the newly authorized direct-hire authority but they had not 

yet identified situations for which they would request OPM’s approval to 

use the authority.
Page 40 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Figure 4: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Extent to Which Their 

Agencies Are Using Direct Hire

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Little or no

extent

Some

extent

Moderate

extent

Great

extent

Very great

extent

No

basis/not

applicable

Number of agencies

Source: CHCO Council members’ responses to GAO questionnaire.

Question: To what extent is your department/agency using the newly 

authorized direct-hire authority in its hiring process? 

We also surveyed CHCO Council members about the most significant 

barriers, if any, preventing or hindering their agencies from using or making 

greater use of the newly authorized direct-hire authority in their hiring 

processes. Although the responses provided by the Council members 

varied (see fig. 5), the most frequently cited barriers to using direct hire 

were (1) rigid OPM rules and regulations, (2) concern about possible 

inconsistent implementation within the department or agency, (3) the 

limited number of occupations for which the authority could be used, and 

(4) the lack of policies and procedures within the agency for using direct 

hire. In narrative responses to our survey questions about direct hire, a 

CHCO Council member representing a large department said, for example, 

that recently OPM officials informally told the department that OPM would 

likely disapprove a proposed request for direct-hire authority that the 

department desired for a specified occupation, even though at least one 

other agency had direct-hire authority for that same occupation. This 

respondent said that the specific position is relatively hard to fill and that 

OPM needs to relax the criteria it uses to demonstrate a shortage of 

qualified applicants. Another Council member representing an 
Page 41 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

independent agency commented that the governmentwide direct-hire 

authorities that OPM has issued cover occupations that are generally not 

applicable to the agency or in which the agency has an extremely limited 

number of positions. In contrast, a CHCO representing a cabinet-level 

department responded that no barriers exist for using direct-hire authority.

Figure 5: CHCO Council Members’ Responses on the Most Significant Barriers Preventing or Hindering Their Agencies’ Use of 

Direct Hire

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Reluctance within agency to change

Lack of expertise needed for

implementation

Lack of agency policies and

procedures

Limited number of occupations for

which the authority could be used

Concern about possible

inconsistencies in implementation

Rigid OPM rules and regulations

Source: CHCO Council members' responses to GAO questionnaire.

Question: What are the three most significant barriers, if any, preventing or hindering your department/agency from using or making greater use in its hiring 

process of the newly authorized direct-hire authority?

Note: Respondents could select up to three barriers.

In our survey of CHCO Council members, we also asked about the extent to 

which OPM had assisted their agencies in using direct hire and their level of 

satisfaction or dissatisfaction with that assistance (see app. II for further 

information). In narrative responses to our survey questions about direct 

hire, one respondent from a cabinet-level department said, for example, 

that the department had attempted to use direct-hire authority for IT 

security positions but received inconsistent guidance on the application of 

veterans’ preference from OPM. A Council member from a large 

department said that OPM should delegate authority to approve direct hire 

requests to the agencies as permitted by the Homeland Security Act of 

2002. A respondent from a department said that the department had 

surveyed its components to determine if it should petition OPM for direct-
Page 42 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

hire authority, but that most of the positions identified to date could not be 

justified based on the OPM criteria.

Conclusions Congress, OPM, and agencies have recognized the need to improve the 

federal hiring process and have initiated numerous efforts to address key 

problem areas. Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, agencies have 

been given new personnel flexibilities to improve the hiring process. In 

addition, DHS and DOD have been given authority to fundamentally reform 

their personnel systems, which, if successfully implemented, could aid in 

improving their hiring processes. In addition to these new hiring 

flexibilities given to agencies, agencies can address many of their other 

hiring challenges by applying human capital tools and flexibilities already 

available under existing laws and regulations. Rather than wait for reforms 

to arrive, agency leaders need to take the initiative to be more competitive 

in attracting new employees with critical skills.

Although the agencies have primary responsibility to improve their hiring 

processes, OPM can take additional action. As we noted earlier, we 

previously recommended that OPM, working with the CHCO Council, 

should serve as a clearinghouse to foster more use of personnel 

flexibilities. In the hiring area, OPM could gather, analyze, and report on 

when, where, and how agencies are using, or should use, direct hire and 

category rating procedures to aid in their hiring efforts.

