Writing Winning KSAs for Federal Jobs

KSAs or Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities are the ranking factors, rating factors, or evaluation factors that federal agencies use to decide which candidates possess the special qualifications and personal attributes that will make them best qualified to fill a job. The KSAs will gauge those qualities that put a few candidates above all the others who are basically qualified for the vacancy. Most federal jobs advertised on USAJOBS will require KSA responses as a part of the application package.

Resume tracking software (e.g., Resumix) will scan applicants' responses to the KSAs to determine the level of knowledge, skill, or ability and assign the appropriate number of points. Applicants with the most points will move to the top of the list and likely be considered for an interview.

Before you start writing responses to the KSAs, you should assemble a list of keywords. Keywords are usually nouns, noun phrases, terminology, and "buzz words" that are recognized by the resume scanning software. Look at the skills, experience, education, and qualification requirements sections of the vacancy announcement to find keywords. You should also call the HR office and request a copy of the position description (PD) which will give you a description of all the tasks associated with the position. Extract as many keywords as you can from these documents. For example, a keyword summary for a Realtor position might include the following keywords: mortgage broker, brokering, mortgaging, refinancing programs & mechanisms, home purchasing, loan servicing, cost analysis, cost estimation, enhance sales, estimating, insurance, inventory analysis, inventory levels, market research, profit & loss, renovation, sells experience.

When writing your KSAs, use examples to illustrate that you possess the required knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do the job. Include examples from your on-the-job experience, home management experience, church and club activities, PTA, hobbies, and self-development. In these examples, start by explaining the context or situation you were faced with and the challenge(s) you had to overcome to deal with the situation. Next describe the action or steps taken to solve the problem and the outcome or results that you achieved. Try to quantify your results whenever possible. Include the keywords developed in the preceding paragraph in your responses as they relate to your experience. Connect your experience to the keywords. If you have actually done any of the things listed in the vacancy announcement, then use the announcements exact words when describing what you did. Good KSAs may take a lot of time to write.

KSAs should be half-page to full-page each of highly-focused concise narrative and should be written in the first person. If you send your KSAs separately, label each with your full name, SSN, vacancy announcement number, and title, series, and grade of the position. The KSA examples in "30 KSA Samples," published by Information Solutions, Inc., illustrate this approach to writing KSA responses. You may wish to download this document to your hard drive.

What if you come across a KSA that you are unable to write about? You know that you cannot lie or make up experience. An example of a difficult KSA might be, "Knowledge of agency regulation, processes, and procedures." Lacking any such knowledge, one way to address this KSA is to access the agency's web site (e.g., FDA) and read their mission statement and study some of their regulations, processes, and procedures. You can then state that you have done some research and you now understand how what the agency does (ensures food safety) affects your life and the lives of other citizens.

Once you have a good set of KSA responses, you can adjust them and use them for other KSAs which are similar. Just save your KSAs responses and copy and paste them into a new application each time you apply for another vacancy.

Sources:
(1) USAJOBS
(2) 30 KSA Samples