Personnel Security Specialist

Federal Emergency Management Agency

In this position you will work as a member of the Office of Chief Security Officer (OCSO), Personnel Secuity Division, as a Personnel Security Specialist/Adjudicator. The ideal candidate will have previous practical experience adjudicating personnel security information and forms for both public trust and national security positions.

No Educational Substitution: There is no educational substitution for this position, and you must meet the qualifications listed in the “requirements” section of this announcement.

What will I do in this position if hired?

In this position, you will implement security policies. Provide technical advice and assistance regarding establishment of comprehensive security awareness programs. Responsible for maintaining the integrity and protection of highly sensitive information and programs.
Typical assignments include:

  • Performing assignments in relation to creating, reviewing and evaluating background investigative information used to determine the suitability, fitness and national security eligibility of FEMA employees, applicants, contractors and other designated personnel.
  • Interpreting and applying personnel security policies and guidelines to render pre-appointment and final suitability and fitness determinations.
  • Maintaining a system of security files, initiates investigation requests, documents all activities pertaining to the effect of the application of security programs on hiring situations; maintaining database records used for the monitoring of hiring activity and progression through security processing requirements. Incumbent provides reports of status of hiring cases to other security specialists, human resource specialists and hiring managers.

What else do I need to know?

At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management. Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee’s official position description. Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions.

FEMA is committed to ensuring that its workforce reflects the diversity of the nation. At FEMA, our workforce includes the many identities, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, abilities, ages, cultures, and beliefs of the people we serve. To learn about FEMA’s ongoing diversity and inclusion efforts, reasonable accommodation process, and the FEMA Core Values, please visit www.fema.gov.

Current Federal employees must have served 52 weeks at the next lower grade or equivalent grade band in the Federal service. The time-in-grade and qualification requirements must be met within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement.

To qualify for this position at the GS-12 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-11 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position. Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following:

  • Applying laws to governing the adjudicative process for national security; AND
  • Adjudicating investigative reports and rendering an adjudicative decision to finalize security cases; AND
  • Utilizing security databases (i.e., DISS, CVS) to perform status inquires; AND
  • Providing guidance to junior adjudicators on the adjudicative processes.

Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application:

  • Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.
  • Please limit your resume to five pages. If more than five pages are submitted, only the first five pages will be reviewed to determine your eligibility and qualifications.
  • Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity. Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience.

Are you qualifying based on your work experience?

  • Qualifications are based on your ability to demonstrate in your resume that you possess one year of the specialized experience for this announcement at a comparable scope and responsibility. To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the USAJOBS online Resume Builder. If you choose to use your own resume, it must contain the following information organized by experience/position: (1) job title, (2) name of employer, (3) start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY), (4) detailed description of duties performed, accomplishments, and related skills, and (5) hours worked per week (part-time employment will be prorated in crediting experience). Federal experience/positions must also include the occupational series, grade level, and dates in which you held each grade level.
  • Are you a current or former FEMA Reservist/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE)? To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of deployments that are relevant to your qualifying experience, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment.
  • Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information. Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found “not qualified.”
  • Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

To apply for this job please visit www.usajobs.gov.