The federal government is now facing one of the most transformational 

changes to the civil service in half a century, which is reflected in the new 

personnel systems for DHS and DOD and in new hiring flexibilities 

provided to all agencies. Today’s challenge is to define the appropriate 

roles and day-to-day working relationships for OPM and individual 

agencies as they collaborate on developing innovative and more effective 

hiring systems. Moreover, human capital expertise within the agencies 

must be up to the challenge for this transformation to be successful and 

enduring.

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

The Director of OPM provided written comments on a draft of this report, 

which are shown in appendix III. In these written comments, the OPM 

Director said that OPM has done much to assist agencies and increase their 

knowledge about the hiring flexibilities available to them. She highlighted, 

for example, her memoranda to agencies that contain information and 
Page 43 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

guidance on the use of hiring flexibilities as well as training that OPM 

provided to agencies as part of the OPM-sponsored “Working for America” 

recruitment fairs. She underscored that agencies must rise to the 

challenge, provide consistent leadership at the senior level, take advantage 

of the training opportunities offered by OPM, and make fixing the hiring 

process a priority. 

The OPM Director also commented that the report “appears to rely upon 

perceptions that are not consistent with the facts.” OPM explained this 

concern in additional technical comments that were provided by E-mail. In 

these technical comments, OPM raised objections to our use of narrative 

responses from our survey of CHCO Council members and requested that 

many of these responses be deleted from the final report. OPM said that in 

some instances the opinions expressed by the CHCO Council members 

made reference to situations or circumstances that were outside of the 

respondent’s agency or personal knowledge and were unsubstantiated. 

However, consistent with OPM’s position that agencies must take greater 

responsibility for their own hiring processes and that it has effectively 

trained agency officials on hiring, it seems to reason that the CHCOs of 

these departments and agencies should be in a position to comment 

knowledgeably on their agencies’ efforts—and OPM’s efforts in assisting 

them—to improve hiring processes. As noted in the description of our 

scope and methodology for this report (see app. I), the results of our survey 

represent the views and opinions of the responding CHCO Council 

members. In drafting this report, we provided a full range of narrative 

responses from CHCO Council members—both positive and negative—

related to OPM’s role in helping to improve the federal hiring process. In 

our survey to the CHCO Council members (see app. II), we specifically 

noted that our report would not identify the names of individual 

respondents or their associated departments or agencies. We took this step 

to better ensure that we received direct and candid survey responses. 

Moreover, we make direct reference to actions taken and documents 

produced on federal issues throughout the draft.

In its technical comments, OPM also offered suggested changes to clarify 

various issues related to personnel policy and procedures. Where 

appropriate, we made changes to the report to address the comments we 

received.
Page 44 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

We will send copies to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the 

House Committee on Government Reform, the Chairman and Ranking 

Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, and 

other interested congressional parties. We will also provide copies to the 

Director of OPM. In addition, we will make copies available to others upon 

request. The report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you have any questions about this report, please contact me on (202) 512-

6806 or mihmj@gao.gov. Major contributors to this report are listed in 

appendix IV.

J. Christopher Mihm

Managing Director, Strategic Issues
Page 45 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology ApApenednxidexiIs

The objectives of this study were to 

• provide information on the status of recent efforts to help improve the 

federal hiring process; and 

• determine the extent to which federal agencies are using the new hiring 

flexibilities—category rating and direct-hire authority—authorized by 

the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

This study builds on the information, conclusions, and recommendations of 

our report: Human Capital: Opportunities to Improve Executive 

Agencies’ Hiring Processes (GAO-03-450, May 30, 2003). That report 

concluded that the federal hiring process needed improvement and made 

recommendations to address problems with the job classification process, 

job vacancy announcements and Web postings, manual hiring processes, 

and hiring assessment tools.

To respond to the objectives on this engagement, we interviewed officials 

from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and members of the 

subcommittee on the hiring process of the Chief Human Capital Officers 

(CHCO) Council. Specifically, our questions and review centered on 

actions being taken to address the hiring problems and recommendations 

identified in our May 2003 report, what new hiring initiatives were 

underway, and an assessment of the extent to which agencies are using 

category rating and direct-hire authority. We also collected and reviewed 

OPM documents related to federal hiring.

In addition, we obtained opinions and views on efforts to improve the 

federal hiring process as well as agencies’ use of new hiring flexibilities by 

interviewing human capital experts at the following organizations.

• The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is an independent, 

quasi-judicial agency in the executive branch that hears and decides 

civil service cases, reviews OPM regulations, and conducts studies of 

the federal government's merit system.

