White House Aims to Transition Nearly 100K Federal IT Jobs to Skills-Based Hiring

The Biden administration is shifting the federal government's primary IT job series (GS-2210) from degree-based to skills-based hiring over the next year. This affects nearly 100,000 jobs, encompassing most technical federal hires.

Key Points:

• Shifting to Skills-Based Hiring: The White House aims to transition the GS-2210 "Information Technology Management Series" to a skills-based hiring model by summer 2025. This is a major initiative to address the cyber talent deficit.
• Impact: The change impacts approximately 100,000 federal IT jobs, many of which currently require undergraduate degrees in technical fields.
• Timeline: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will issue new guidance in fiscal year 2025. Agencies will then need to adapt their assessment processes.
• Broader Initiative: This is part of a wider administration push to prioritize skills over degrees across various federal job series. The focus is on evaluating candidates' abilities rather than relying on educational credentials as proxies for skills.
• Cybersecurity Focus: The White House Office of the National Cyber Director highlights cybersecurity as a key area for skills-based hiring, emphasizing the need for on-the-job training to fill vacancies.
• Energy Department's Actions: The Energy Department is concurrently working to remove degree requirements for its IT contractor positions.
• AI Focus: OPM also released new skills-based hiring guidance for AI-related roles, including a competency model outlining 43 general and 14 technical competencies.

Quotes:

• Harry Coker (National Cyber Director): "This is a major milestone in our national effort to move to skills-based hiring...this process will take time, but we will get it done."
• Rob Shriver (Deputy Director, OPM): "We have to go through the qualifications, the classification, the assessment process...Once we do that for the 2210s, we’re going to prioritize what comes next and keep working on it until we transform the entire process."
• Shila Cooch (Chief Information Officer, Energy's Office of Science): "Contractors are a key part of our workforce. And as we move towards that skill-based hiring, we need to ensure that the same standards that are applied to federal are also applied to contracts."

Conclusion:

The administration believes skills-based hiring is crucial for addressing the cyber talent shortage and filling in-demand AI roles within the federal government. The transition of the GS-2210 series is a significant step towards this goal, but it will require substantial effort and time to fully implement.