The Office of Personnel Management has issued a final rule replacing the longstanding “rule of three” with the “rule of many” to modernize federal hiring. OPM, which announced the reform on Friday, said the rule applies to competitive and excepted service appointments to ensure agencies hire based on practical skill and merit, as measured by skills-based assessments.
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What Is OPM’s Rule of Many?
The rule allows agencies to select from a broader pool of top-ranked candidates by certifying a “sufficient number” of applicants using one of four methods: a cut-off score based on job analysis data, a cut-off score based on business necessity, a set number of top-ranked applicants or a percentage of top-ranked applicants. It replaces the category rating system under which all applicants in a broadly defined category were treated as equally qualified. Hiring managers can now stack rank the full slate of candidates based on skills and competencies, without regard to the category rating system, and remove more than one candidate at a time, up to the number of remaining positions being filled, beginning with the fourth selection.
Rule of Many Operational Guidance, Expected Impact
OPM will issue updated instructions through a revised Delegated Examining Operations Handbook to guide implementation. The fact sheet accompanying the final rule states the reform is intended to remove barriers to using skills-based assessments in federal recruitment and to give hiring managers greater flexibility in candidate selection.
OPM said the rule will improve workforce quality, reduce reliance on direct-hire authorities, and promote a more efficient, effective and equitable federal hiring system.
“For more than 150 years, the federal hiring process has been shaped by outdated rules that limited hiring managers’ ability to bring in the best candidates,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said. “American taxpayers deserve a government that hires the most capable people to serve them, and this rule makes that possible.”
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