The federal rules that decide whether your application gets read
Six rules changed between 2025 and 2026. Most of the advice online still describes the system they replaced. This one-page checklist gives you the current rules, quoted from the government's own guidance, with the date each one took effect.
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Six rules, six checks, one page
The two-page cap
OPM's own words for what happens if you miss it, not a softened version of it.
The VA exception
Title 38 and Hybrid Title 38 roles are not held to the cap, and the list of roles is wider than doctors and nurses.
The four essay questions
You certify the words are yours. That one sentence should change who you let near them.
What questionnaires can do now
They still screen you. They stopped ranking you on September 30, 2025.
The five current ECQs
The old five are still all over the internet, and one retired OPM page is still serving the old framework.
Why none of this is a keyword scan
What the reviewer is actually matching your resume against.
Every line has a source and a date
A checklist that does not date its rules is asking you to trust that it was written recently.
Federal hiring guidance has kept moving. Everything on this checklist is pulled from OPM, USAJOBS, the Federal Register, and VA. Primary sources only. Where the government's wording matters, we quote it rather than summarize it, because the wording is what gets applied to your application.
New Federal resume requirements under the Merit Hiring Plan do not apply to applications for Title 38 or Hybrid Title 38 positions.
VA Careers, updated September 30, 2025
Do this before you cut anything
Open the announcement you are applying to and read How to Apply and Required Documents first. Rule 2 is the reason. A VA clinical applicant who trims to two pages because a blog said to has thrown away the exemption their own announcement gave them.
Every rule carries its date
The two-page cap took effect September 27, 2025. Questionnaires stopped ranking applicants September 30, 2025. The current Executive Core Qualifications were updated October 1, 2025. A rule without a date cannot be checked.
We read your announcement, not a template
We always check agency requirements, GS-level requirements, and OPM's most up-to-date guidelines so every resume we deliver is in 100% compliance at the time it's written.
If a rule changes, the checklist changes with it.
If you would rather not do this alone
We build federal resumes to the announcement in front of you, at the level you are applying to. Every federal client also gets a comprehensive Master Resume, the full career record you keep and add to for life.
Veteran-owned. 100% human-written. We coach your essay answers, you write them.