Federal Manager's Daily Report

OPM Sets Policy on Standards for Hiring for HR Positions

Agencies may use Delegated Examining certification as a condition of employment, selective factor, and/or quality ranking factor when hiring into human resources positions, OPM has said.

A memo on chcoc.gov says that agencies may determine that such a certification “is necessary to fulfill the primary duties of an HR/staffing position, although the determination must be supported by duties in the position description and/or job analysis, and explained in the vacancy announcement.

That should take into consideration “the requirements of the position itself (e.g., do the duties and organizational structure require independent performance of DE work immediately or could someone be trained over a period of time, what percentage of the position’s duties require conducting DE work), the DE skills and competencies the pool of potential applicants may possess,1 and the DE skills and competencies within your agency’s current workforce.

The certification process involves training and work experience focused on assisting agencies to comply with civil service laws and rules governing hiring.

If certification is treated as a condition of employment, OPM recommended that any allowance to gain the certification post-employment requires that it be received within a year. If used in internal merit promotion announcements, “the agency must demonstrate that the competency is basic to and essential for satisfactory performance of duties or tasks of the job,” it said.

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