Federal Hiring

The Administrative Careers With America (ACWA), the government's most recent program to test applicants for entry-level jobs, was established by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 1990 to replace an examination system that had allegedly limited hiring opportunities for minorities. Many agency officials prefer not to use ACWA because it is so time consuming. Although agency officials promptly receive ACWA certificates from OPM, it can take weeks to contact the job applicants, receive and review their resumes, conduct interviews, and verify education and employment experience. Furthermore, the law requires agencies to choose from the top three candidates on a certificate and gives hiring preference to veterans. Because most veterans are men, agencies have difficulty meeting affirmative actions goals for women through ACWA certificates. Many job applicants are also frustrated with the ACWA hiring process, in part because they are not contacted about openings after they have taken the ACWA exam. Further, applicants often overestimate their chances of obtaining government jobs because they receive little or no information from OPM on hiring patterns. Under changes being considered by OPM, applicants would apply for specific vacancies rather than be considered for potential openings, agencies would help decide the criteria used to score applicants, and the ACWA exam would become optional. In addition, OPM has started providing applicants with more specific information on openings, including the number of eligible candidates who have applied for the job and the average scores of candidates hired from certificates. But seven of the largest ACWA job categories, such as Internal Revenue Officer, Customs Inspector, and Social Insurance Claims Examiners, are exempt from the changes.

GAO found that: (1) federal agencies have not used ACWA to fill vacancies to the extent OPM expected because they believe that alternative hiring methods better meet their needs; (2) although agencies filled 2,797 vacancies through ACWA hiring methods between 1991 and 1992, nearly 35,000 vacancies were filled through alternative hiring methods and employee transfers, promotions, and reassignments; (3) agencies prefer using alternative hiring methods because ACWA hiring procedures and statutory requirements are too time consuming, do not meet their needs, and delay the hiring process; (4) most ACWA applicants were disappointed with the ACWA hiring process because they were not sufficiently informed of their application status; (5) OPM changes to the ACWA hiring process include allowing applicants to apply for specific vacancies, agencies to assist in developing scoring criteria, and ACWA examinations to be optional; (6) OPM plans to provide applicants with better vacancy and general application information to alleviate their frustration with the ACWA hiring process; (7) planned modifications to the ACWA program would alleviate many obstacles to its limited use; (8) OPM could better inform applicants of federal employment procedures if it provided them with information on the various alternative hiring methods available; and (9) OPM needs to modify ACWA hiring procedures for the seven largest occupations to make more jobs available to external candidates.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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