Office of Personnel Management Certificates

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) maintains standing registers of candidates for commonly required occupations and grade levels. Standing registers allow a regional OPM to accept applications for particular skills on a continuous basis to effectively meet the recurring recruitment needs of Federal agencies in that region. OPM maintains standing registers for occupations that require a written test, such as the General Clerical examination. Testing is done on a regular and recurring basis at select OPM test sites throughout the region. As an alternative recruitment source, the Personnel Office may submit a request to OPM for a certificate of eligibles from one of their standing registers.

There may be times when a hard-to-fill position requires a wide dissemination of the vacancy announcement to attract a large number of quality applicants. In these instances, the Personnel Office requests assistance from OPM to "case examine." OPM announces the vacancy within the region or nationwide, accepts and evaluates applications, and rates and refers candidates. The case examining process may require an extensive amount of time.

Candidates referred on OPM certificates are ranked by score and veterans preference. Normally, at least three candidates are referred, with additional candidates if more than one vacancy is being filled. For selection, the rule of three applies. This means that selection must be made from the top three candidates on the certificate, keeping in mind that you cannot bypass a candidate with veterans preference to select a candidate with no preference, unless the supervisor can adequately justify doing so on security or suitability grounds. Most candidates on an OPM certificate do not have prior Federal service/experience.

Recent statutory changes contained in the Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations Act for FY 1996 authorized OPM to collect fees from the agencies for work previously performed by OPM at no cost.

REF:
n 5 CFR Chapter 315
n 5 CFR Chapter 332

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Revised: 11/10/98
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