Executive branch agencies are just glomming onto a hiring practice this
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Hiring people by their demonstrated capabilities, instead of what they boast on their resumes. It’s catching on at executive branch agencies. It even has a name: c. Turns out, the Government Publishing Office has been hiring people this way for four years, and with what it considers great success. Joining the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with more, the GPO’s chief human capital officer, Dan Mielke.
Tom Temin: Mr. Mielke. Good to have you on.
Dan Mielke: Good morning, Tom, thank you for having me back on.
Tom Temin: Tell us how you have been going about hiring people? And where did it all start and tell us how the process works? Do you call it SMEQA? Well, that came from the other branch, right?
Dan Mielke: That’s correct, Tom. So four to five years ago, we started using selective placement factors. And selective placement factors are two to three things that the candidate needs to know, you know, the first day on the job. And that could be for example, with a social media expert, that they have to be able to get up social media analytics to make better business decisions. So in order to use selected placement factors, and just a little background on selected placement factors, the candidate at that point is either in or out. So if they meet the selected placement factors, they’re still in consideration. If they do not meet the selected placement factors, they’re no longer considered. So we had to use subject matter experts to make that determination. So we started using subject matter experts in that way, three to four years ago. And what the USDS (U.S. Digital Service) and OPM (Office of Personnel Management) did was really give us a lot of different options using that SMEQA process that we hadn’t really been able to use.
Tom Temin: Interesting, because let me just ask a devil’s advocate question. What if someone strikes you as a fantastic learner, great personality, someone that could fit in well with the organization? Maybe someone that meets diversity goals that you have, but they don’t have the specific technical knowledge? They’re ruled out?
Dan Mielke: Well, that’s a good question. Yes. If you do use selecting placement factors, they would be ruled out. Yes.
Tom Temin: So therefore, would it be fair to say that you have to be selective in the positions for which you choose to use the selective placement factors?
Dan Mielke: Yes, Tom, for example, selective placement factors are generally used at what you would consider the expert level. In our case, we have a lot of craft trades. So that would be the journey person level. So wouldn’t be used for entry level type positions, or maybe even mid-level type positions, because they’re you are looking for potential. Where at the expert level, you’re expecting the candidate to come in if they’re selected, and start being able to perform working in that job the next day.
Tom Temin: Got it. All right. So tell us how this got started. That is to say, which job function, which area of GPO that it started with?
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