Agencies told to remove government jargon from federal job titles

By Drew Friedman

In an effort to appeal to more potential applicants, the Office of Personnel Management is telling agencies to update their federal job titles to cut the jargon and make them clearer.

OPM last week tasked federal HR offices with conducting an audit of all current job titles and descriptions — and then making revisions, where necessary, to be more straightforward about what each position will entail.

“These reforms are essential to building a federal workforce that is capable, mission-driven, and reflective of American values,” OPM wrote in the Sept. 9 memo. “By modernizing job titles and embracing skills-based hiring, we can ensure that we are attracting and selecting the best candidates to serve the American people — while remaining compliant with merit reform efforts.”

By updating job titles to make them “descriptive, organizational, or functional in nature,” OPM said the goal is to provide clarity to federal job seekers, and more accurately convey the expectations of the job. It’s also an effort to attract broader applicant pools by aligning with “private-sector terminology.”

OPM said the changes come as part of the Trump administration’s “merit hiring plan,” which attempts to overhaul and streamline the federal recruitment process.

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But the guidance on updating federal job titles is not unique to the current administration. In 2024, under the Biden administration, OPM published guidance on “improving the federal hiring experience.” Part of that document similarly told agencies to use a “descriptive, organizational, or functional job title” in hiring announcements — using language that largely mirrors what’s contained in the Sept. 9 memo from OPM.

In its new guidance, though, OPM provided more specifics on the expectations for agencies to update federal job titles and descriptions. Moving forward, OPM said agencies should not include any jargon or acronyms in job titles — or be so generic in their wording that job seekers can’t understand the nature or requirements of an open position.

For example, a human resources specialist can be simply called a “recruiter,” or an “HR business partner,” OPM said. Those suggested titles “emphasize talent acquisition and recruitment expertise,” as well as “align with private-sector strategic HR roles.”

And rather than using the umbrella term of “IT specialist,” agencies should consider using titles like “cloud engineer” or “digital services designer,” both of which OPM said are more specific in the expectations and skills required for the roles.

Instead of calling a position an “attorney-advisor,” OPM said agencies could describe the role as an “appeals litigation lead,” or a “senior appeals counsel,” to align with private-sector terminology as well as emphasize seniority and specialty.

Technically, it is OPM’s responsibility to set official names of federal job titles and position descriptions. But agencies still have the bandwidth to use “descriptive or functional titles” when posting job announcements or conducting outreach, OPM said. Those types of efforts are where agencies are expected to make the updates.

“The use of descriptive or functional job titles in announcements significantly enhances clarity and outreach to applicants, helping to attract talent by using terminology that aligns more closely with private-sector roles,” OPM said.

The Trump administration’s new guidance on job titling is one of many changes OPM is pushing forward in an attempt to revamp the federal recruitment process. As part of the Trump administration’s “merit hiring plan,” the agency is also limiting job applicants to two-page resumes on USA Jobs, adding required essay questions to most job announcements, and continuing to push agencies to incorporate shared certificates, technical assessments and skills-based hiring into their recruitment practices.

The agency also recently finalized a new “rule of many” that will change the way hiring managers create lists of qualified job candidates — an update that has been several years in the making.

But at the same time, agencies are largely limited in their current recruitment efforts, as a hiring freeze remains in effect until at least Oct. 15. Still, OPM said agencies should begin implementing the changes of the “merit hiring plan” immediately — and not to wait for the freeze to lift later this fall.