Guidance on Career Reserved SES Positions & Agency Redesignation Requests

As a follow-up to a February 5, 2025 memorandum that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued regarding “career-reserved” positions in the Senior Executive Service (SES), this memorandum provided agencies with a 138-page list of “career-reserved” positions and provided further instructions for determining which positions to convert to "general" SES positions. The applicable statute on the SES, 5 U.S.C. § 3132, establishes two kinds of SES positions, career-reserved and general. Only career government employees can fill career-reserved SES positions, while both career government employees and political appointees can fill general SES positions.