Meritocracy

[IronWing]

We are seeing the patronage system making a comeback under Trump, replacing the meritocracy required under current law. There have been more than few posts here blasting the concept of meritocracy as being based on the background of the incumbent writing the job requirements and not on any objective measure of suitability for doing the job. My question is, what criteria should we use to fill government jobs?

 

[brycejones]

We are seeing the patronage system making a comeback under Trump, replacing the meritocracy required under current law. There have been more than few posts here blasting the concept of meritocracy as being based on the background of the incumbent writing the job requirements and not on any objective measure of suitability for doing the job. My question is, what criteria should we use to fill government jobs?

Ability

 

[IronWing]

Ability

Sounds great. Now how do we evaluate applicants ability in order to select one for a job?

 

[brycejones]

Sounds great. Now how do we evaluate applicants ability in order to select one for a job?

Up until dipshit took office we had civil service exams for example.

 

[hal2kilo]

Up until dipshit took office we had civil service exams for example.

The civil service system up until about 15 years ago, was so ridiculous in their documentation requirements. I would literally see people with huge loose leaf notebooks full of all of their records go before a board for a new job or promotion. As a person who only worked in the private sector, if you showed up with that for an interview I would tell to go home and summarize everything in 2 pages or less. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they changed over to some sort of phrase or word matching system that would advance you if you used the right magic words (a bit of an exaggeration) you could get your interview.

 

[Paratus]

The civil service system up until about 15 years ago, was so ridiculous in their documentation requirements. I would literally see people with huge loose leaf notebooks full of all of their records go before a board for a new job or promotion. As a person who only worked in the private sector, if you showed up with that for an interview I would tell to go home and summarize everything in 2 pages or less. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they changed over to some sort of phrase or word matching system that would advance you if you used the right magic words (a bit of an exaggeration) you could get your interview.

My USAJOBS resume is like 12 pages. Just logged in again and it says they now won’t accept anything over 2 pages.

🤔