Department of Agriculture

Loan Assistant/Specialist (Agricultural)

Florence, South Carolina Full time

Loan Assistant/Specialist (Agricultural)

Department: Department of Agriculture

Location(s): Florence, South Carolina

Salary Range: $40332 - $79443 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is in the Farm Service Agency, South Carolina State Office, District 1, located in Florence, South Carolina. About the position: This position assists the Farm Loan Manager in administering farm loan programs in a USDA Service Center serving one or more Counties.

Major Duties:

  • Conducts interviews with loan applicants, reviews loan applications, and makes preliminary inquiries to develop factual information to assess the eligibility of applicants.
  • Providing technical advice, guidance, and credit counseling to loan applicants and borrowers.
  • Has delegated loan approval authority to approve loans within a specific limit.
  • