In addition to allowing departments to recruit their own lower-level officials, there are also the "fast stream" and "senior civil service" tracks. The former can be seen as creating a reserve of high-level civil servants, and training in "core competencies" that can be applied immediately after placement is stressed. These include delivery skills, intellectual capacity, and interpersonal skills. People in this track are also deliberately placed in different positions or in private companies for periods of time to build up experience.

Some mid- and high-level civil service positions are still designed with specific requisite work skills in mind. When positions open up, not only do departments look to promote their current employees, they also do open hiring. New hires sign contracts with end dates, efficiency standards, and salary terms. Doing this escapes the closed, "career-based" bureaucratic mindset and encourages innovative thinking.

It's worth mentioning that at the same time the British government has implemented salary reforms, including performance-related pay for high-level offcials, with standards set by a committee of 10 or 11 businesspeople, university professors, and lawyers called the Review Body on Senior Salaries.

In the more than 20 years of reforms in the UK, under which selection policy is oriented toward diversity in goals and performance, a newly vibrant civil service has been created. And whereas elite Oxford and Cambridge graduates traditionally filled 60-70% of the top civil service positions, due to wider access to education as well as multifaceted testing that figure has dropped to around 30%.

The federal government recruits people through four main channels: competitive exams (some 30% of new intake); the Veterans Employment Opportunity Act (some 15%); the Federal Career Intern Program (some 15%), which mandates a two-year internship (from 2005 this channel has provided 50% of new recruits in career grades five to seven); and Veterans Recruitment Appointment (some 7%). Since 1996 recruiting powers have been delegated to individual agencies, and much use has been made of position-based competitive recruitment mechanisms.

The American government has long used a set salary scale based on rank and years of service. This has created problems where the salaries have come out of line with work performance and has been under reconsideration in recent years.

Public employment is still based on the traditional system, with three types of examination, somewhat similar to those in Taiwan. Where the systems differ is that for new recruits the Japanese government emphasizes testing general knowledge (current events, reading comprehension, logic, and information analysis) rather than specialized skills. Professional and technical employees can also be recruited on the basis of their educational backgrounds or publications.

The highest-level exam, for example, is divided into two sections: The first section includes general knowledge tests and specialist tests in a multiple-choice format. The second section includes essay questions on specialized knowledge, a hybrid exam (mainly testing judgment and reasoning ability), and an oral interview. Those who pass the first section must also report to local government offices to better understand their potential positions, work environments, and compensation.

In sum, there are a few common trends across the civil service examination systems of developed nations:

1. Individual departments are being given the authority to hire in a manner that fits their needs. 2. Exams are tending toward a combination of written exams and oral interviews. 3. Tests are becoming more based on work aptitude and attitude rather than specialized or technical knowledge. 4. For exams designed to reasonably screen large numbers of applicants, a combination of multiple-choice and essay questions is being employed.