As
a supervisor, it's important to understand the options available for
filling vacancies. Working closely with your HR specialist, you will
need to:
- discuss
how best to advertise the position;
- determine
the type of announcement to use (Merit Promotion, Demo, Career
Enhancement, etc.);
- decide
on the area of consideration to use in filling the position;
- determine
what your candidate pool is; and
- decide
how long to keep the announcement open.
You will also
need to determine what the major responsibilities of the position
are and then, working closely with your HR specialist, develop appropriate
knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and selective factors to
use in your announcement. While the HR specialist can provide advice
on developing the KSAs and selective factors, it is your responsibility,
as a supervisor, to define the requirements.
To make these
decisions, you need to understand all aspects of the position you
are advertising and have a basic understanding of the recruitment
options available to you. Your HR specialist is responsible for
providing guidance on the process and for helping you work through
it.
Use the links
below to learn more specific information about advertising positions:
How
should you advertise the position?
You have various
options available to you for filling positions. You can advertise
to fill on a permanent, temporary, or term basis.
The topics below
and the information provided on these topics should assist you in
making your recruitment decisions.
How long
will it take?
The Human Resources
Division has prepared a Customer Service Plan that includes a section
on personnel actions. This section provides typical times for various
actions requested by management. Times may be adjusted as a result
of client requirements, priorities established by management, and
new policies and procedures regarding subjects such as security
issues and approval processes. Refer to this plan for further guidance.
Human
Resources Division Customer Service Plan
Glossary
of Terms
Career
Status — After serving three years of substantially continuous
creditable service under a Career-Conditional appointment, an employee
acquires full Career competitive status. Substantially continuous
creditable service is Federal employment without a break in service
of more than 30 calendar days.
Career
Conditional Appointment — This is a permanent appointment.
Employees hired for non-temporary positions in the competitive service
are initially given career-conditional appointments. In most cases,
individuals would have competed for this type of appointment. Employees
are converted to career status after three years of continuous service.
Career
Enhancement Program (CEP) — This program offers training,
experience, and improved job opportunities for employees whose career
prospects are limited. CEP provides these employees an avenue for
advancement to positions of greater responsibility and a means of
realizing their full potential. CEP benefits management officials
by enabling them to more fully utilize the capabilities of employees.
The program also supports diversity by broadening the pool of candidates
eligible for selection into these positions.
Career
Transition Assistance Program (CTAP) — A program for providing
placement to surplus and displaced employees. A surplus employee
is a current USDA employee who has received a notice of expected
separation, and the employee's position has been declared surplus.
A displaced employee is a current or previous employee of any agency
and has received a specific notice of separation. Surplus and displaced
employees must apply for a position to be considered. Surplus and
displaced employees receive selection priority if they are well
qualified for the position, they are in the local commuting area
of the vacancy, and they submit evidence of eligibility under CTAP.
Competitive
Service — The competitive service includes all civilian
positions in the Federal government that are not specifically excepted
from the civil service laws by Statute, by the President, or by
the Office of Personnel Management, and are not in the Senior Executive
Service (SES).
Competitive
Status — An employee's basic eligibility for noncompetitive
assignment such as transfer, promotion, reassignment, demotion,
or reinstatement to a position in the competitive service without
having to compete with members of the general public in an open
competitive examination. Competitive status belongs to an employee,
not to a position.
Demo
(formally Demonstration Project) — Recruitment and selection
program for new hires that is flexible and responsive to recruitment
needs. One unique feature is testing requirements are eliminated.
Licenses (i.e., Pesticide Application License) are still required.
ARS and Forest Service have been delegated the authority to use
the DEMO authority. Recruitment is for all U.S. Citizens and NO
prior Federal experience is required. Veterans' preference applies.
There is a 3 year probationary period for Category 1 Scientists.
Excepted
Appointment — A non-competitive appointment authorized
by OPM and delegated to Federal agencies. Some of the excepted appointments
commonly used within ARS include student, post-doc, and disability
hiring authorities.
