By Kathryn Troutman, RP President The Resume Place, Inc., and
Creator and Program Director, Ten Steps to a Federal Job Certification Program
Published August 1, 2017
Uncle Sam is looking for a few good Border Patrol Agents – 5,000 of them, in fact. The Department of Homeland Security is having such a hard time finding enough qualified men and women to do this tough and important job that it recently issued a request for proposals from outside consultants to put together a “hard-hitting recruiting campaign.”
So if you’re under age 40 and can meet the basic requirements for the job – which include a background investigation, drug tests and polygraph – now is the time to apply. Due to the urgency that President Trump has injected into this recruitment drive, veterans’ preference and traditional federal rating and ranking of candidates do not apply to many of these job openings. For most candidates, this makes it easier to land a job.
What do U.S. Border Patrol Agents do all day? They patrol our border with Mexico, but also coastal waters and the Canadian border. Most border patrol jobs are Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Their main mission is “detecting, preventing, and apprehending undocumented aliens and smugglers of aliens and illegal narcotics…near the land borders.” Border patrol personnel typically are required to carry firearms.
The starting pay is decent for entry-level, and there’s an established path of promotions that come with healthy pay increases. And there’s plenty of room to grow with the Department of Homeland Security. In the president’s fiscal 2018 budget request, DHS is one of the few federal departments that gets substantial funds to staff up.
Border patrol agents without law enforcement experience may start as GL-5 civil servants at a salary of $40,511 to $50,639. With satisfactory performance, they progress each year, to GS-12 and a salary range of $72,168 to $90,210 after they’ve completed four years. Many agents will also be eligible for overtime pay. Customs and Border Protection also employs thousands of professionals who perform vital functions other than physical border enforcement.
A bachelor’s degree or just one year of responsible work experience, not necessarily in a field tied to law enforcement, can qualify you for an entry-level GL-5 Border Patrol position. A year of specialized experience in law enforcement may qualify you to start at GL-9.
This is where The Resume Place can help you win a solid and secure position as a Border Patrol Agent. We can take whatever information you have on hand regarding your education and work background and organize it, articulating your qualifications with the keywords that federal human resources officers and hiring managers are looking for – all in the demanding outline format of the federal resume.
If you have worked in law enforcement, we will assist you by suggesting resume language that emphasizes the specific relevance of that experience to the requirements for border patrol.
To learn more about optimizing your chances of being hired for the Border Patrol or any other federal agency or department, check out our Federal Resume Guidebook, 6th Edition. If you’d like us to prepare your perfected federal resume, right now we’ll do it for just $459. Contact us for more information. In the meantime, check out these study guides for the Customs and Border Protection Officer entrance exam.
If you’d like us to prepare your perfected federal resume, right now we’ll do it for just $459.
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