Dear Bureaupat,

I'm a career federal employee in the competitive service and work with several lawyers who keep referring to their status as "excepted service." What is the difference between competitive and exempted service?

Dear Non-Excepted,

This a common question, so thanks for asking! There are two classes in the Federal Government — which is not to be confused with the Hindu caste system, which is actually much simpler. U.S. feds serve in either 1) the competitive civil service or 2) the excepted service.

Competitive service jobs are under the Office of Personnel Management's jurisdiction and subject to the civil service laws passed by Congress to ensure that applicants and employees receive fair and equal treatment in the hiring process. Simply put, a competitive position is a position in the competitive service.

Competitive status, a different concept, is an employee's basic eligibility for noncompetitive assignment (e.g., by transfer, promotion, reassignment, demotion, or reinstatement) to a position in the competitive service without having to compete with members of the general public in an open competitive examination.

Competitive status belongs to an employee, not to a position. A person on a career or career-conditional appointment acquires competitive status upon satisfactory completion of a probationary period. It may also be granted by statute, Executive Order, or the civil service rules without competitive examination, for example, former overseas employees.

The competitive service includes all civilian positions in the Federal Government that are not specifically excepted from the civil service laws by Statute, by the president, or by the OPM, and are not in the Senior Executive Service (SES). It includes primarily positions in the executive branch of the Government.

Excepted Service, by contrast, includes most of the positions in the legislative branch and judicial branch. In addition, there are certain positions or entire organizations which are in the excepted service by Statute, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Foreign Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Service, certain positions in the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Guard Technicians in the Department of Defense.

Positions may also be in the excepted service as directed by the president, by law or Executive Order, because of their confidential, policy-determining, or policy-advocating character.

Yours in Gov,

Bureaupat

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