Five Reasons Why the Executive Core Qualification (ECQ) Competencies Are so Important

1. The 28 competencies represent what is most important to the Office of Personnel management (OPM).
2. The members of the Qualification Review Board (QRB) look specifically for evidence of the various competencies in your essays.
3. The competencies provide a great decision-making tool for matching your unique career stories with specific ECQs.
4. Even after selecting potential topics, it can be difficult to drill down and provide specific stories in each of the ECQ categories. However, you can (and should) use the competencies in each ECQ as the “lens” through which you tell your stories.
5. If a college professor gave you “extra credit” for addressing specific points in an essay, your overall score might drop if you did not take the extra credit opportunity. Think of OPM as the professor, and the competencies as your best chance of improving your overall “grade.”

12 Key SES Resume Tips

The most important thing you need to know about your SES application is that following instructions precisely is essential to success. Do not ignore page limits and number all pages. Use 12-point font. Keep margins to 1 inch, use paragraphs, and keep sentences easy to read. Handwritten materials are unacceptable. Only attach documentation when required—training certificates and award notices are not necessary.

When preparing your SES application package:

1. Read the entire vacancy announcement before you begin to determine development requirements.
2. Spell out all acronyms.
3. Use short, complete, and grammatically correct sentences.
4. Avoid industry-specific jargon in favor of common words and expressions.
5. Do not cite the same experience to highlight competency in multiple qualifications.
6. Address each of the 28 core and fundamental competencies.
7. Keep your explanations simple so the reader can understand.
8. Use the CCAR (Challenge-Context-Action-Result) model to flesh out your executive stories.
9. Proofread all submissions instead of relying on electronic checks.
10. Avoid referring the reader to elsewhere in the application.
11. Use specific, but brief, accomplishments instead of vagueness.
12. Do not identify any non-merit factor, such as race, gender, nationality, color, religion, disability, age, marital status, or sexual orientation.

Options for Writing Your Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs)

Okay, so you’ve talked to your mentors and peers, and you’ve done some initial research. You have decided to apply for Senior Executive Service (SES) positions, and you now realize the inevitable—you need to develop your ECQs.

You may have noticed that this is not a simple process, and you may have questions. Most people benefit from having a coach and professional writer in their corner; in fact more than 3,500 SES candidates have turned to us for support over the past decade.

Below are a few options you may want to consider:

1. Write them yourself without any kind of expert support. Some people obviously choose this option, but we know from experience that by going it alone, you are much more prone to miss out on important best practices and concepts that can position you for success.
2. Write them yourself using our proven best practices. We offer an online training course called “ECQ Best Practices.” At your own pace, and in the convenience of your home or office, one of our expert trainers will teach you the proven best practices you need to know. This will help shift your mindset in regards to how to think about and approach your ECQs. You will also be provided with exclusive tools that will make it much easier and more manageable to select your best career stories and then develop them in the most effective way possible. Click here for more information.
3. Write them yourself with expert feedback. We also offer an online training course called “ECQ Mastery,” which includes all of the great training and information from Option 2 above, but takes it to another level. Once you follow the process of selecting and writing your career stories, you will submit them to a member of our ECQ coaching and writing team, who will provide up to two rounds of expert feedback and guidance to improve your ECQs. Click here for more information.
4. Partner directly with one of our ECQ coaches and writers. This option is our exclusive premium service in which one of our ECQ coaches and writers will work with you personally to select and write your top career stories. Next, your writer will revise your stories, integrate best practices, and present them to you for review. You will then work with your writer in making any desired changes until you feel that your ECQs represent you and your top accomplishments and that you can submit them with confidence. Call our career coaches today at 800-471-9201 for more information.

Lee Kelley is an Iraq war veteran, former Army captain, and author, who now serves as the Senior Writer and Executive Coach on CareerPro Global’s SES team. Leveraging the company’s vast expertise in assisting thousands of SES and federal job seekers, Lee has personally developed hundreds of resumes and more than a thousand ECQs. He is also the Director of Training and Veteran Transitions, and has provided USAJOBS resume-writing workshops to hundreds of federal employees and military personnel. In addition, Lee co-authored the book Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application. His latest book is titled Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter.

Why Is It Important to Begin Your SES Application Early?

