Public tender may have evidence to assess competence – 02/16/2023 – Market

Public tenders with only simple and objective tests may have their days numbered. The need for more qualified professionals for the specific requirements of the public service has led to the debate on the need to modernize the civil servant entry process.

Discussions move towards an idea of ​​more analytical tests, which assess knowledge, skills and competences for each function.

This report is part of the Professional Public of the Future series, an initiative of the Vida Pública nucleus in partnership with República.org, an entity dedicated to improving people management in the public service.

Proposed in the Senate for the modernization of public tenders in the country. Bill No. 252/2003 establishes rules for all stages of selection, which are authorization, planning, execution and evaluation of the competition.

The proposal targets selection for hiring federal employees, but authorizes states and municipalities to define their own rules.

“There is a certain discrepancy between the federal experience, which is a little more sophisticated, and that of states and municipalities. We have some states that have extensive experience and a large structure, but most do not. And municipalities, in general, are very fragile on this subject”, says Carlos Ari Sundfeld, full professor at FGV Direito de São Paulo.

The text approved in the Chamber of Deputies in August 2022 and now in the Senate considers objective written tests or dissertations and oral tests that cover general or specific content to be valid forms of assessment, as well as the preparation of tasks specific to the post that has been passed over.

Fabrício Barbosa, president of Consad (National Council of Administration Secretaries) and secretary of Administration and Management of Amazonas, assesses that maintaining the same old public tender format goes against the evolution of the characteristics now required of the server.

“Having competitions for generic knowledge, other than specific knowledge, especially those that do not take into account some issues of social skills, is something that greatly impairs the quality of this human resource that has been placed within the public service”, says Barbosa .

For experts, public tenders cannot accurately examine skills that go beyond formal knowledge.

This occurs, among other reasons, because this assessment is often based on objective evidence, in which there is merely an “x” marked, says Professor Fernando de Souza Coelho, from the USP public policy management course.

Sundfeld understands that there is a standardization of competitions without paying attention to the characteristics of the positions and, what is more serious, without taking into account skills and competences. Therefore, he defends the need for specific evidence.

“It’s a question of whether he [candidato] he knows how to deal with complex issues, if he has a good interpersonal relationship, aspects that are difficult to measure through standardized competitions, such as a multiple-choice test”, says the FGV professor.

In countries such as Chile, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, civil servants can be hired through various means of evaluation, from political appointments to interviews, specific tests, analysis of CVs, interviews, oral tests and selection by external and independent companies.

Modernization also sheds light on the need to compete for less technically demanding positions. The idea is that some functions may enter the temporary hiring regime, especially those in which turnover is very high. This already happens in some states.

“In large state administrations, the admission of temporary workers to fill a percentage of staff is always through a competitive selection process. And they are interesting experiences, as they guarantee that there is a professional permanently in the classroom, in the hospital, in the clinics”, says Sundfeld.

For the president of Consad, the cost also weighs in the discussion. “Today it is very complex to make public tenders, which are expensive processes for positions that could be filled in a more simplified way.”

The bill also regulates the use of online tests for public tenders, a fact that raised discussion. Sundfeld defends this model on the grounds that there are already systems with the necessary security.

However, some trade unions are against the model proposed by the project. For Daniela Villas Boas Westfahl, Director of Press and Communication at Sindiquinze (Professional Union of Labor Justice Servants of the 15th Region), the law has loopholes.

“The law does not fully meet the requirements of morality, impersonality and efficiency of the public service, opening loopholes for the exploitation of concurseiros and the use of sponsorship and hangers, which had already been removed. examples of these loopholes.”

For the USP professor, it is not just the entry process that must be modernized in the public service. More than modernizing the contest, what should be improved is the monitoring of public servants in their early careers in public management.

“If you do a probationary period well done, with goals, with performance assessment, at the end of three years you can say ‘these people fulfilled it properly, they really have a vocation’. But, unfortunately, the probationary period in Brazil is almost most of the time a piece of fiction”, says Coelho.

contest industry

One factor that influences the debate on the model for entering the public service is the fact that preparation for public tenders has become a market.

“It’s an industry strongly marked by large conglomerates that prepare people, even organize people’s travel — also a business tourism industry”, says Coelho.

“It is in the interest of the courses that what is evaluated in the public tender is something that they are able to standardize and sell repeatedly, with recorded classes, identical handouts for all courses”, says Sundfeld.

Professor Fernando Mesquita, director of mentoring and coaching at Gran Cursos Online, says he disagrees. For him, the prep course works more and more with the individualization of teaching by providing more specific materials aimed at competitions, a system that he considers fair for maintaining impersonality.

Student at the course, teacher Suelen Gonçalves dos Anjos, 39, who is already a public servant, decided to change careers. For ten months she has been preparing for a public tender in the area of ​​management for the Comptroller General of the Federal District.

“I work 40 hours a week as a teacher and I still study for the contest. I take online classes, review materials and essays every week. It’s heavy, a new career, but I feel more prepared”, she says.