The Lean Talent Team at 18F is evolving its practices to be more agile, data-driven, and designer-focused. They developed new candidate evaluation guidelines to provide shared definitions, direction on each interview step, and an objective way to assess candidates. In user testing, the new approach improved efficiency by 31%, satisfaction by 28%, and confidence by 8%, while strengthening the correlation between scores and candidate strength and interest in interviews. The team will continue applying agile principles and measuring outcomes to further enhance their evaluation process.

1. Lean Talent Team
Bill Rooney
Product & Process, 18F Talent Team
william.rooney@gsa.gov

3. Evolving the Talent Team

4. Think like a designer.
Measurable and data-driven.
Agile practices.
Open by default.
Be the change.

5. Agile Practices

8. Open by default.

12. Think like a designer.

13. The problem:
candidate evaluation

14. “What problem are we really
trying to solve?”

16. “Better guidelines on how to review resumes and conduct interviews.”
“We don't have any shared definition of what we're looking for”
“We could use more direction on what gets covered in each part of the
interview process”

18. As an 18F reviewer, I want a policy-compliant way to
effectively, accurately and objectively evaluate
applications.
Core User Story:
MVP:
A way to describe what’s important for success in the role
A standard way to assess against things
A way for reviewers to effectively use those things
Metrics:
Accuracy
Quality
Efficiency
Reviewer Confidence
Reviewer Experience

20. Measurable and data-driven.

21. Average time to complete one evaluation was lower by
31.21%Efficiency:
Experience: Average overall satisfaction was higher by 28.12%
Confidence: Average overall level of confidence in the evaluation was
higher by 8.37%
Quality:
The relationship of the candidate’s total score to their
actual strength was 8% stronger
Accuracy:
The relationship of total score to evaluators interest in
interviewing was 30% stronger

22. Be the change.