| PATCO Approach Expansion |
| USA Hire is expanding the USA Hire Standard Assessments to ensure full coverage of all General Schedule (GS) occupational series. Wave 1 of the expansion was released in March 2026 and Wave 2 in June 2026. To help agencies prepare for this expansion of USA Hire Standard Assessments, additional reference resources are available on the PATCO Resources - Reference Materials page. |
The Competency Lookup Tool (download) helps you quickly identify the competencies and assessments for specific occupational series and grades. It has two main sections:
- Competencies Section - Identifies the competencies assessed for each job series and grade. These are the competencies that should be included in your job announcement.
- Assessments Section - Lists the specific assessments included in the assessment battery for each available job series and grade combination. This is useful when announcing more than three grade levels and are dividing the grades into two separate announcements. This information will allow you to identify which grades have similar assessments.
Follow these steps to determine the competencies and assessments for your USA Hire Job Announcement.
Step 1: Select the Position Details
- Choose the USA Hire type. (Core - Standard, Core - ECTA, Core - FSA, Premium USA Hire)
- Select the Series. You may select multiple grade levels by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click on each desired series.
- Select the grade(s) you intend to announce.
Step 2: Review the Competencies Section
- This section will display the assessment names for your selected occupational series and grades.
- It will list the competencies assessed by each assessment.
Step 3: Review the Assessment Section
- Use this information when deciding which grades to announce together, when announcing more than 3 grade levels. When there are more than 3 grade levels, the grades should be divided into two separate announcements.
- This section will show all available grades and assessments for the selected series.
- It will display the number of competencies assessed for each grade and assessment.
Step 4: Determine Grade(s) for Your Announcement (more than 3 grades)
- For recruitments announcing more than 3 grades, use the information from Step 3 to identify which grades use the same assessments and which grades have significant differences. There will typically be a natural break to help you determine which grades should be announced together and which should be in a second announcement.
- If all the same assessments are used for all the grades, there may be differences in the number of competencies measured by the Occupational Interaction Assessment to help you draw a distinction.
- In the example below, there is a natural break between grades 5 and 6, since grades 6 and higher include the Occupational Reasoning Assessment.