NEW YORK — Com­pe­tence is mak­ing a comeback.

Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden has prized stay­ing pow­er over star pow­er when mak­ing his first wave of Cab­i­net picks and choic­es for White House staff, with a pre­mi­um placed on gov­ern­ment expe­ri­ence and pro­fi­cien­cy as he looks to rebuild a deplet­ed and demor­al­ized fed­er­al bureaucracy.

With an eye in part toward mak­ing selec­tions who may have to seek approval from a Repub­li­can-con­trolled Sen­ate, Biden has pri­or­i­tized choos­ing qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als while eschew­ing flashy names. Even the most rec­og­niz­able pick — John Ker­ry — lacks the show­man­ship that has defined the Trump era.

In sharp con­trast to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who open­ly dis­trust­ed the very gov­ern­ment he led, Biden has show­cased a faith in bureau­cra­cy that was born out of his near­ly five decades in Wash­ing­ton. He’s made hires with the delib­er­ate aim of pro­ject­ing a sense of duti­ful and, even bor­ing, competency.

Sur­round­ing him­self with long­time aides and vet­er­ans of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion, many of whom have already worked togeth­er for years, Biden has rolled out a team of careerists with burst­ing resumes and lit­tle need of a learn­ing curve.

“Col­lec­tive­ly, this team has secured some of the most defin­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty and diplo­mat­ic achieve­ments in recent mem­o­ry — made pos­si­ble through decades of expe­ri­ence work­ing with our part­ners,” Biden said Tues­day as he unveiled his nation­al secu­ri­ty team.

“Expe­ri­ence” is indeed the coin of the realm on Biden’s bur­geon­ing team.

His pick for sec­re­tary of state, Antony Blinken, worked for Biden in the Sen­ate for years, and held the posts of deputy sec­re­tary of state and deputy nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er. His choice for nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, Jake Sul­li­van, was the deputy to that post under Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. His nom­i­nee for trea­sury sec­re­tary, Janet Yellen, was chair of the Fed­er­al Reserve and chair of the White House Coun­cil of Eco­nom­ic Advis­ers. His incom­ing White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, was chief of staff to two vice pres­i­dents — Al Gore and Biden him­self — and was the Oba­ma administration’s Ebo­la czar.

And Ker­ry, Biden’s choice to fill the new­ly cre­at­ed post of pres­i­den­tial cli­mate envoy, was a long­time U.S. sen­a­tor and his party’s 2004 pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee before serv­ing as sec­re­tary of state.

“The team is bring­ing com­pe­ten­cy and expe­ri­ence, which are two sep­a­rate things but deeply inter­wo­ven,” said retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, for­mer NATO supreme allied com­man­der Europe, who has worked with much of Biden’s new team. “There are deputies step­ping up into full roles, sea­soned hands return­ing to the job. They tend to be calm and cen­tered and they won’t all fight over the ball.”

“They know their coun­ter­parts over­seas and they know whom to pick up the phone and call,” said Stavridis. “It’s a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent approach than what we saw with the Trump team — and I hes­i­tate to call it a team because they didn’t work all that well together.”

Four years ago, con­tenders for Cab­i­net posts were marched through the gild­ed lob­by of Trump Tow­er, the president-elect’s Man­hat­tan sky­scraper, in full view of reporters and TV cam­eras. The can­di­dates pub­licly jock­eyed for posts, Trump aides took turn knif­ing each oth­er in the media, and the incom­ing pres­i­dent even took one sec­re­tary of state con­tender, Mitt Rom­ney, out to din­ner for a pub­lic and ulti­mate­ly unsuc­cess­ful audition.

Con­verse­ly, Biden’s tran­si­tion hir­ing process has been car­ried out behind closed doors or, out of con­cern for the surg­ing pan­dem­ic, on Zoom and over the phone. Leaks to reporters have been few. And the pub­lic only got its first glimpse of Biden’s choic­es when they took their spots, spaced apart and wear­ing masks, on a Delaware stage.

Anoth­er change was the dis­tinct lack of trib­utes from the staffers about their boss, a marked dif­fer­ence from the lengthy, glow­ing ven­er­a­tions of the pres­i­dent that came to define any Trump Cab­i­net meet­ing. Also dif­fer­ent: No one who stood with Biden was a fam­i­ly mem­ber or an in-law.

“The con­trast between Biden’s selec­tions and Trump’s selec­tions are like night and day: Biden’s picks are capa­ble, sen­si­ble and play well in the sand­box togeth­er,” said Steve Rat­tner, a for­mer Oba­ma eco­nom­ic advis­er. “Biden prefers peo­ple he has known for decades. Trump picked Rex Tiller­son because he thought he looked like a sec­re­tary of state.”

There are risks. Many pro­gres­sive Democ­rats aren’t look­ing for sim­ply a return to the Oba­ma years, which end­ed with many on the left frus­trat­ed at the slow pace of change.

Repub­li­cans are also unim­pressed with Biden’s hires.

“Biden’s cab­i­net picks went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, attend all the right con­fer­ences & will be polite & order­ly care­tak­ers of America’s decline,” tweet­ed Flori­da Sen. Mar­co Rubio, who may seek the White House again in 2024.

Trump’s own hir­ing process was besieged with chaos of his own mak­ing. He jet­ti­soned the man in charge of his tran­si­tion — for­mer Gov. Chris Christie, R‑N.J. — and more than 30 binders that Christie had pre­pared in favor of a staffing plan based on his gut, fam­i­ly rec­om­men­da­tions and, yes, by his own admis­sion, choic­es who looked straight out of cen­tral casting.

The tumult didn’t end once he took office.

While a few of his picks were estab­lish­ment choic­es, like Marine Gen. Jim Mat­tis to run the Pen­ta­gon, most were plucked from the cor­po­rate world — like Tiller­son at the State Depart­ment and Steven Mnuchin at the Trea­sury Depart­ment. His senior advis­er, Steve Ban­non, said he want­ed to over­see “the destruc­tion of the admin­is­tra­tive state.”

Trump had more senior staff and Cab­i­net turnover than any mod­ern pre­de­ces­sor — his first nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, Michael Fly­nn, didn’t last a month — and he declared an infor­mal war on the fed­er­al bureau­cra­cy once the inves­ti­ga­tion began into whether his cam­paign had any ties to Russia.

Deeply sus­pi­cious of what he deemed the “deep state,” Trump allowed scores of vacan­cies to remain unfilled across fed­er­al agen­cies, fired offi­cials he deemed insuf­fi­cient­ly loy­al, encour­aged in-fight­ing on his staff and, with relent­less pub­lic attacks, attempt­ed to under­mine Amer­i­cans’ faith in the insti­tu­tions of their own government.