Chance to Compete Act of 2024
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 59, introduced in the Senate by Senators Sinema and Lankford. The House passed a substantially similar bill to this in January of last year. I commend Representatives Foxx and Connolly for their excellent work on the bill.
The legislation makes evaluations more useful in assessing the skills of candidates for Federal jobs and makes the hiring process more efficient and more effective rather than relying on attainment of an educational degree to determine candidate qualifications in the Federal hiring process.
Subject matter experts in agencies would develop assessments that are designed to test specific knowledge needed for the position. This overhaul would better match qualified applicants with open positions and expand employment opportunities to candidates with various professional and educational backgrounds.
The Chance to Compete Act aligns with the Office of Personnel's guidance released in May of 2022, which strives to modernize the process of assessing and hiring Federal job candidates. Establishing hiring methods that are more skills-based will improve agency managers' ability to hire people who possess the right skills and knowledge to do the job and also allow agencies to hire from a much broader pool of qualified applicants.
The bill directs OPM to study the feasibility of creating an online platform for sharing candidate assessments between agencies. Under the legislation, agencies may also assemble talent teams to support this assessment of job candidates in the hiring process.
The OPM Director would be required to submit annual progress reports to Congress for 5 years on the use and the effectiveness of the new skills-based assessments.
The GAO would be required to submit a report on implementation of the bill 3 years after enactment. The bill streamlines the hiring process for agencies and will shorten the time it takes to bring new and well- qualified employees aboard.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support S. 59, and I salute Ms. Foxx on her excellent leadership and stewardship of this legislation.
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