The Merit Systems Protection Board has said many supervisory job announcements fail on a basic level.
After reviewing 100 of them posted to USAJOBS, it said nearly half provided no substantive information about the nature of the position’s supervisory responsibilities, and that in some of the announcements, the only indication that the job involved supervision at all was the word "supervisor" or "supervisory" in the job title.
Further, 42 percent of job announcements either did not list the competencies necessary to do the job or only listed the technical competencies needed, MSPB said.
It said an announcement should serve as a preview of the job so that the applicant can determine if he or she is qualified and/or interested in the job.
Failing to be clear about the particular supervisory skills needed for a position contributes to another problem that often crops up in employee surveys regarding the views employees have of their supervisors – that they may have strong technical skills but lack the communication or leadership abilities for supervisory work.
With that in mind, MSPB warned against applicants applying under the mistaken assumption that the agency seeks a high level technician rather than a supervisor.
