There will be no more “diversity hires” in the federal government. At least, not officially. More on that in a moment.
On Thursday, the Office of Personnel Management sent out new guidelines for hiring, called the Merit Hiring Plan. This plan was written to implement the Chance to Compete Act, which was passed in late 2024. The Merit Hiring Plan prohibits the consideration of race and sex in hiring decisions.
Why it matters: The Merit Hiring Plan released to agencies Thursday afternoon by the Office of Personnel Management — the administration’s HR department, basically — is a major overhaul to how the federal government hires employees.
- It also explicitly orders agencies not to take race and gender into consideration in hiring.
Catch up quick:The memo implements a law, the Chance to Compete Act, that was so noncontroversial it passed the Senate in late 2024 with no opposition.
- “These ideas have been around for a while, but hadn’t been done in a comprehensive way,” an OPM official told Axios.
Hiring based solely on the applicant’s suitability for the job; imagine that.
One of the key changes is how job candidates are assessed. Currently, they fill out “self-assessments,” a widely criticized practice, where applicants rate themselves on their experience and knowledge.
- Going forward assessments will look at actual skills — either in interviews or using different tests.
There’s another interesting tidbit in the plan: Government agencies are now prohibited from releasing information on workforce demographics, which makes a certain amount of sense; if the government is hiring on merit alone, those statistics shouldn’t matter.
Maybe this will prevent the internal moves that are NOT as good as external candidates!
Right on, hire the best legal applicant for the job. The way it should be.