Acquisition professionals say the Centralized Selection List process not only gave them a career boost but made them better leaders.
by Heather B. Hayes
When Everett Roper, Ph.D., decided it was time to move to the next level in his Army acquisition career, he found himself facing a unique and uncertain choice: Should he take the traditional route of going through USA Jobs—as he had done on several occasions since leaving academia and joining the Army’s civilian workforce—or should he apply for a Centralized Selection List (CSL) position?
The CSL route is a competitive process that relies on two high-level boards to identify and carefully select the best-qualified acquisition personnel for the Army’s top acquisition jobs, including major contract efforts and Acquisition Category I, II and III weapon systems programs. Whether civilian or military, being selected for a CSL job, which is open only to O5/GS-14 and O6/GS-15 personnel, is the kind of resume builder that can help ambitious acquisition personnel rise more quickly up the career ladder.
After a discussion with his supervisor and taking time to research the requirements, Roper, then working as a systems engineer, opted to take the admittedly more arduous CSL route.
“I knew it would be challenging and that there would be hurdles, but then I thought, why not try?” he recalled. “Let me go ahead and obtain the extra training, the Senior Service College completion and the certifications that I need. Let me put in a strong package and just see what happens. And if I’m selected against that level of competition, it would say something about my qualifications and my performance, and it would be a real confidence builder.”
The risk paid off for Roper. After completing the training, putting together his application and attending the required week-long Acquisition Leader Assessment Program (ALAP), he was placed in a CSL assignment as a GS-15 project manager for the Ground-Based Interceptor Program at the Missile Defense Agency in Huntsville, Alabama.
FINDING THE BEST OF THE BEST
The CSL program is well recognized as highly beneficial for Army acquisition personnel. A key reason, according to Adam Polite, acquisition civilian proponency analyst for the Army Director of Acquisition Career Management (DACM) Office, who oversees the “faces” component of the CSL process, is that these positions are identified by acquisition senior leaders as the most critical and impactful to Army readiness for the very near future. That means product and project managers selected through CSL will ultimately oversee the teams and offices responsible for fielding equipment, technology and other critical items used by Soldiers and civilians in theater. And they’ll do it only for a specified period of time, generally three or four years, depending on the position. As a result, Roper notes, “you have to get in, you have to learn fast, you have to implement something fast, and then you have to prepare your mind to leave and move to the next assignment.”
Polite agreed: “The operational tempo for a CSL position is very high so it’s a demanding assignment, which means it’s going to take a lot of mental focus and effort and energy. But if you’re truly serious about moving up the career ladder, especially if you want to become a member of the Senior Executive Service or a general officer in acquisition, then you should at least consider taking a CSL assignment at both the product and project manager level.”
CSL jobs are prestigious because they are limited. In the most recent cycle, for example, there were just 72 CSL positions slated for O5/GS-14 personnel, according to Polite, and 14 of those jobs are specific to military.
There are three phases to the CSL process. First, applicants submit their packages and then the CSL board reviews and determines if the applicants meet CSL qualifications, provides a performance score and ranks them on what’s known as the Order of Merit List (OML). Based on those scores and the number of Army Acquisition Corps CSL positions, applicants are invited to attend ALAP.
During the second phase, all candidates who are deemed fully qualified for CSL consideration and receive an invite must then attend ALAP. This required assessment is focused solely on determining the applicants’ readiness for command based on the attributes and competencies articulated in the Army Leadership Requirements Model. This is accomplished by putting them through a series of psychometric, cognitive and non-cognitive assessments, including a psychological interview, a timed writing assessment and observed behavior exercise.
The assessment also includes a “double-blind” interview before a panel of senior Army leaders, in which neither the candidate nor the interviewers can see each other. This ensures that the interviewers don’t allow any potential bias to creep into their consideration based on any previous interactions they may have had with the candidate or based on the candidate’s appearance rather than the content of their answers or their verbal skills. In addition, because the candidates can’t see the interviewers, they don’t skew their answers or get thrown off based on someone’s facial or body language reaction.
Once ALAP is completed, the third phase begins. At this point, the CSL principal and alternate selection lists are approved by the Army acquisition executive, and career managers start matching selectees to jobs.
“It’s an arduous process, however, as it’s not nearly as simple as assigning the No. 1 ranked selectee to the top CSL job,” Polite said. He explained that a variety of factors go into the selection, including the needs of the Army, a selectee’s skills and professional experience and their regional preference. “The process of actually slating and assigning the CSL selectees into jobs is done at the Human Resources Command, and they will spend months going through that process,” he said.
GROWTH WITH THE JOURNEY
The CSL process is clearly about finding and matching the right person to each job, but it’s also designed to tweak and grow the candidates’ leadership skills along the way.
That is certainly the way Lt. Col. Camille N. Morgan saw it. While still working as proponent officer for talent management and recruiting at the Army DACM Office, she decided that pursuing a CSL position (which the military sometimes refers to as Command Select) would put her in a role that would allow her to not only “have a strategic impact and the opportunity to shape strategy, policies and the direction of Army acquisition,” but would also provide all manner of personal and professional growth opportunities.
