Both chambers of Congress have officially approved the Chance to Compete Act – a bill that aims to put in place a Federal workforce hiring policy that places greater emphasis on prospective employees’ work experience, rather than their educational credentials.
The House passed the bill on Monday evening, following the Senate’s approval of the companion legislation late last week. The bill now heads to President Biden to sign into law.
The legislation stems from a policy put forward in an executive order (EO) from President Donald Trump in 2020 that aims to replace degree-based hiring with skills-based hiring.
Jenny Mattingley, the vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, explained this week that the bill would require agencies to update their hiring “to make it more in line with what the private sector does.”
“The challenge is it requires investment,” Mattingley said when discussing the bill during GovExec’s Trump & GovCon event on Dec. 16. “I think the challenge, the rubber meets the road, is where Congress and the administration have something they agree on and that agencies largely agree on, and it’s going to take budget and focus to make it effective.”
The Chance to Compete Act was most recently introduced in the House in January 2023 by Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., alongside Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Gerry Connolly, D-Va.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., introduced the Senate companion in January 2023 alongside Sens. Bill Haggerty, R-Tenn., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Tom Carper, D-Del. Final approval of the bill comes after years of both the Trump and Biden administrations pushing for skills-based hiring.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued new guidance in April to help agencies transition to skills-based hiring. The agency started by focusing on the 2210 series – which accounts for nearly 100,000 current Federal employees working in IT, cybersecurity, and AI roles.
The agency also issued guidance in May 2022 to help implement the Trump-era executive order, voicing its full support for expanding skills-based hiring for Federal jobs.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest Federal employee union, applauded passage of the bill, noting it “reestablishes skills-based technical assessments, not subjective self-evaluations, as the cornerstone of the government’s hiring process.”
“Federal employees protect public safety, serve our veterans, safeguard our borders, and advance the frontiers of knowledge. The American people should have confidence that we are recruiting the best and most qualified candidates to work in the Federal government, and this legislation will set up agencies for success,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a Dec. 17 statement.
“I applaud members of the House and Senate for approving the bill and sending it to President Biden’s desk for his signature,” Kelley added.
