Numerous attempts to reform the federal hiring process have yielded disappointing results because they do not address the problem that the system is fundamentally outdated, according to an MSPB publication.
It cited recent congressional hearings and OPM initiatives focusing on making the USAJobs site more user-friendly as just the latest in a string of changes over several decades including to abolish the old Federal Personnel Manual, to give individual agencies rather than OPM the authority to examine for most competitive positions, and to revise the application, assessment, and selection processes.
“However, things have not gotten much better . . . hiring is still slow, complex, and confusing to applicants. To get around the process, agencies have turned to noncompetitive hiring authorities” — from 2004–2012, agencies used competitive examining less than 40 percent of hires, it said.
“Why haven’t administrative efforts to improve the federal hiring system brought better results? The answer is that the basic procedures for federal hiring, which are found in Chapter 33 of Title 5 of the U.S. Code, have not undergone any significant revision since 1944. To help ensure that hiring decisions are based on merit, those procedures are actually intended to limit the discretion of the hiring manager. In operation, they often prohibit selection of the candidate the hiring manager deems to be the strongest,” it said.
“Eliminating the FPM, delegating examining and hiring authority to agencies, and modifying the practices of HR departments still leaves intact a rigid, rule-bound system,” it said.