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              Congr~essional
              Research Service






Executive Order 13932 on Assessing and

Hiring Job Candidates in Federal Agencies



August   25,2020

Background

President Donald Trump issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13932, titled Modernizing and Reforming the
ssessment  and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates, on June 26, 2020. The E.O. seeks to alter the federal
hiring process by removing potentially unnecessary education qualifications to ensure that the federal
hiring process is merit-based. The merit system is generally held to be a keystone of the federal civil
service.
This E.O. aligns with the President's Management Agenda, which identifies enhanced alignment and
strategic management of the Federal workforce as a primary goal. The E.G. also appears to align with
certain aspects of current law. In particular, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and agencies are
prohibited by law from prescribing a minimum educational requirement for competitive service positions,
albeit with limited exceptions for scientific, technical, and certain other positions.
OPMhas   issued guidance on E.O. 13932 for the increased use of skills- and competency-based
assessments in the federal hiring process. OPM's guidance explained that the agency's website already
outlines a number of competency-based assessment options. OPM's guidance also offers a schedule for
the implementation of the E.G.

Contents of Executive Order 13932

Purpose

Section 1 of the E.O. emphasizes the merit-based foundation of the U.S. civil service and suggests that
hiring within the federal government should reflect this principle. The E.O. posits that the American
public's perception of the federal hiring process is important to maintaining public confidence in the civil
service. In order to keep up with private employers that have modernized their hiring processes, the E.O.
suggests that the federal government should favor skills- and competency-based hiring techniques over
degree-based educational requirements to assess some job candidates. The E.O. addresses the potential
exclusion of capable candidates who have the skills and competencies to be successful in a given

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