As agencies walk back the Trump administration’s controversial essay question from federal job postings, the Office of Personnel Management is directing them to replace it with a new prompt.

Agencies must now include a question stating, “In this role, you will be expected to professionally and efficiently implement executive direction. Provide an example where you implemented leadership direction on a strategy or policy decision that differed from your own recommendation.”

A Sept. 18 memo from OPM told agencies to begin including the new question on all upcoming federal job announcements. It replaces a prompt from the Trump administration that previously asked applicants to name a few executive orders or policy initiatives “significant” to them and explain how they would help implement those orders if hired.

The Trump administration’s previously required “loyalty” question is currently being scrubbed from federal job announcements. A federal judge ordered agencies to remove the essay prompt, finding that its inclusion on job questionnaires likely violated job applicants’ First Amendment rights.

Agencies are expected to include OPM’s replacement question on job announcements that close on or after Sept. 26. So far, about 2,400 job announcements contain the revised question, OPM said Friday in a court filing.

A lawsuit from federal unions has been challenging the prior essay question, which was one of the four original questions the Trump administration directed agencies to include in all federal job applications at or above the GS-5 level, as part of its May 2025 “merit hiring plan.”

Though the language of OPM’s replacement essay question moves away from a focus on presidential priorities, Jenny Mattingley, vice president for public policy and stakeholder engagement at the Partnership for Public Service, said it still does not do much to assess the actual skills an applicant would bring to the job.

“Asking vague questions of every candidate goes against OPM’s stated goal of promoting skills-based hiring,” Mattingley said. “There are thousands of different positions across the government, many that do not directly deal with implementing strategy or policy in the way the revised question is positioned. Agencies should have flexibility to tailor screening questions to particular positions in order to build a roster of qualified employees.”

At the same time, it appears that OPM has been taking steps to abide by the federal judge’s stay order, which gave OPM one week to notify agencies that the essay question on a “significant” executive order should be removed from all current and future job postings. OPM’s directive to agencies states that the question will not appear in any job announcements posted on or after Sept. 19.

As of last week, just five new job postings still included the “loyalty” question, according to a source involved with the lawsuit who shared information with Federal News Network on the condition that they not be identified.

Although the court ordered the removal of the question from active job announcements, OPM said technical limitations of the USAJobs and USA Staffing platforms make it difficult to delete the question from announcements that have already been posted. It would require manually removing and then reposting about 6,000 job announcements affected by the Sept. 11 order, OPM explained in its court filing Friday.

“This is an action that USA Staffing has never before undertaken to open announcements and would put an enormous strain on its staff,” OPM wrote.

As a “lower-risk” alternative, OPM said it’s telling agencies they should no longer consider responses when evaluating candidates for current openings, even if the question still appears on an application. Most of the impacted job announcements will close by the end of September, OPM added.

In its Sept. 18 memo, OPM also directed agencies to add a fifth essay question to all current and future job announcements. Agencies must now list a few agency-wide priorities, and ask applicants to describe how they would help advance those priorities if hired.

The priorities that agencies include in their essay prompt can stem from a strategic plan, annual performance plan or another objective, OPM said. The language of the new essay question must be the same across all of an agency’s current job announcements.

By Sept. 30, agencies must submit the wording of their additional essay question to OPM for review. For agencies that use the USA Staffing talent acquisition platform, OPM said it would be adding approved essay questions to future job announcements “as soon as possible.”

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