Reimagining Federal Hiring: Key Changes in the 2025 Merit Hiring Plan

The federal hiring landscape is undergoing a significant transformation with the release of the 2025 Merit Hiring Plan issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in response to Executive Order 14170: Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service. Most of the Plan’s strategies are not new to the federal government. Indeed, hiring across the federal government has been merit-based since the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883. However, the Hiring Plan accelerates the use of existing strategies such as skill-based assessments, cross-government hiring, talent teams, and standardized position descriptions in a more consistent, coordinated, and accountable manner. Below, we highlight 5 key changes in the 2025 Merit Hiring Plan.

1. A Stronger Mandate for Skills-Based Assessments

The Merit Hiring Plan makes a decisive move away from questionnaire-based screening toward validated, job-relevant evaluationsof candidate capability.While selection assessments have historically been skills-based, there is room for increased accuracy and consistency across agencies. The Hiring Plan seeks to improve candidate assessment with the following approaches:

• Eliminate unnecessary degree requirements and focus on demonstrated competencies.

• Incorporate at least one technical or alternative assessment in every competitive hiring process.

• Phase out self-assessments (e.g., occupational questionnaires) by 2027.

• Use multi-hurdle assessments, such as pairing USA Hire tools with structured resume reviews or writing samples.

2. Reforming the Federal Recruitment Process

The Merit Hiring Plan introduces changes to the federal recruitment process to attract top talent. By focusing on outreach, standardized tools, and collaborative strategies, these updates aim to create a larger, more qualified candidate pool while improving efficiency and fairness. Specifically, the Merit Hiring Plan seeks to improve the federal recruitment process in the following ways:

• Recruit patriotic Americans for Federal service by emphasizing outreach to communities such as veterans and rural populations, which broadens the applicant pool.

• Expand the use of standardized position descriptions, candidate inventories, talent pools, and shared certificates to ensure consistency, reduce duplication, and give agencies quick access to pre-qualified applicants.

• Leverage OPM and agency talent teams (specialized groups for strategic hiring) to provide guidance and centralized resources, enabling agencies to attract highly skilled applicants.

3. Implementation of the “Rule of Many” for Candidate Ranking

The plan introduces the “Rule of Many” as an alternative to Category Rating, and sunsets the “Rule of Three.” Whereas the Rule of Three limits hiring managers to choose from the top three ranked candidates, the Rule of Many allows selection from all candidates who meet or exceed a minimum qualification threshold. This change will allow agencies to:

• Rank candidates based on numerical scores from validated assessments.

• Establish more strategic cut scores based on job requirements and business needs.

• Maintain veterans’ preference while enhancing the rigor of selection.

4. Reduced Hiring Timelines and Enhanced Applicant Experience

One of the plan’s most ambitious goals is to reduce time-to-hire to under 80 days. This push for speed and accountability is a response to longstanding concerns about federal hiring delays and aims to make government jobs more accessible and competitive. To achieve this 80-day timeline, agencies must:

• Use shared certificates and candidate inventories to streamline hiring.

• Track progress using data dashboards that monitor time-to-hire, assessment usage, and satisfaction metrics.

• Introduce a two-page limit for resumes submitted through USAJOBS to encourage applicants to focus on relevant experience and accomplishments

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5. Enhanced Use of Technology and Data Analytics

The plan emphasizes the use of modern technology to support hiring, reflecting the broader trend in I-O psychology of using data-driven decision-making to improve organizational outcomes. The plan specifies that:

• Agencies will leverage USAJOBS and USA Staffing for transparency and user experience.

• OPM will expand its data analytics capabilities, including dashboards to track key metrics.

• Resume mining and digital engagement tools will be used to identify and attract top talent.

The 2025 Merit Hiring Plan blends long-standing principles with modern tools and clearer expectations. Its emphasis on validated assessments, structured processes, and accelerated timelines positions agencies to make better, faster, and fairer hiring decisions.

Dr. Roxanne Lawrence is an industrial and organizational psychologist with senior levels of expertise in survey design, development, and deployment, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and project management. She serves as a Senior Human Capital Consultant at FMP, offering her expertise to several Federal agencies. Dr. Lawrence studied cultural differences in emotion regulation within the service industry and has published her work on the moderating effects of cultural values on the relationship between emotion suppression and employee well-being in peer-reviewed journal Current Psychology. 

Budd Darling is a Senior Consultant at FMP with over ten years of experience of operational process analysis, organizational analysis, data analysis, SharePoint development, and Power Apps development. Mr. Darling holds an M.S. in Industrial‑Organizational Psychology from the University of Central Florida.