Announcing a New Project: Plain Job Titles Please
FAI helps the government sort out its job titles
In a break from bureaucratic history, I’m pleased to announce that one of my projects at the Foundation for American Innovation just launched: the American Governance policy team’s website Plain Job Titles Please.
Federal agencies were ordered to stop using unclear job titles. The Office of Personnel Management singled out the title IT Specialist as especially bad. To track compliance, this counter goes up every day federal agencies avoid posting a job listing for an “IT Specialist.” The counter resets to zero when they use the forbidden title. A higher number is better.
OPM’s mandate about adopting plain, industry-standard job titles is important for recruiting and retaining talented civil servants. But announcing this initiative is the easy part. What really matters getting agencies to actually change their HR practices and stop trying to hire “IT Specialists.” Unfortunately, so far in 2026 the federal government has not yet gone a single business day without trying to hire one. That’s why we built this counter: to help the government follow through on a worthy initiative.
Check out the site below.
Nice work @Kevin Hawickhorst and FAI! Looking forward to the updates. (Makes me wonder how many 2210 postings use other titles and if some agencies are doing the work to use the other occupational series’ (1560 — data scientists, 0854 — computer engineer, etc.) where applicable instead of he 2210 default.