Hiring/Retention

How to fit your whole government career and executive qualifications into a two-page resume

"There is going to be an adjustment for both the people doing the hiring and the individuals who are being hired," Diane Hudson said.

Terry Gerton

July 17, 2025 7:19 pm

8 min read

Guest:	Diane Hudson
Title:	Director, Certified Professional Career Coach Program at the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches
Summary:	As it tries to cut hiring times, the Office of Personnel Management has converted the application process for Senior Executive Service positions to a two-page resume. The ECQ essays will be replaced with structured interview questions. A few tips here can help you understand how to make the conversion.

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Interview transcript:

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Diane Hudson We have been writing 10 pages of leadership essays for 25 years or more. So now, we are converting to a two-page resume only, and we have to also still put in all of those competencies from those 10 pages that we used to do. So now we’ve got to really write tight and really get our executives to shine, if you will. Those leadership qualities have to really fly off the page now.

Terry Gerton How do you capture the executive core qualifications in two pages?

Diane Hudson Not easily. I interview my clients thoroughly. We go over the new competencies; we went from about 28 competencies and now we’re going down to 15. So we’re going to have fewer, but they’re a little bit tighter. So I interview my clients, I ask them to tell me where they have results; we go into accomplishment stories and we really get them to identify, create like a grid, and I map out their accomplishment stories to all of the competencies in the new executive court qualifications.

Terry Gerton And you have to communicate their technical qualifications for different positions as well.

Diane Hudson In addition to the executive core qualifications, which they’re still going to have, they’re just going to have it in a different way — instead of the essays, we will now incorporate that into that two-page resume and then it will also be a structured interview. But in addition to those leadership competencies, they have to have their technical qualification competencies. And those are directly related to the specific job. So if they are a lawyer or an engineer or an accountant, then they will have to explain their knowledge of engineering or accounting and how it applies to the different standards and acts that fall in our federal government.

Terry Gerton Is there a font constraint? I can think that this needs to be like in four point font to fit on two pages.

Diane Hudson You know, people used to do that in industry and even in federal. I have been researching a lot of the senior executive service applications posted on USAJOBS. And the majority of them are 12 point, Times New Roman font with one-inch margins. That’s really tight, you know, I mean, that doesn’t give us a lot room to write, and they still want all the requirements from the original resume, which was the title, the address, how many hours a week they work, their supervisor’s name and phone number. So that all takes a lot of space out of that two-page resume right there.

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Terry Gerton Well, you’re going to have to get very creative as you put those together. And I can imagine a lot of coaching for folks — if you’ve been in federal government long enough to make it to the SES, you’ve never written that kind of two-page resume before.

Diane Hudson A lot of people who have grown up in the federal government go from a GS-5 or GS-7 up to a GS-15. They have been writing a five-page or maybe even longer resume, depending upon the position. And now everyone’s going to be writing this two-pager. So these executives who have worked their way up are now going to have to reverse everything that they’ve been thinking for all these years. And instead of a five-page resume, plus 10 pages of essays, plus a couple extra pages of technical qualification essays, everything gets boiled down into one page. So it’s completely changing the culture and their thought process and how they put these together.

Terry Gerton Hopefully, at some point, they will master the two-page resume, but this change is also incorporated by something OPM is calling structured interviews. Can you shed some light on what that might look like?

Diane Hudson So yes, the Office of Personnel Management is now going to require that the agencies conduct a structured interview in lieu of these essays. And actually the structured interview had been piloted with a couple of different agencies over the last couple of years, so fortunately, I have done this. And again, I’ve created a grid, and I put together all of these competencies, the meta ECQ competencies and all the sub-competencies. And then I have my client develop stories in an essay format. So we’re still gonna use the CCAR, which is the challenge, the context, the action and the results. And now they’re going to deliver those essays, if you will, in a structured interview process. That’s what’s going to be scored, and that will determine if they’re going to pass OPM’s qualifications review board.

Terry Gerton Speaking with Diane Hudson. She is the director of the Certified Professional Career Coach program at the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches. So Diane, this is quite a change. You said 25 years. I think that’s at least as long as this has been going on. What is the timeline and the process for implementing this big new change?

Diane Hudson So the memo came out on the 29th of May and it required an immediate switch from the five-page resume to the two-page resume. So if you go on USAJOBS right now, you will see most of the announcements are requiring a two-page resume, max. So if turn in two-and-a-half pages or three pages, they’re only going to read the first two pages. Now there are excepted agencies out there and they’re still posting the traditional package and if someone’s applying for an excepted agency, they may have different requirements. But anything that is sanctioned by OPM will follow these new rules. After July 13, everything switches to the new ECQ process, because the new hiring timeline is 80 calendar days. It used to be 90 working days, so it almost cuts it in half. From July 13th to October 1st, which is the new fiscal year, then everything will make that conversion. So we’re already writing two-page resumes and prepping our clients for the structured interviews, everything that’s posted after July 13 will fall under the new structure.

Terry Gerton That’s really helpful. So as people are maybe aspiring to be senior executives in the Federal Civil Service, what should they be thinking about as they’re planning for their future careers? In light of these changes, in light of other changes that OPM is making, going to ask you to take off your resume writer hat now and put on your career coach hat for these folks.

Diane Hudson I work with a lot of senior executive service individuals who started out at GS-9, GS-13, GS-14, GS-15, and we grow up together, if you will, over several years. Senior executive service is called senior executive for a reason — you really need to have 15 or 20 years of experience to step into those roles…typically. I’ve had some younger folks get in, but they typically have very specialized skill sets. So I always say, take a look at the new competencies and really focus on building your career around those competencies. So if you’ve not had an opportunity to lead people or supervise personnel and write a performance appraisal, then talk to your bosses or get a lateral position, figure out a way to get into a role where you’re supervising people. If you have never managed or administered a budget, put yourself in a position where you can, even if it’s in a temporary role. Because ultimately what you’re gonna want to do is you’re going to want to hit all of these competencies.

Terry Gerton And do you see any challenges down the road here as OPM moves to this new process? Are there people that are gonna be advantaged, disadvantaged? Are you expecting it to have the results that they’re hoping for?

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Diane Hudson Well, it’s going to be definitely a challenge initially because HR has to be re-trained; OPM has to re-trained; the boards that are reviewing all the resumes and the packages have to be re-trained. So there’s going be some challenges there. Those individuals who are selected for SES will now go through a training program so that they can learn all of the new laws and executive orders and things like that. So there is going to be an adjustment for both the people doing the hiring and then the individuals who are being hired.

Terry Gerton So patience may be the watchword here.

Diane Hudson Yes, definitely some patience. There’s a lot of confusion right now and my clients are calling in saying, I’m confused, I don’t know what to do, help me out. You know, a lot of it is just really thoroughly reading those announcements and making sure that you’re not missing the mark. You’re turning in the proper paperwork — because you can be disqualified for not turning in your transcripts, for example, if it’s required. Or if you’re a military individual and you don’t turn in your DD-214, your military documentation, you can just be disqualified. It’s really important to read those announcements in its entirety, pay attention to USAJOBS and OPM, see if there’s news coming out over the next four or five months. Between now and October 1st, OPM is going to put together a sample resume, they’re going to define the competencies more thoroughly. Right now there’s a guide out there, but I think it’s from 2012. So hopefully all these things will get updated over the next several months so that we have something to work from.