• The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) is an 

independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, congressionally charted 

organization that assists federal, state, and local governments in 

improving their performance.
Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 46 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

• The National Partnership for Public Service is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 

organization dedicated to revitalizing the public service.

We also conducted a survey of the members of the CHCO Council. The 

CHCO Council currently comprises 25 members: the Director of OPM; the 

Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB); CHCOs from executive branch departments, and other agency 

CHCOs invited to join by the OPM Director, who serves as chair of the 

Council. We sent our questionnaire to the 23 Council members serving as 

CHCOs representing federal departments and agencies; our survey did not 

include the Director of OPM or the Deputy Director for Management of 

OMB. Specifically, the Council members we surveyed were the CHCOs 

from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, 

Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and 

Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, 

Treasury, and Veterans Affairs; and CHCOs from the Central Intelligence 

Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, General Services 

Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission, OPM, Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, 

and Social Security Administration. Twenty-two of the 23 Council 

members responded to our questionnaire. The CHCO Council member 

from the Central Intelligence Agency did not respond to our survey because 

his representative said the agency was an excepted service agency and thus 

the survey questions were not relevant. 

Our survey of the CHCO Council members included questions to help us 

address both engagement objectives. For the first objective, we asked 

questions about the parts of the hiring process we had identified in our May 

2003 report—specifically, reforming the classification process, automating 

hiring processes, improving job announcements and Web postings, and 

developing improved hiring assessment tools. For the second objective, we 

asked questions about the use of category rating and direct-hire authority 

and the possible barriers hindering agencies’ use of these two new hiring 

flexibilities. 

The results of our survey reflect the views and opinions of the responding 

CHCO Council members. As noted above for objective one, we asked the 

survey recipients if their agencies had made efforts in the four hiring areas; 

however, we did not ask respondents to specifically identify those efforts 

nor did we conduct other data collection efforts to verify the nature or 

extent of such efforts. Similarly, for objective two related to the use of 
Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 47 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

category rating or direct-hire authority, we asked the Council members 

their views about the extent of use of the two flexibilities. 

The questionnaire we used contained 34 questions and was developed from 

March through April 2004 by a social science survey specialist and other 

individuals knowledgeable about the OPM reforms. The questionnaire was 

reviewed by other survey specialists and experts in the content area and 

pretested with four government human capital professionals familiar with 

the initiatives to develop a questionnaire that was unambiguous and 

unbiased. We made changes to the content and format of the final 

questionnaire based on the reviews and pretest results. 

The survey was conducted using an Active X-enabled E-mail attachment. 

The survey was sent to all agency members of the CHCO Council beginning 

on April 15, 2004, and all recipients of our survey replied to our request for 

information by May 7, 2004. Respondents were given the option of 

returning the survey as an E-mail attachment or printing the questionnaire 

and returning it via fax. Data for this study were entered directly into the 

instrument by the respondents and converted into a database for analysis. 

Appendix II presents a copy of the survey and the responses of the CHCO 

Council members to the closed-ended questions on our survey. 

As part of our analysis process, we examined CHCO Council members' 

answers in response to questions asking them if they had any additional 

comments to make on a specific topic or additional barriers to identify. We 

reviewed the additional barriers identified and counted the number of 

instances where two or more respondents identified a similar barrier and 

included those frequency counts in our report. Given the broad scope of 

the questions asking for any additional comments, we did not perform a 

similar content analysis of CHCO responses to those broad questions. 

However, we included some of those additional comments by individual 

CHCOs in this report to illustrate the diversity of views provided by the 

CHCOs on these topics.

In addition, we used data from OPM’s Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) 

to identify the total new hires by federal department and agency for fiscal 

year 2003. We also analyzed data from the CPDF in an attempt to identify 

the extent to which agencies are using the direct-hire authority contained 

in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Data on agencies’ use of category 

rating is not maintained in the CPDF. As noted in the body of this report, it 

is possible that when new personnel authorities are authorized (any new 

codes established for the CPDF), personnel officials might continue to use 
Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 48 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

old codes and therefore underreport the use of the new authority. With the 

exception of the concern just noted, based on previous GAO work, the 

CPDF data are sufficiently reliable for the purpose of providing 

background information on new hires.1

We provided a draft of this report to OPM for review and comment. OPM’s 

comments are shown in appendix III. We did our review in Washington, 

D.C., from March 2004 through May 2004 in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards.

