A colleague shared this new guidance with me. I think you’ll find it interesting.

“…the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released guidance regarding the implementation of EO 13932; Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates.”

I'm not a government employee, so likely my opinion is irrelevant.

That said, I've always mistrusted skills testing. It's hard to identify exactly which skills are critical to job success, and then creating a fair and consistent test is difficult. Sure, you can have somebody create Excel pivot tables in front of you, but how do you evaluate analysis of the information thus provided? As I typed, it's difficult.

I think I posted a few days ago that when I started hiring for character attributes, such as curiosity, things changed in my department. I can teach to those willing to learn, and I can let those willing to read and think teach themselves. Those are the people I'm hiring for.

So this approach doesn't strike me as the great innovation that's going to fix the government acquisition workforce.