| All Wave 1 and Wave 2 have been published to USA Staffing and are available for use. The Available Series & Grades - Standard Assessments has been updated accordingly. |
USA Hire expanded the USA Hire Standard Assessments to ensure full coverage of all General Schedule (GS) occupational series. Previously, USA Hire Standard Assessments cover 138 job series, accounting for approximately 65-70% of all GS non-supervisory positions announced on USAJOBS in recent years. While this coverage was substantial, it was not complete. The Chance to Compete Act and the Merit Hiring Plan require agencies to use objective, skill- and competency-based assessments in the hiring process. In response, OPM prioritized making USA Hire Standard Assessments available for every GS occupational series.
To achieve this milestone, OPM implemented a new expansion strategy called PATCO — an acronym for the five white-collar occupational categories used by the Federal Government to classify jobs and analyze workforce data: Professional, Administrative, Technical, Clerical, and Other.
Key Features of the PATCO Approach:
- All GS job series fall into one of the five PATCO categories.
- If a Standard Assessment was not previously available for a job series, one was delivered using the PATCO approach.
- If a grade level was missing within a Standard Assessment series, the PATCO approach was used to fill that gap.
- PATCO expansion of the Standard Assessments are grade-specific and cover all job series within their category.
Implementation Timeline
The PATCO expansion was completed in June 2026. Agencies now have access to USA Hire Standard Assessments for 100% of GS and GS-equivalent non-supervisory positions, supporting compliance with the Merit Hiring Plan assessment requirements and strengthening the Federal hiring process.
Reference Materials
Two resources are available for download to provide additional information about the PATCO expansion:
- PATCO Expansion Series-Grades - This provides a list of all job series and grades that will be covered by the USA Hire Standard Assessment suite once PATCO is complete. This list identified if a job series/grade combination is covered by a USA Hire Standard Assessment - Classic, PATCO, or Early Career Talent Assessment (ECTA).
- Competency Lookup Tool - This tool provides information on the competencies assessed for each job series and grade covered by USA Hire Core Assessments and Premium Assessments.