Far too often, aspiring “SES-ers” begin developing their application materials too late. In fact, they often wait until they find that “perfect” job, or until someone encourages them to apply, and then they end up scrambling to develop their materials at the last minute. Instead of thinking in terms of applying for one particular job, we recommend that you use a more general decision as a trigger to start getting prepared. In other words, the perfect time to develop your materials is once you decide that you know you want to try for the SES, and you are within six months of doing so.

Here are a few reasons why it’s important to start the process early:

• It is best to develop your federal resume and Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs), and then start seeking a specific position. Once you find a good fit, all you will have left to do is tailor your resume if necessary, and write any required Technical Qualifications (TQs).
• Waiting until the last minute causes stress, and diminishes the overall quality of your materials.
• Being prepared ahead of time enables you to apply early and with less stress. Every once in a while, an SES vacancy announcement closes early if enough candidates apply. Being among the first means you are in the running.
• If you develop your materials early, you have more time to obtain feedback from peers or professional coaches, etc.
• Although some people land the first SES position for which they apply, many more people apply for 3-10 or more jobs before landing an SES position.
• Writing your ECQs will take longer than you think.

Lee Kelley is an Iraq war veteran, former Army Captain, and author who now serves as the senior writer on CareerPro Global’s writing team. Leveraging the company’s vast expertise in assisting thousands of SES and federal job seekers, Lee has personally developed hundreds of resumes and more than a thousand ECQs. He is also the Director of Training and Veteran Transitions, and has provided USAJOBS resume-writing workshops to hundreds of federal employees and military personnel. In addition, Lee co-authored the book, Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application. His latest book is titled, Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter.

Five “Dos and Don’ts” for an Effective SES Application

1. Don’t use the word “I” in your resume. Instead, drop the “I” (implied first-person point of view) and begin sentences with active verbs, such as “Developed,” “Directed,” “Led,” “Oversaw,” etc.

2. Don’t spend too much space in your resume on positions older than 10 years. Instead, focus your work history on the past decade or so, and then summarize any earlier positions by listing the start and end years, job titles, organizations, and perhaps a brief explanation of your scope of responsibility.

3. Do use the word “I” throughout your Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) and Technical Qualifications (TQ). These first-person narratives should represent a collection of your top career accomplishments.

4. Do read the job announcement very carefully and make sure you format your documents accordingly. If the job announcement doesn’t specify a length, font size, or margins, email the HR representative and ask. You don’t want to end up in the rejection pile because you failed to follow the agency’s formatting and application procedures.

5. Don’t repeat the same examples in your ECQs and TQs. Can you overlap a bit in terms of using the same position, timeframe, or even program? Sure, but make sure each story stands on its own and shows a unique aspect of your leadership.

Lee Kelley is an Iraq war veteran, former Army Captain, and author who now serves as the senior writer on CareerPro Global’s writing team. Leveraging the company’s vast expertise in assisting thousands of SES and federal job seekers, Lee has personally developed hundreds of resumes and more than a thousand ECQs. He is also the Director of Training and Veteran Transitions, and has provided USAJOBS resume-writing workshops to hundreds of federal employees and military personnel. In addition, Lee co-authored the book, Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application. His latest book is titled, Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter.

Writing an SES Resume with Integrated ECQs and TQs

Although these are still the small minority among SES applications, there is a trend among federal agencies to streamline the initial phase of the SES hiring process. In these cases, instead of requiring full ECQ narratives, you are required to integrate all five ECQs into a five-page resume. Sometimes you also have to integrate a couple of TQs.

Most recently, we’ve even seen the Internal Revenue Service place a three-page limit on resumes for their Candidate Development Program, and all five ECQs still had to be included.

In these types of applications, you have two basic options in order to integrate ECQs/TQs effectively:

Option 1: You can develop a regular five-page resume and then make sure you include at least one specific accomplishment in the work history that demonstrates each of the ECQs and TQs. Some people who use this option prefer to be subtle, and leave it up to the reader to search for the content in their resume.

We don’t recommend being so “subtle.: Instead, you can “tag” the accomplishments for the reader with things like “(Leading Change)” to denote a specific ECQ, or something like “(Knowledge of federal financial policies and regulations)”—depending on the content of the particular TQ you are demonstrating.

