Sample KSA - Ability to Lead

Dreamfedjob.com

Download Now!

by Amin Huffington

Dreamfedjob - Turning unemployed into employed.

We suggest you follow the following format when addressing KSA questions:

SITUATION:Describe a specific situation (problem, challenge, opportunity, goal) and its significance to the mission you served.

• Describe enough of the situation with which you were dealing to give the reader an idea of what the importance of the situation was to the organization or team. What kind of problem, challenge, situation, or goal were you dealing with?
• What was the signifi cance of the situation? What was at stake or what was its importance to the organization or to you?
• Talk about the individuals and groups you worked with and/or the environment in which you worked at the time, e.g., customers, co-workers, stakeholders, shrinking budget, low morale, etc.

ACTION:Discuss the actions you took that led to notable results. Strike a balance between telling enough of what you did that it gives a flavor for how you work, but do not tell them everything. Invite questions about what you did.

• Everyone will understand that you may have acted as a part of a team or with the assistance of others. Describe what your contribution was and assume it was as important to the outcome as anything anyone did.
• Do not describe everything you did. Describe the parts of what you did that will invite the reader to ask questions. Describe the part of what you did that clearly was instrumental in the outcome that made a difference.
• Was there anything of signifi cance about the conditions that made your actions special or unusual? Was there something of importance that required your actions?

RESULTS:Give specific examples of the results of your actions to demonstrate the quality and effectiveness of your work. If possible, quantify/qualify your results, or give some kind of measure of the contribution the results made to the team mission.

KSA Sample: "Ability to Lead"

As a manager for the past 14 years, I have developed performance and training, plans, counseled, appraised and hired employees, worked with unions, and taken disciplinary actions. I have gone from supervising five employees to managing 100 headquarters and fi eld employees.

As the head of the Department’s Office of Discrimination Resolution, I inherited a 4-year backlog of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints and a 10-member staff. At the same time, the Department issued a mandate requiring us to reduce the complaints backlog within 60 days and to eliminate it within 4 months. I had neither the funds nor the time to hire additional staff, so I set out to make the maximum use of the human resources I had on board.

My first step was to review the complaints inventory to determine which complaints could quickly move through the system and which ones required in-depth review. I then reorganized the offi ce by defining the structural needs of the EEO program and assessing the skill levels of my employees. I created fi ve teams, using my own staff as well as fi eld staff and ensured that work was evenly distributed to each group. I worked closely with my employees to develop appropriate performance standards for their new assignments.

In addition, we discussed the training that would be needed to enhance their performance. I ensured that each employee understood the importance of his or her contribution to the project. Throughout the transition to teams, I kept an open-door policy and listened closely to employee’s suggestions. As a result, the teams developed a remarkable “can do” attitude toward this overwhelming workload. The spirit and determination with which we worked together enabled us to meet the Department’s goal of eliminating the complaints backlog within 4 months.