1

 U.S. General Accounting Office, OPM’s Central Personnel Data File: Data Appear 

Sufficiently Reliable to Meet Most Customer Needs, GAO/GGD-98-199 (Washington, D.C.: 

Sept. 30, 1998).
Page 49 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council ApendxiI

 1

United States General Accounting Office 

Survey of Chief Human Capital Officers 

Introduction

Chief Human Capital Officer: 

In May 2003, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report entitled Human 

Capital: Opportunities to Improve Executive Agencies’ Hiring Processes (GAO-03-450), 

which discussed challenges and issues related to the federal hiring process. As a followup to that report, Jo Ann Davis, Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Civil Service and 

Agency Organization, Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, 

has requested that we update the status of ongoing efforts related to the federal hiring 

process by determining 

1) the status of the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) efforts to help improve the 

federal hiring process, and 

2) the extent to which federal agencies are using new hiring flexibilities authorized by 

the Homeland Security Act of 2002. 

This survey is part of our effort to collect information from members of the Chief Human 

Capital Officer (CHCO) Council with regard to these matters. However, we encourage 

you to consult with other people in your organization who may have more in-depth 

knowledge about particular areas that are covered in this survey. 

Instructions

Please complete this survey in MS-Word, save it and return it as an attachment via e-mail 

to both of the GAO contacts noted below. If you wish to complete the survey by phone, 

please call one of the numbers listed below. If you prefer to print the survey out and fax 

it back, you can fax the survey to (202) 512-2502. 

If you have any questions about the contents of this questionnaire, please contact: 

 Edward H Stephenson Jr. 

 Phone: (202) 512-4845 

 e-mail: stephensone@gao.gov

or if you encounter any technical difficulties please contact:

Monica Wolford 

Phone: (202) 512-2625 

e-mail: wolfordm@gao.gov
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

Page 50 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

 2

Please use your mouse to navigate throughout the survey by clicking on the field or 

check box you wish to answer. 

To select a check box, simply click or double click on the center of the box. 

To change or deselect a response, simply click on the check box and the ‘X’ should 

disappear. 

To answer a question that requires that you write a comment, please click on the answer 

box and begin typing. Please do not use the enter key to end a line. 

Do not “unlock” this document, it will erase your answers. If you wish to include 

comments about particular questions, include the comment with the question number in 

the comments section at the end of each section. 

Prior to filling out the relevant sections of the questionnaire, please read the related 

sections entitled “Background Information.” 

Your participation in this survey is essential for obtaining a broad perspective on 

government-wide adoption of new hiring flexibilities and OPM efforts in these areas. 

If you represent a cabinet-level department on the CHCO Council, please generally 

consider the activities of all agencies within your department and present a summary 

response. We do not plan to report any individuals’ responses by either name or 

department/agency.

If possible, please return this survey within one week of receiving our e-mail. After that 

time, if we have not heard from you, we will attempt to contact you to confirm that you 

have received this questionnaire and try to arrange a convenient time when we could 

obtain your responses over the telephone. 

Thank you in advance for your cooperation. 

Edward H Stephenson Jr. 

Assistant Director 

Strategic Issues 

Q1. Whom should we contact if we have follow-up questions? 

1a. Name: [22] 

1b. Department/Agency: [22] 

1c. Phone: [21] 
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

Page 51 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

 3

Background Information on the Federal Hiring Process

OPM and federal agencies share responsibility for the federal hiring process. OPM is 

responsible for providing agencies with training, guidance, technical assistance, and 

oversight to help ensure that agencies use their hiring authority in accordance with merit 

principles. Federal agencies are responsible for designing and implementing their own 

hiring processes that comply with merit principles by ensuring that the agency’s vacant 

positions are filled with the best-qualified persons from a sufficient pool of well-qualified 

people. Typical steps in the federal hiring process for filling job vacancies include the 

following: 

x Define job, set pay, qualifications and assessment criteria 

x Prepare public notice and job vacancy announcement 

x Receive applications electronically, by mail, or in person 

x Screen for eligibility and minimum qualification standards 

x Assess the relative qualifications of the candidates against job-related criteria 

x Select candidate 

x Bring candidate on board 

Reforming the Classification Process 

The process of classification involves categorizing jobs or positions according to the 

kind of work done, the level of difficulty and responsibility, and the qualifications 

required for the position, and serves as a building block to determine pay for the 

position. The Classification Act of 1949 provides a plan for classifying most federal 

positions and sets out 15 grade levels. OPM develops standards that must be consistent 

with the Act. 