Option 2: You can develop a five-page resume that starts off with an “executive summary” section that clearly addresses each ECQ in one concise paragraph. Some people like to label the paragraphs, while others simply bold a few keywords and phrases to make it clear which ECQ is being addressed.

Whichever option you decide to take, be sure to include concise and action-results based accomplishments that align with the titles of the ECQs (“Leading Change,” “Leading People,” etc.) and TQs.

While you won’t have the space to address all 28 ECQ competencies as you would in a full ECQ essay, it is still best to weave in as many as you can, if not all of them. In addition, always read the job announcement very carefully, because sometimes the agency will include “target competencies” for each ECQ, which actually makes it a little easier to address them.

Finally, although both of these approaches can be effective, if done properly, we have seen people have the most success with the second option.

Lee Kelley is an Iraq war veteran, former Army Captain, and author who now serves as the senior writer on CareerPro Global’s writing team. Leveraging the company’s vast expertise in assisting thousands of SES and federal job seekers, Lee has personally developed hundreds of resumes and more than a thousand ECQs. He is also the Director of Training and Veteran Transitions, and has provided USAJOBS resume-writing workshops to hundreds of federal employees and military personnel. In addition, Lee co-authored the book, Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application. His latest book is titled, Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter.

How to Write a Great Business Acumen ECQ

Even in this unique writing style we call ECQs, Business Acumen stands out as a little bit different. Of course, each ECQ should be executive in scope, fall within the past 10 years, follow the Challenge-Context-Action-Result (CCAR) format, include impactful results, and address the specific competencies.

For example, your Leading People ECQ will ideally include two career stories that address the competencies of team building, developing others, conflict management, and leveraging diversity.

Business Acumen has three competencies (Financial Management, Human Capital Management, and Technology Management), but unlike the other ECQs, they don’t always “flow” as naturally together.

In fact, many people find it extremely difficult to think of career stories that incorporate all three of the Business Acumen competencies. And even when they do, the stories tend to be overly dense and confusing because there’s just too much information packed in there.

Here is a highly effective best practice and perspective to consider for Business Acumen: Imagine you are on the review board. You may be reading career stories from a senior military officer, a corporate executive, or a seasoned federal manager. Moreover, the setting could be anywhere in the world, from the boardroom, to the battlefield, to countless other work environments. Regardless of the applicant’s background or the setting, you, as part of the review board, need to be able to see that the applicant is comfortable and capable in managing the financial, human capital, and technological aspects of programs and organizations.

So, when writing your Business Acumen examples, think of this particular ECQ as three “mini-ECQs,” instead of trying to combine the somewhat disparate topics of financial, human capital, and technology management. The examples may have to be a bit shorter than normal, since all three still have to fit within the two-page limit. Additionally, the three CCAR examples can come from different positions or programs within the past 10 years, or they can come from the same position.

Ultimately, by taking this straightforward approach, you can more clearly present your top career stories while effectively addressing the Business Acumen competencies.

Lee Kelley is an Iraq war veteran, former Army Captain, and author who now serves as the senior writer on CareerPro Global’s writing team. Leveraging the company’s vast expertise in assisting thousands of SES and federal job seekers, Lee has personally developed hundreds of resumes and more than a thousand ECQs. He is also the Director of Training and Veteran Transitions, and has provided USAJOBS resume-writing workshops to hundreds of federal employees and military personnel. In addition, Lee co-authored the book Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application. His latest book is titled Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter.

Five Things You Don’t Want to Hear from the Qualifications Review Board

The role of a Qualifications Review Board (QRB) is to give a fair and objective review of each set of ECQs. However, having said that, over the past several years, we have seen QRBs being especially tough. Many clients write their own ECQs without professional guidance, are rejected by the QRB, and then come to us for executive assistance in helping to rewrite their ECQs.

Here are the top five reasons that applicants have been getting their ECQs rejected:

1. Examples are more than 10 years old
2. Examples are not presented in the Challenge-Context-Action-Result (CCAR) format
3. Examples are too technical and not focused on the applicant’s executive potential
4. There is not enough detailed information on how the candidate applied the various leadership competencies
5. Lack of strong and specific results that demonstrate the scope and impact of the candidate’s actions

Five Tips for Navigating an SES Vacancy

Let’s face it—pulling up a Senior Executive Service vacancy on your monitor can be a bit overwhelming. A resume, five Executive Core Qualifications, and how many Technical Qualifications? Gulp.

