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Berry: KSAs will be Gone with the Wind

April 13th, 2010 | Office of Personnel Management | Posted by Stephen Losey

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As God is my witness, KSAs as an initial screening tool will fall.
- Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, channelling Scarlett O’Hara in his address to the IRMCO conference this morning.
Seriously, though, Berry outlined the future role he wants knowledge, skills and abilities essays to play in the government’s hiring process. Some agencies will likely still require finalists for a job opening to write essays outlining their experience and special skills, Berry said, but they shouldn’t need KSAs from thousands of first-round applicants. “Whittle it down until you’ve got the pool of 10 or 20,” Berry said. “Make them write the essays, not the 10,000″ initial applicants.

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Comments

  1. Kathryn Troutman Says:
    April 14th, 2010 at 4:15 am

    KSAs are right now, known also as essays, short examples, narratives, accomplishments … as part of the Assessment Questionnaires.

    The Assessment Questionnaire essays are not rated and ranked, but they are requested frequently with applications that use the Questionnaire as Part 2 of many applications. There are sometimes 10 narratives (known as examples – not using the name “KSA”).

    Will these essays be eliminated as well? Are these narrative examples part of the KSA elimination discussion?

  2. Robert Benson Says:
    April 14th, 2010 at 11:49 am

    Essays? Applicants might need to write essays?

    Did anybody consider that there are many, many jobs in which the ability to write is not important?

    Essays would rule out highly competent people! Please don’t do it.

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