Thanks so much for the comment, Jim. I think many people shared your reaction to the KSA, and will be glad to see the end of that system. Your solution to the evaluation challenge sounds much more civilized!

And you make a very good point about the problem of over-reliance on keywords, from both sides of the recruiting process. I’d like to do a post on that topic soon–it’s an important issue, and not discussed enough.

In my jaded view, KSA’s seem like something only a ponderous, Federal bureaucracy could create. They struck me as meaningless and useless. Your report confirms both.

As to “what you see is “what you get”, I think maybe not so much these days. Putting our best foot forward has now morphed into an additional game of finding the words the computer screening software wants.

I am old school, obviously, and with the proper setting prefer face to face evaluations from the outset. Since I am not as perceptive as my wife, I took her with me to every after-interview, casual dinner with new prospects. Her evaluation was 90+% of the decision; she never missed in 20 years! That’s the sort of KSA I like to bring to the process.