One of the best things you can do to reduce this overwhelming feeling is to break the application materials down into bite-sized chunks, and then reverse-engineer your time so that you have a plan for getting it all done well before the job closes.
These five tips will also help:

1. Read the entire vacancy from top to bottom. It’s important to take a few minutes and do this, with a keen attention to detail. Write down any questions you might have.
2. Take a close look at the duties and qualifications section. Think of the information in these areas as questions, and ask yourself, “Will I be able to show in my resume that I possess some, most, or even all of these skills, experiences, and education?” If the answer to all those “questions” is no, that could be a red flag.
3. Take a look at any Technical Qualifications. Ask yourself if you will be able to provide strong narrative responses that show you have relevant and recent experience in the technical areas they want to see. Again, if the answer is no, it could be a red flag that this job isn’t the best fit.
4. Carefully read the How to Apply and Required Documents section. This is critical, as each agency may have slightly different instructions. Sometimes you can email in your resume, other times you can upload your own resume to your USAJOBS account, and still other times, you will be required to actually use the USAJOBS resume builder. Likewise, sometimes there are length restrictions or other formatting requirements.
5. Read the vacancy again to make sure you didn’t miss anything. At least scan the whole vacancy again, and then email the agency contact with any questions about qualifications, timelines, or how to format your documents in terms of length, font size, etc.

By following these five simple tips, you can minimize the chances of missing critical information, or of spending your time applying for something that clearly isn’t a good match based on your skills, education, and experience.

Lee Kelley is an Iraq war veteran and former Army Captain who now serves as the senior writer on CareerPro Global’s writing team. Leveraging the company’s vast expertise in assisting thousands of SES and federal job seekers, Lee has personally developed hundreds of resumes and more than a thousand ECQs. He is also the Director of Training and Veteran Transitions, and has provided USAJOBS resume-writing workshops to hundreds of federal employees and our military. In addition, Lee is an author and executive coach. He co-authored the book Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application. His latest book is titled Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter.

Is a Candidate Development Program (CDP) Right for You?

Are you a GS-14 or GS-15 who feels that the Senior Executive Service (SES) could be in your future?

If so, you might want to consider a CDP. You can find plenty of detailed information from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), but here’s the overall idea: Imagine stepping out of your normal career path and daily activities to participate in a 12-month program (sometimes longer) designed to enhance your leadership, scope of experience, and executive potential.

Although each person’s experience will be a little different, during a CDP, you can expect to receive personal mentoring, an Individual Development Plan (IDP), specialized training, and a developmental assignment.

At the end of your CDP, you’ll have an opportunity to develop your Executive Core Qualifications (ECQ) essays and submit them for OPM approval. Going through a CDP doesn’t guarantee you an SES position, but it can certainly give you a competitive advantage. Plus, if you are selected for an SES position at some point, you may already have a certified set of ECQs. So while all of your competition is still working to get ECQ approval, you will simply need to show proof of your ECQ certification.

CDPs aren’t always available, and they are coveted opportunities among many federal employees. Not surprisingly, they are also highly competitive. In terms of applying, the programs are advertised on USAJOBS just like any other position. Make sure you read the entire vacancy announcement and submit exactly what they ask for—nothing more and nothing less.

Although we’ve seen CDP announcements call for a full set of ECQs just to apply, that is rarely the case. Usually, they require you to submit what we’ve coined a “5-Page All-Inclusive Resume.” This is simply a resume focusing on the past 10 years of your career that shows your executive potential.

Most importantly, these submissions require you to demonstrate your experience and potential in each ECQ category: Leading Change, Leading People, Results Driven, Business Acumen, and Building Coalitions. So, if a CDP is something that interests you, it’s a good idea to start thinking about (and actively seeking) career experience in each of these categories.

 

Lee Kelley is an Iraq war veteran and former Army Captain who now serves as the senior writer on CareerPro Global’s writing team. Leveraging the company’s vast expertise in assisting thousands of SES and federal job seekers, Lee has personally developed hundreds of resumes and more than a thousand ECQs. He is also the Director of Training and Veteran Transitions, and has provided USAJOBS resume-writing workshops to hundreds of federal employees and our military. In addition, Lee is an author and executive coach. He co-authored the book Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application. His latest book is titled Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter.