1.1 What USA Hire Is and Which Assessments You Will Take
Key Takeaways
- USA Hire is OPM's off-the-shelf assessment platform; the Standard tier covers 135 job series at grades 3 through 11 for non-supervisory positions.
- There are five Standard non-supervisory assessments: Occupational Reading, Occupational Math, Occupational Reasoning, Occupational Judgment, and Occupational Interaction.
- OPM states that assessments used and competencies measured depend on the job series and grade, so no two applicants necessarily receive the same battery.
- Reading, Math and Reasoning are timed at 5 minutes per question; Occupational Judgment is 5 minutes per video scenario; Occupational Interaction is not timed.
- USA Hire meets the Chance to Compete Act definition of a technical assessment because it is job-analysis based and does not rely on applicant self-evaluation.
1.1 What USA Hire Is and Which Assessments You Will Take
Quick Summary: USA Hire is the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) library of pre-built, job-analysis-based hiring assessments, delivered through USA Staffing. The Standard tier covers 135 job series at grades 3 through 11 for non-supervisory positions. Five Standard assessments exist for non-supervisory jobs: Occupational Reading, Occupational Math, Occupational Reasoning, Occupational Judgment, and Occupational Interaction. Which ones you take depends on the job series and grade you applied to.
When you apply to a federal job on USAJOBS and the announcement says assessments are required, you are not being asked to demonstrate knowledge of federal law, agency policy, or the work of the office you applied to. You are being asked to demonstrate general competencies — the transferable abilities OPM's job analyses identified as predicting performance in that occupational series.
That distinction shapes everything about how you should prepare. There is no syllabus of federal regulations to memorise. There is a small, fixed set of general skills, and OPM tells you exactly which ones each assessment measures.
Where USA Hire sits in OPM's product line
OPM offers USA Hire in four tiers. Almost every applicant reading this will encounter the first one.
| Tier | What it covers | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | 135 job series, non-supervisory, general competencies, off-the-shelf, specific to series and grade, mobile-first design, grades 3–11 | Most applicants to covered competitive-service jobs |
| Premium | Leadership (Federal Supervisor Assessment, Supervisory Situational Judgment Test, Executive Assessment) and Critical Skills (Writing, Program/Project Management) plus the 1801/1802 series | Applicants to supervisory, executive, or specialised roles |
| Custom | Agency-specific, mission-critical, and newly built content | Applicants to agencies that commissioned bespoke assessments |
| USA Hire Interview | Virtual structured interviews with rater notes, ratings and consensus recorded on the platform; applicant self-scheduling | Later-stage candidates at agencies using the module |
The Early Career Talent Assessment (ECTA) is folded into the Standard tier for student-trainee series and is covered in Chapter 12.
The five Standard non-supervisory assessments
OPM publishes the competency each assessment measures. Memorise this table — it is the entire blueprint.
| Assessment | Competency or competencies measured | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Occupational Reading | Reading Comprehension | 5 minutes per question |
| Occupational Math | Arithmetic / Mathematical Reasoning | 5 minutes per question |
| Occupational Reasoning | Reasoning | 5 minutes per question |
| Occupational Judgment | Decision Making | 5 minutes per video scenario |
| Occupational Interaction | Accountability, Attention to Detail, Customer Service, Flexibility, Influencing/Negotiating, Integrity/Honesty, Interpersonal Skills, Learning, Self-Management, Stress Tolerance, Teamwork | Not timed |
Two things in that table surprise most candidates.
First, Attention to Detail is not a separate clerical test. There is no USA Hire subtest that asks you to compare serial numbers, alphabetise names, or spot transposed digits. Attention to Detail is one of eleven competencies inside the Occupational Interaction Assessment, which is an untimed self-report inventory about your work habits and preferences. If you have seen prep material that drills alphanumeric string matching or filing rules for USA Hire, that material is describing a different, older kind of civil service clerical test.
Second, the Interaction assessment carries the most competencies by far. Eleven of the sixteen competencies across the whole Standard battery live inside it. Chapters 10 and 11 of this guide treat it seriously for that reason.
Why your battery differs from someone else's
OPM's own note on the Standard Assessments is explicit: assessments used and competencies measured depend on the job series and grade. A GS-0303 Miscellaneous Clerk and Assistant announcement and a GS-0343 Management and Program Analysis announcement do not draw the same battery.
You can find out which assessments you will face in two ways.
- The accurate way. After you submit your application, select Take assessment(s) now in your application, or use the unique access URL in your notification email. Acknowledge the Important Information page, then read your Assessment Activities page, which lists your assigned assessments by name. OPM warns that once you acknowledge the Important Information page you cannot return to it, and that you should not proceed past the Assessment Activities page until you are ready to begin.
- The approximate way. Read the How You Will Be Evaluated section of the job announcement, which lists the competencies to be evaluated. Match each competency to the assessment that measures it using the table above. If the announcement lists Reading Comprehension, expect Occupational Reading. If it lists Teamwork, Integrity/Honesty and Stress Tolerance, expect Occupational Interaction.
What USA Hire is not
USA Hire replaced a style of hiring in which applicants rated their own proficiency on a questionnaire. OPM describes USA Hire as measuring job-related competencies, based on comprehensive job analysis, and — in its own words — as something that does not rely on an applicant's self-evaluation. That is why USA Hire satisfies the Chance to Compete Act's definition of a technical assessment: a position-specific, job-analysis-based tool that does not principally rely on a self assessment from an automated examination.
Practically, this means the occupational questionnaire you filled in on USAJOBS and the USA Hire battery are two different things. The questionnaire is self-report and screens minimum qualifications. USA Hire is scored independently of what you claimed about yourself.
A candidate reads prep material claiming that USA Hire includes a timed Attention to Detail subtest in which you compare serial numbers and alphabetise file names. How should the candidate treat this claim?
An announcement's How You Will Be Evaluated section lists Customer Service, Integrity/Honesty, Stress Tolerance and Teamwork, and nothing else. Which assessment should the applicant expect and prepare for?
Why does OPM describe USA Hire as satisfying the Chance to Compete Act definition of a technical assessment?