Q2. Are you aware of any efforts OPM has made to reform the federal classification 

process that affect your department/agency? 

Number of Respondents 

[13] Yes 

[8] No --Skip to Q5

[1] Not sure --Skip to Q5

Q3. To what extent have OPM's efforts to reform the classification process helped your 

department/agency? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents 

[1] Very great extent 

[1] Great extent 

[4] Moderate extent 

[4] Some extent 

[2] Little or no extent 

[1] No basis to judge/not applicable -- Skip to Q5
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

Page 52 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

 4

Q4. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with OPM's efforts and proposals to change the 

classification process? (Check one.) 

Number of Respondents

[1] Very satisfied 

[3] Somewhat satisfied 

[5] Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 

[3] Somewhat dissatisfied 

[0] Very dissatisfied 

[0] No basis to judge/not applicable 

Q5. At the current time, who should take the lead in furthering reform of the 

classification process in the federal government? (Check one.) 

Number of Respondents

[0] No further reforms needed 

[5] Congress 

[4] Departments/agencies 

[10] OPM 

[3] None of the above (Please explain: [3]) 

Q6. If you have any additional comments regarding reforming the classification process, 

please write them below. 

Number of Respondents

[13] 

Automating Hiring Processes 

Automation has the potential to streamline the hiring process by generating vacancy 

announcements, helping determine if a job applicant meets eligibility and basic job 

qualifications, and assessing the relative merits of the qualified candidates. The use of an 

automated system could also allow managers and human capital staff to easily document 

their decisions. Both private vendors and OPM offer software that can automate agency 

hiring processes. 

Q7. Has your department/agency made efforts to automate any significant parts of its 

hiring process? 

Number of Respondents

[21] Yes 

[1] No --Skip to Q10

[0] Not sure --Skip to Q10
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

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Q8. To what extent has OPM assisted your department/agency in automating its hiring 

processes? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[1] Very great extent 

[1] Great extent 

[5] Moderate extent 

[7] Some extent 

[6] Little or no extent 

[1] No basis to judge/not applicable --Skip to Q10

Q9. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with assistance that OPM has provided your 

department/agency in automating its hiring processes? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[1] Very satisfied 

[6] Somewhat satisfied 

[7] Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 

[1] Somewhat dissatisfied 

[2] Very dissatisfied 

[3] No basis to judge/not applicable 

Q10. At the current time, who should take the lead in furthering the automation of 

federal hiring processes? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[0] No further automation needed 

[0] Congress 

[11] Departments/agencies 

[9] OPM 

[2] None of the above (Please explain: [2]) 

Q11. If you have any additional comments regarding automating hiring processes, please 

write them below. 

Number of Respondents

 [9] 

Improving Job Announcements and Web Postings

A job announcement is a tool in the recruitment process that provides an important 

opportunity to make a first impression on potential applicants, and may strongly 

influence their decision to apply for a position. Job announcements should be clear, 

concise, and attractive and make potential job applicants want to apply. Federal 

agencies post federal jobs on the Internet-based USAJOBS database, which is operated 

by OPM.
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

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 6

Q12. Has your department/agency made efforts to improve its job announcements and 

Web postings? 

Number of Respondents

[22] Yes 

[0] No --Skip to Q15

[0] Not sure --Skip to Q15 

Q13. To what extent has OPM assisted your department/agency in improving job 

announcements and Web postings? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[2] Very great extent 

[2] Great extent 

[9] Moderate extent 

[3] Some extent 

[6] Little or no extent 

[0] No basis to judge/not applicable --Skip to Q15

Q14. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with assistance that OPM has provided your 

department/agency in improving job announcements and Web postings? (Check 

one.)

Number of Respondents

[3] Very satisfied 

[9] Somewhat satisfied 

[8] Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 

[1] Somewhat dissatisfied 

[1] Very dissatisfied 

[0] No basis to judge/not applicable 

Q15. At the current time, who should take the lead in improving job announcements and 

Web postings for the federal government? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[0] No improvements needed 

[0] Congress 

[8] Departments/agencies 

[11] OPM 

 [3] None of the above (Please explain: [2]) 

Q16. If you have any additional comments regarding improving job announcements and 

Web postings, please write them below. 

