Federal government applications evaluated by a human resources specialists. They will review your responses to the User Information, Core Questions, and Vacancy Questions. The job specific questions will relate to the knowledge, skills and abilities required of the position. Many applications are “thrown out” because of a lack of KSAs addressed by the applicant.

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL federal positions are advertised on www.usajobs.gov. DON’T be fooled by “other” websites that promise to advertise federal jobs for a “small cost.” Many of these “other” websites charge applicants to view federal positions and merely re-route the job links, but rest assure that these “other” websites are “pulling” information from www.usajobs.gov to get information about advertised federal positions.

No matter what agency you are applying to, the advertised job will have KSAs or Knowledge, Skills and Abilities. You need to read the entire job announcement. At times, federal agencies require applicants to submit addition information about specific job announcement KSAs. (Go to the PRINT PREVIEW button to view the entire announcement requirements)

Example job announcement KSAs:
• Knowledge of the laws and regulations governing the realty program and the ability to use sound professional judgment to resolve conflicts with other resources.
• Skilled in understanding laws and regulation and analyzing realty programs
• Ability to evaluate and process realty applications and proposals and conduct compliance examinations on authorized actions.

This statement is ALWAYS in federal job announcements:
ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS MUST BE SUPPORTED IN YOUR RESUME. If your answer(s) are not supported in your resume, or you fail to follow the instructions for the question(s), you will have your answer(s) adjusted to reflect what is provided, for failure to follow instructions.

This means if your resume does not “match” the required KSAs within the advertised job announcement, the agency may manually lower your application score. Federal applications are scored from 0 points to 100 points. Your goal is to receive as many points as possible. Human resources specialists review applications with the highest scores first.

Overall, KSAs are important and you will be evaluated based the information submitted to the job announcement. The key to writing government KSAs is to put the EXACT KSAs which are found in the job announcement within your resume or application WORD-FOR-WORD. Then go into detail about how your qualifications meet the KSAs.

Happy Job Hunting,
Jenice