Federal Manager's Daily Report

The Trump administration is seeking several additional hiring-related authorities government-wide, asking that they be put in the annual DoD authorization bill. These include:

New authority to hire college students to time-limited appointments for which the student is qualified, and new authority to convert the person noncompetitively to a competitive service job upon graduation if certain standards are met. The authority would be in addition to existing authorities such as those in the Pathways Program and hiring would be capped at 15 percent of an agency’s annual hiring.

Giving agencies authority when hiring to define the number of candidates to be considered by using a cut-off score “or similar mechanism.” Veterans preference would still apply and agencies also would continue to use category rating at their discretion, but the “rule of three”–which effectively was replaced by category rating under an Obama administration initiative but still is in some use–would be formally eliminated. Under that policy, hiring managers had to choose from among the three top-ranked candidates.

Allowing agencies to better address critical hiring needs by exempting certain non-permanent/non-career appointments from the requirement for public notice of the opportunity, and allowing such positions to be filled through other recruitment sources including direct solicitation of applications.

Establishing a private industry/government exchange program to bring in “talent that is not commonly found in the federal government to work on specific projects or initiatives” most commonly in the STEM fields. Current exchange programs–other than one in the IT field–allow only for exchanges among different levels of government and academia, but not with the private sector, the request says.