Number of Respondents

[12] 
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

Page 55 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

 7

Developing Improved Hiring Assessment Tools 

Making good employee selections in the hiring process helps lead to high productivity, 

development of a cohesive work group, reduced employee turnover, and other positive 

outcomes. These employee selections rely on reliable and valid candidate assessment 

tools. Primary responsibility for developing assessment tools rests with the agencies. 

OPM is responsible for providing guidance and technical assistance to agencies and will 

develop specific assessment tools for a fee. 

Q17. Has your department/agency made efforts to improve its hiring assessment tools? 

Number of Respondents

[21] Yes 

[0] No --Skip to Q20

[1] Not sure --Skip to Q20

Q18. To what extent has OPM assisted your department/agency in developing improved 

hiring assessment tools? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[1] Very great extent 

[3] Great extent 

[3] Moderate extent 

[5] Some extent 

[8] Little or no extent 

[1] No basis to judge/not applicable --Skip to Q20

Q19. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with assistance that OPM has provided your 

department/agency in developing improved hiring assessment tools? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[3] Very satisfied 

[4] Somewhat satisfied 

[7] Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 

[0] Somewhat dissatisfied 

[2] Very dissatisfied 

[4] No basis to judge/not applicable 
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

Page 56 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

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Q20. At the current time, who should take the lead in improving hiring assessment tools 

for the federal government? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[0] No improvements needed 

[0] Congress 

[9] Departments/agencies 

[10] OPM 

[3] None of the above (Please explain: [2]) 

Q21. If you have any additional comments regarding developing improved hiring 

assessment tools, please write them below. 

 # Respondents 

 [12] 

Background Information on Hiring Flexibilities

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 authorized federal agencies to use category rating 

and direct-hire authority, two hiring flexibilities that were new to most agencies. The 

intent of these new hiring flexibilities is to expedite the federal hiring process and help 

provide federal agencies with a larger pool of qualified candidates from which to choose 

when hiring. The following questions address the use of category rating and direct-hire 

authority. 

Category Rating

Category rating is an alternate candidate assessment procedure, authorized to replace 

the “Rule of Three” selection procedure. Instead of restricting selecting officials’ choice 

to the three candidates with the highest numerical scores under the “Rule of Three,” 

category rating allows candidates to be grouped together into quality categories. Under 

category rating, the certificate of eligibles may include any number of candidates who 

are identified as the most-qualified applicants. 

Q22. To what extent is your department/agency using the newly authorized category 

rating flexibility in its hiring process? (Check one.) 

Number of Respondents

[1] Very great extent 

[1] Great extent 

[2] Moderate extent 

[3] Some extent 

[13] Little or no extent – Skip to Q23 

[2] No basis to judge/not applicable – Skip to Q23
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

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 9

22a. Please briefly describe how your department/agency is using the newly 

authorized category rating flexibility. 

Number of Respondents

[9] 

Q23. What are the three most significant barriers, if any, preventing or hindering your 

department/agency from using or making greater use in its hiring process of the 

newly authorized category rating flexibility? 

(Please check up to three choices only.)

Number of Respondents

[1] Lack of available funding to implement category rating flexibility 

[1] Lack of support for it from one or more key stakeholders (e.g., human 

capital office, agency managers and supervisors, and/or employees, unions) 

[6] Lack of policies and procedures within the department/agency for using 

this flexibility 

[3] Lack of expertise needed for implementation among one or more key 

stakeholders (e.g., human capital office, agency managers and supervisors, 

and/or employees, unions) 

[1] Reluctance within the department/agency to change to new procedures 

[4] Concern about possible inconsistencies in implementation within the 

department/agency 

[5] Lack of OPM guidance 

[3] Lack of OPM technical assistance 

[4] Rigid OPM rules and regulations 

[2] Lack of an OPM “clearinghouse” of ways to use this flexibility 

[10] Other: (Please explain: 11) 

[0] Other: (Please explain: 0) 

[0] Other: (Please explain: 0) 

Q24. To what extent has OPM assisted your department/agency in using the newly 

authorized category rating flexibility? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[2] Very great extent 

[1] Great extent 

[2] Moderate extent 

[5] Some extent 

[8] Little or no extent 

[4] No basis to judge/not applicable– Skip to Q26
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

Page 58 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

 10

Q25. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with assistance that OPM has provided in 

helping your department/agency use the newly authorized category rating flexibility? 

