Congress has sent to the White House S-1580, which sponsors say will enable agencies to fill vacancies more promptly by allowing, within certain restrictions, one agency to hire an applicant from another agency’s list of those certified as eligible for a comparable position.
Under current policy, an agency must issue a job vacancy announcement and follow certain requirements including creating a certified list of the most qualified candidates. However, another agency also hiring for a similar position may not use the certificate of eligibles created for the first agency, even though there may be numerous qualified individuals who were not chosen by the first hiring agency, and thus are still available.
The bill would allow an agency to hire an individual from another’s certified list of eligibles if: the original job vacancy announcement that resulted in the list of certified eligibles provided notice that the list could be used by another agency; the vacancy is within 240-days of the issuance of the list of certified eligibles; the position is in the same occupational series and at a similar grade as the position for which the certification of eligibles was issued; and the agency provides notice of the available position to its employees, provides up to ten business days for its employees to apply, and considers those applications.
If those requirements are met, the second agency would not have to make any additional posting, and could simply hire an individual from the list of certified eligibles, according to a congressional summary of the bill.
