Pre-Selection Called a Problem in Job Competitions

“In more than a few cases” federal supervisors have already identified the candidate they want to fill a job vacancy and other applicants “have little chance of being selected even though the position is nominally open to competition,” says the Merit Systems Protection Board, which recently released a report suggesting the government needs a new approach to the merit promotion process. MSPB says that in a survey it conducted in 2000, whose results are still trickling out, 76 percent of employees responding said they had not been selected for at least one promotion because the selecting official had someone else in mind. “Employees clearly resent their employers’ wasting their time and raising their hopes for no good reason with ‘sham’ competitions,” MSPB says.