(Check one.) 

Number of Respondents

[3] Very satisfied 

[2] Somewhat satisfied 

[8] Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 

[2] Somewhat dissatisfied 

[1] Very dissatisfied 

[4] No basis to judge/not applicable 

Q26. At the current time, who should primarily take the lead for furthering the use of 

category rating in the federal hiring process? (Check one.) 

Number of Respondents

[0] No need for further use

[0] Congress 

[11] Departments/agencies 

[10] OPM 

[1] None of the above (Please explain: [1]) 

Q27. If you have any additional comments regarding category rating, please write them 

below. 

Number of Respondents

 [9] 

Direct-Hire

Direct-hire authority allows agencies to appoint candidates directly to jobs for which 

OPM determines there is a severe shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need. Directhire authority permits agencies to hire without regard to the usual competitive 

requirements related to veterans’ preference, the “Rule of Three”, and rating procedures. 

Q28. To what extent is your department/agency using the newly authorized direct-hire 

authority in its hiring process? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[0] Very great extent 

[3] Great extent 

[2] Moderate extent 

[7] Some extent 

[10] Little or no extent -- Skip to Q29 

[0] No basis to judge/not applicable -- Skip to Q29
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

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 11

28a. Please briefly describe how your department/agency is using the newly 

authorized direct-hire authority in its hiring process. 

Number of Respondents

[11] 

Q29. What are the three most significant barriers, if any, preventing or hindering your 

department/agency from using or making greater use in its hiring process of the 

newly authorized direct-hire authority? 

(Please check up to three choices only.)

Number of Respondents

[1] Lack of available funding to implement direct-hire authority 

[1] Lack of support for it from one or more key stakeholders (e.g., human 

capital office, agency managers and supervisors, and/or employees, unions) 

[4] Lack of policies and procedures within the department/agency for using 

this authority 

[2] Lack of expertise needed for implementation among one or more key 

stakeholders (e.g., human capital office, agency managers and supervisors, 

and/or employees, unions) 

[2] Reluctance within the department/agency to change to new procedures 

[5] Concern about possible inconsistencies in implementation within the 

department/agency 

[1] Lack of OPM guidance 

[1] Lack of OPM technical assistance 

[10] Rigid OPM rules and regulations 

[0] Lack of an OPM “clearinghouse” of ways to use this authority 

[11] Other: (Please explain: 11) 

[3] Other: (Please explain: 2) 

[0] Other: (Please explain:0) 

Q30. To what extent has OPM assisted your department/agency in using the newly 

authorized direct-hire authority? (Check one.)

Number of Respondents

[1] Very great extent 

[1] Great extent 

[5] Moderate extent 

[6] Some extent 

[6] Little or no extent 

[3] No basis to judge/not applicable --– Skip to Q32
Appendix II

Summary Results of GAO Survey of Members 

of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council

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Q31. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with assistance that OPM has provided in 

helping your department/agency use the newly authorized direct-hire authority? 

(Check one.) 

Number of Respondents

[3] Very satisfied 

[3] Somewhat satisfied 

[8] Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 

[1] Somewhat dissatisfied 

[2] Very dissatisfied 

[2] No basis to judge/not applicable 

Q32. At the current time, who should take the lead for furthering the use of direct-hire 

authority in the federal government? (Check one.) 

Number of Respondents

[0] No need for further use

[0] Congress 

[7] Departments/agencies 

[10] OPM 

[4] None of the above (Please explain: [4]) 

Q33. If you have any additional comments regarding the use of direct-hire authority, 

please write them below. 

Number of Respondents

[11] 

SUMMARY

Q34. If you have any additional comments regarding any of these questions or about the 

federal hiring process and the new hiring flexibilities, please write them below. 

Number of Respondents

[4] 

Thank you for completing this survey.

Please save this file now and send us a return e-mail with your file as an attachment. 
Page 61 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Appendix III

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management ApendxiI
Appendix III

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 62 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process
Page 63 GAO-04-797 The Federal Hiring Process

Appendix IV

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiIV

GAO Contact J. Christopher Mihm, (202) 512-6806

Acknowledgments Major contributors to this report include K. Scott Derrick, Karin Fangman, 

Stephanie M. Herrold, Trina Lewis, John Ripper, Edward Stephenson, and 

Monica L. Wolford. 

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