Interagency
Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP) — Covers displaced
Federal employees who are seeking employment in other Federal agencies.
Individuals are eligible for selection priority under ICTAP if they
were separated from a career or career conditional position by reduction
in force or because the employee declined a transfer or directed
reassignment to another commuting area.
Merit
Promotion/Alternative Merit Promotion — Provides opportunities
for current and former permanent Federal employees to compete with
other Federal employees for job opportunities. Veterans' preference
does not apply. Non-permanent employees (temporary/term) are not
eligible to apply under this hiring authority.
Postdoctoral
Research Associate Program — The ARS Postdoctoral Research
Associate Program offers recent recipients of the doctoral degree
a unique opportunity to conduct criticially-needed research in a
short-term, non-career position. Appointments are normally made
for two years and may be extended up to two additional years.
Reemployment
Priority List (RPL) — A list of former employees who have
been separated because of compensable injury or disability, as well
as former employees who lost employment due to reduction in force.
The presence of qualified persons on a RPL restricts your filling
of a vacancy, especially with a candidate from outside the agency.
Reinstatement
Eligible — An applicant who previously held a career or
career-conditional appointment with a Federal Agency, but is not
now a Federal employee. There is no time limit on the reinstatement
of a veterans' preference eligible or a person who has completed
the 3 years of continuous Federal service. Non-preference eligibles
who have not completed 3 years of continuous Federal service can
only be reinstated within 3 years of the date of their earlier separation.
Individuals with reinstatement rights can be placed without competition
in positions at grades equal to or lower than the grade they previously
held on a permanent basis. Reinstatement eligibles can also compete
along with merit promotion candidates for positions at higher grades
than they previously held as long as they meet the same requirements
as in-service placement candidates. If selected, the applicant would
be reinstated to the Federal service.
Temporary
Position — A time-limited position. The work is not permanent
in nature and is not expected to exceed 1 year. Temporary positions
may be extended for 1 additional year. Temporary employees may work
full-time or part-time work schedules and earn annual and sick leave.
Employees on temporary appointments of 1 year or less are not entitled
to retirement benefits, health insurance or life insurance.
Term position — A temporary
position held for more than 1 year but not more than 4 years. Some
reasons for making a term appointment include project work, extraordinary
workload, scheduled abolishment, reorganization, contracting out
of function, and uncertainty of future funding. Veterans' preference
applies. Eligible for benefits.
Transfer
Eligible — Eligibility based on current permanent employment
with another Federal agency at the same grade level or with the
same promotion potential as the position being filled. Movement
is from one agency to another (for example, moving from Department
of Treasury to USDA or from USDA to Department of Defense).
Veterans
Readjustment Appointment (VRA) — Temporary employment of
an eligible Vietnam era veteran without competition for positions
at grade GS-11 or below. After 2 years of satisfactory service,
the veteran is converted to a career-conditional appointment in
the competitive service. CTAP must be cleared.
Veterans'
Preference — By law, veterans who are disabled or who served
on active duty in the Armed Forces during certain specified time
periods or in military campaigns are entitled to preference over
nonveterans in hiring from competitive certificates of eligibles,
such as Demo certificates. This preference only applies when they
are initially hired. It does not guarantee the veteran a job, nor
does it give preference in internal agency actions such as promotion,
transfer, reassignment, and reinstatement.
Additional
resources
Tips
on How to Reduce the Length of Time it Takes to Fill a Vacancy
Human
Resources Division Customer Service Plan
Identifying
Qualification Requirements of Your Position
What's
Hot
Using
Ads - Print and Online
P&P 105.1,
ARS Research
Associate Program
P&P 412.5,
Recruitment
and Retention Incentives and Other Special Pay
P&P 413.6,
Career Enhancement
Program
P&P 420.1,
Merit Promotion
Recruitment
for ARS Positions (memo
dated 2/27/03, 28.4KB .PDF file)
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