In the deep oceans of job search tools around the web, there are innumerable options, some reliable, some not so reliable. If you’re a cleared professional looking for a job, then you came to the right place: ClearanceJobs.com. There’s simply no better place to begin. Here, you’ll find some 20,000 cleared job openings among 1500 government contracting companies. But you should probably cast a wider net, beyond the private sector and into federal job waters.
USAJOBS
USAJobs is the government’s one-stop shop for civil service opportunities across the United States. If you haven’t visited USAJobs for a while, you should know that the Office of Personnel Management recently beefed up this really powerful tool. It’s easy to sign up. It’s easy to navigate. And it’s easy to get authoritative answers to any questions you might have about the nine steps of the federal hiring process. A great strength of the USAJobs tool is your ability to tailor your search to exacting detail.
You can search for jobs in specific regions, states, or cities. You can search for openings in specific fields that interest you. You can search by salary ranges. Or you can combine them all to really narrow your results. For instance, if you’re a cleared professional looking for nothing other than positons requiring clearances, you can do that, too. Right now there are over 1,000 jobs requiring Top Secret clearances. Sixty of those are TS/SCI.
NETWORKING
In the private sector, your chances of getting a foot in the door is vastly enhanced by way of effective networking—leveraging the good will and knowledge of family, friends, and colleagues, attending networking events and flooding the market with your resume, among other techniques, all of which are helpful. When it comes to the federal side, networking doesn’t have exactly the same effect.
Federal hiring processes are managed by laws and policies that meant to hire people based on merit, not on who they know. That’s not to say networking doesn’t have its place in the federal market. It does. But the networking effect is generally limited by the federal process. Through networks, you may hear of jobs that are about to come open and target those opportunities. Through networks you can build a team ready to provide top-notch professional references. Those are important, valuable advantages.
But when it comes to the federal job, that’s about as far as networking can really get you, at least officially speaking. There has to be an official position. There has to be an official announcement. You have to go through the nine steps of the process to finally get your desk, and that process will take a month or more. Unofficially speaking, I have heard rumors and legends about folks being hired in untoward ways that sidestep laws and regulations or feign the process, but, in my view, that’s neither an approach to depend on nor one in which I’d encourage anyone to engage.
BEST BET
If you’re trying to get that job with the federal government, your best bet is to fully embrace the USAJobs process. It is increasingly user friendly. Explore the thousands of jobs that are out there (you may find some opportunities you’d never dream even existed). Then tailor great resumes that resonate with the particular jobs that appeal to you using the USAJobs resume builder. Be exacting with the facts, and then flood the federal job market, applying to every single job that interests you.
Networking can certainly enhance your chances of success, but the main attack toward a federal job is USAJobs.
Good luck.
