Trump Extends Federal Hiring Freeze, Pushes Merit-Based Plans

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Oct. 15 largely maintaining a freeze on federal hiring and establishing "Strategic Hiring Committees" at each federal agency. These committees are tasked with ensuring that hiring reflects "agency needs, the national interest and administration priorities." 

The order continues the Trump administration's efforts to reshape federal hiring by involving more political appointees in the process.     

Federal hiring has been on hold since Jan. 20, with limited exceptions. The hold was set to be lifted on Oct. 15, but it is now indefinite except for positions tied to national security, immigration enforcement, and public safety. The federal hiring freeze had already been extended twice — first in April, and then in July.  

The Trump administration is also pushing to shrink the size of the federal workforce. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has estimated that more than 300,000 federal employees will have left or lost their jobs by the end of the year. 

Resource Hub: Executive Order Impact Zone

Merit-Based Hiring

Federal agencies must establish hiring committees within 30 days of the order and submit annual staffing plans in alignment with the administration's priorities within 60 days. Agencies will also have to work with OPM on a quarterly basis to ensure they are adhering to the staffing plans. 

OPM detailed the parameters of those plans earlier this year, which included: 

• Reforming federal recruitment to ensure that only "the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans" are hired. 
• Implementing skills-based hiring, eliminating unnecessary degree requirements, and requiring the use of job-related assessments to ensure candidates are selected based on merit. 
• Streamlining and improving the job application process. 
• Reducing time-to-hire to under 80 days. 

One of the more notable aspects of the plan requires agencies to include essay questions on federal job postings, asking applicants to explain how they plan to advance the administration's priorities. OPM clarified that candidates would not be disqualified from a job for not answering the questions, but that they should be seen more like a "cover letter." 

Toolkit: Belonging Enhanced by Access through Merit (BEAM)

The 'Rule of Three' to the 'Rule of Many'

The executive order follows a recent move by OPM to replace its long-standing candidate selection methods with a new framework allowing agencies to select from a more tailored pool of candidates based on skills-based assessments. 

The "rule of many" concept was first introduced by the Trump administration during its first term, proposed in regulatory form during the Biden administration, and finalized on Sept. 8. 

The rule takes effect on Nov. 7, and agencies are to be in full compliance by March 9, 2026, OPM said. 

The rule enables agencies to rank candidates using cutoff scores, a set number of applicants, or a percentage of applicants, replacing the "rule of three" and the "category rating" systems.  

Under the rule of three, which has been in place since 1871, agencies could only select one of the top three candidates after evaluating and ranking them based on qualifying criteria.  

Beginning about 15 years ago, many agencies had shifted to the category rating system, introduced by OPM in 2004. This approach required that job applicants be placed into three categories: qualified, highly qualified, and best qualified for the job. More applicants had a chance of being selected, but the method could also produce an unmanageable list of candidates, according to OPM.  

The agency's new rule allows federal hiring managers to evaluate a larger list of qualified candidates than the rule of three previously allowed, while also making the list more precise than what was achieved with category rating. 

"For more than 150 years, the federal hiring process has been shaped by outdated rules that limited hiring managers' ability to bring in the best candidates," OPM Director Scott Kupor said. "The [rule of many] gives hiring managers the much-needed flexibility to distinguish candidates based on their demonstrated functional merit-based qualifications for the role in question."