Sec. 3. Defining the term examination for purposes of hiring in the competitive service
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examination for purposes of hiring in the competitive service Section 3308 of title 5, United States Code, is amended— by striking The Office of Personnel Management and inserting the following: For purposes of this chapter, the term examination , with respect to the competitive service— means an opportunity to directly demonstrate knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies, through a passing score assessment (unless the examining agency determines that another method, not limited to the outcomes of pass or fail, makes meaningful and objective differentiations in rating candidates); and does not include a self-assessment from an automated examination, a résumé review (unless conducted by a subject matter expert in a structured manner), or any other method of determining the experience or level of educational attainment of an individual, alone.
In this section— the term agency means an agency described in section 901(b) of title 31; the term Director means the Director of the Office; the term examining agency means— the Office; or an agency to which the Director has delegated examining authority under section 1104(a)(2) of this title; the term Office means the Office of Personnel Management; the term passing score assessment means an assessment that an individual can pass or fail; the term subject matter expert means an employee— who is determined by the employee's agency to be an expert in the subject and job field of a position in the competitive service; and whom the employee's agency designates to develop and conduct technical assessments; and the term technical assessment means a position-specific assessment developed under subsection (b)(1)(A).
For the purpose of conducting an examination for a position in the competitive service, a subject matter expert who is determined by the subject matter expert's agency to be an expert in the subject and job field of the position, as affirmed and audited by the Chief Human Capital Officer or Human Resources Director (as applicable) of that agency, may— develop, in partnership with human resources employees of the examining agency, a position-specific assessment that is relevant to the position; and conduct the assessment developed under subparagraph
(A)to— determine whether an applicant for the position has a passing score to be qualified for the position; or rank applicants for the position as most qualified or qualified for category rating purposes under section 3319. A technical assessment developed under paragraph
(1)may include— a structured interview; a work-related sample; a custom or generic behavioral assessment (which, if generic, may be customized as needed); or another assessment. An examining agency may share a technical assessment developed under paragraph
(1)with another examining agency. An examining agency with which a technical assessment is shared under subparagraph
(A)may customize the assessment as appropriate. The Director shall establish and operate a platform on which examining agencies can share and customize technical assessments under this paragraph. For purposes of sections 3318(b) and 3319(c), an appointing authority, other than the appointing authority requesting a certificate of eligibles, that selects an individual from that certificate in accordance with such section 3318(b) or 3319(c) may adopt the determination described in paragraph
(1)of this subsection of a subject matter expert employed by the requesting appointing authority instead of conducting an additional technical assessment of the individual. The Office ; and in subsection (c), as so designated, in the second sentence, by striking this section and inserting this subsection . Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director and the head of any other examining agency shall eliminate the use of any examination for the competitive service that does not satisfy the definition of the term examination in subsection
(a)of section 3308 of title 5, United States Code, as added by subsection
(a)of this section. The Director shall maintain and periodically update a publicly available dashboard that, with respect to each position in the competitive service for which an examining agency examined applicants during the applicable period, includes— the type of assessment used, such as— a behavioral off-the-shelf assessment; a résumé review conducted by a subject matter expert; an interview conducted by a subject matter expert; a technical off-the-shelf assessment; or a cognitive ability test; whether or not the agency selected a candidate for the position; and the hiring authority used to fill the position. Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall update the dashboard described in subparagraph
(A)with data for positions in the competitive service for which an examining agency examined applicants during the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act and ending on the date of submission of the report. Not later than October 1 of each fiscal year beginning after the date on which the dashboard is initially updated under clause (i), the Director shall update the dashboard described in subparagraph
(A)with data for positions in the competitive service for which an examining agency examined applicants during the preceding fiscal year. Each year, the Director shall make publicly available and submit to Congress an overall progress report that includes summary data of the use of examinations (as defined in subsection
(a)of section 3308 of title 5, United States Code, as added by subsection
(a)of this section) for the competitive service, including technical assessments, broken down by applicant demographic indicator, including veteran status, race, gender, disability, and any other measure the Director determines appropriate, using the data available as of October 1, 2020, as a baseline. Not later than 5 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall submit to Congress a report that— assesses the implementation of this section and the amendments made by this section; assesses the impact and modifications to the hiring process for the competitive service made by this section and the amendments made by this section; and makes recommendations for the improvement of the hiring process for the competitive service.