The White House is carrying out a hiring reform agenda that includes phasing out the use of knowledge, skills and ability essays in job applications, but the Merit Systems Protection Board has said in some cases those KSA statements were the most valuable part of the announcement because the filtered out applicants that didn’t understand what was being asked.
While that may have turned away some qualified applicants, MSPB, which supports the hiring forms, said doing away with KSAs now underscores the need for clear, informative announcements that give a realistic glimpse of what the job entails – even if that may have been jargon filled and inconvenient in the past.
"To maintain this important self-screening capability, it is more critical than ever for federal agencies to include sufficiently detailed information within the announcement that describes the job— information that once may have been part of the essay questions," said MSPB.
It said an effective way of doing so is to spell out what the applicant would and would not be doing on the job.
It gave as an example a recent MSPB job announcement that listed characteristics of candidates who would be a good fit, and those who probably would not.
Giving applicants critical information to make wise choices should result in an effective first screen for agencies, MSPB said.
