Retaining Quality Federal Employees: Life after PACE

Abstract

In January 1981, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) signed a consent decree in which it agreed to eliminate use of the Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE). For several years, PACE had been the main route for entry-level hiring for many federal government agencies. Indeed, PACE was used for hiring into 118 different occupations. This paper examines how the federal government has coped with the demise of PACE, focusing on the methods now used for entry-level hiring, particularly Schedule B and newly-developed alternative exams. Also examined are the impacts of the consent decree and of the new hiring methods on minority employment and on the quality of the federal workforce.