The Chance to Compete Act: Enhancing Federal Hiring Through Technical Assessments

By: Angie Delacruz and Melissa Haudek

Federal hiring is seeing a resurgence in its transformation with the Chance to Compete Act of 2024, a law designed to prioritize skills-based assessments over traditional hiring methods such as the use of degree requirements or self-report occupational questionnaires. This legislation will require federal agencies and agencies that provide oversight for government hiring such as the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM)  to implement these changes for all jobs where applicable.  

This act is preceded by similar reforms for how federal agencies recruit and hire their workforce. In 2010, President Obama issued a Memorandum for Improving the Federal Recruitment and Hiring Process, which included provisions like streamlining the application process (e.g., eliminating essay-style questions, use of plain language), instituting the use of valid, reliable assessment tools, increasing the speed and quality of hiring, and providing candidates notification of their application status, to name a few. This memorandum instigated the creation of USA HireSM, a suite of assessments managed by OPM which are available to federal agencies, accessible through USAJOBs, and are designed to measure key knowledge, skills, and abilities found to be critical for many federal jobs.  

More recently, efforts like Executive Order 13932: Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates (2020) and state-based legislation have taken aim at eliminating degree requirements and using skills-based hiring approaches for all federal and state jobs, where applicable. We have also seen a similar shift from private sector organizations (e.g., Bank of America, Delta Airlines, Google) to reduce or even eliminate degree requirements wherever feasible.  

The Chance to Compete Act and related efforts promote positive change in selection by enhancing the effectiveness and fairness of hiring practices through methods that target skills related to successful job performance and increase the size and diversity of applicant pools. But what exactly are technical or skills-based assessments, and why are they at the heart of this reform? 

What Are Technical Assessments? 

Technical assessments are tools used to evaluate the specific knowledge, skills, or abilities required for a job. Unlike the use of degree requirements or self-report occupational questionnaires, these evaluations focus on demonstrations of competence, reduce the potential for faking or inflation of abilities, and offer a more direct evaluation of a candidate’s potential to succeed in a role. 

Characteristics of Technical Assessments 

• Job-Specificity: Assessments are designed to measure critical skills candidates will face on the job.
• Objectivity: Results are based on measurable performance benchmarks rather than subjective impressions. 
• Standardization: All candidates respond to the same assessment content and have the same assessment experience. 
• Fairness: Reduces bias related to education attainment and ensures candidates are evaluated using consistent benchmarks. 
• Accuracy & Utility: Provides nuanced measurement of specific skills to more accurately predict on-the-job performance and efficiently identify quality candidates. 

Examples of Technical Assessments  

• Structured Interviews: Consistent interview questions designed to target specifics skills, evaluated using a standard rubric and scoring protocol.
• Skills Tests: Practical tests such as a writing test, personality, or troubleshooting or analytical thinking exercises. 
• Simulations or Role-plays: Realistic scenarios that replicate job role duties and challenges. 
• Work Samples: Completion of a work product like a coding challenge, fabrication of a single widget, or a results report or presentation.  

Key Provisions of the Chance to Compete Act 

The act sets a few parameters for implementation that may apply to not only federal agencies, but any organization looking to make a similar shift. These parameters include the following: 

1. Agencies must implement technical assessments for all competitive positions, unless they are able to certify that it is impracticable.
2. Job SMEs will play a key role in identifying critical job skills or abilities and developing the technical assessments.
3. OPM will explore the feasibility of shared technical assessments and an online platform to support implementation across agencies.  

Summary  

The Chance to Compete Act of 2024 highlights an important and continued emphasis on more equitable and effective federal hiring processes. By prioritizing technical assessments, the act ensures that hiring decisions are based on job-related skills and not on outdated or arbitrary requirements. This reform not only benefits federal agencies but also opens doors for talented individuals from all backgrounds to contribute meaningfully to government roles, as well as bolsters other sectors to make similar, transformative changes.

DCI will continue to monitor the implementation of this law and the progress of other initiatives meant to transition federal agencies to the use of skills-based hiring