And those benefits, she said, start accruing before and during CSL, noting that the selection process and the preparation for ALAP “challenges you to develop leadership skills, enhance decision-making and prepare participants to effectively lead acquisition teams.”
Morgan said she took the time upfront to talk to her team to help better assess her leadership style and address any weak points. For example, she knew that she wasn’t the strongest writer, so she enrolled in several courses in anticipation of ALAP’s timed writing test. All of this helped improve her performance at ALAP.
ALAP, she said, was particularly challenging but also gave her new insight into her leadership style. In meeting with an onsite psychologist, she was asked about everything from her recent reading list to her career aspirations to how she might respond to various scenarios. And during the panel interview, Morgan was asked simple, but probing, behavioral-based questions and prompts based on her experiences. She said the entire process is designed to force acquisition leaders out of their comfort zone and help them recognize how they think, how they respond under pressure and how they interact with others, including their peers.
“The whole process is tremendously effective because they’re trying to ensure your success in whatever position you’re placed,” she said.
Morgan was ultimately chosen for a CSL assignment as the product manager of the Army Contract Writing System under the Program Executive Office (PEO) for Enterprise, formerly known as PEO for Enterprise Information Systems. In this role, she supervises 48 people and a contractor in integrating three Army contracting systems—the Standard Procurement System, Procurement Desktop-Defense and Procurement Automated Data and Document System—into a single modernized system, while also managing its budget, schedule and performance.
GET READY AND GO FOR IT
So how can a talented and ambitious acquisition professional improve his or her chances of getting a CSL job?
Morgan said preparation is the key. Even before they apply, candidates should take time to familiarize themselves with CSL and ALAP, along with their structures, objectives and evaluation criteria and then proactively undertake a self-assessment to find and fix “the holes in your swing,” she said.
“Reflect on your leadership style, strengths and areas for improvement,” she explained. “Be honest with yourself about your capabilities and how they align with the expectations of senior leaders. Engage with peers, mentors and superiors to gain insight into your leadership skills. Constructive feedback can help you identify gaps and work on them before the assessment.”
Roper said that even as candidates ensure that they have the requisite knowledge and technical skills for a CSL assignment, they should simultaneously work on assessing and then improving their soft skills.
“Don’t apply just because you are a smart engineer or because you have a lot of radar experience or missile experience,” he said. “It will help, but that alone will not make you a good candidate. If you want to go this route, make sure you are strengthening your people management skills, your interviewing skills and those areas that are outside of your comfort area, like budgeting, logistics, contracting and other program management areas.”
Polite agreed and highly encourages talented and ambitious acquisition professionals to take a chance and apply.
“CSL is really an opportunity for an individual to step outside their comfort zone, whether it be geographically or in an organization they’re unfamiliar with, and they can learn new skills and truly lead while developing themselves professionally,” he said. “So I tell people to really consider trying because once you have that CSL assignment, the CSL designation travels with you and it’s a great resume builder that is very high visibility. It really means something—and if you do a great job, you’re going to be highly sought after once your assignment is completed.”
MAKING THE CUT
The deadline for civilian candidates to submit a package for the fiscal year 2027 CSL cycle is April 18, 2025. The military candidate opt-in deadline will be documented and announced via a fiscal year 2027 CSL Board military personnel message.
Here are the basic steps involved:
Application. Civilians who apply for a CSL assignment must put together a package that includes several key documents, including their resume, three years of job performance reviews and Senior Rater Potential Evaluations. Candidates must also provide their regional preference at this time.
Review. The Army DACM Office reviews the application packages to determine if a candidate meets the minimum qualifications to be considered for a CSL position. Any candidate that doesn’t will not be submitted to the CSL Board in the current cycle but is free to apply again in the future.
Qualification and ranking. The CSL Board will determine if a candidate is fully qualified to assume a CSL position based on several factors, including relevant experience, manner of performance and demonstrated potential. It will then determine a performance score for each candidate and put together an initial Order of Merit List (OML). The Acquisition Corps CSL position requirements and initial OML are used to identify the candidates who will be invited to the ALAP.
ALAP. This fast-paced, week-long assessment event that takes place in October every year. This is an important and mandatory phase of the CSL process for all candidates.
Assignments announced. Based on the combination of CSL Board and ALAP results, candidates are then categorized as principal or alternate selectees. The Human Resources Command will ultimately match jobs with candidates, based on the ALAP OML and other factors. Although there is an effort to place candidates within their regional preference, this is not always possible.
For more information on the CSL application process, go to https://asc.army.mil/web/centralized-selection-list.
HEATHER B. HAYES provides contract support to the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center as a contributing writer and editor for Army AL&T magazine and JANSON. She holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Kentucky and has more than 30 years of experience writing and editing feature articles and books.
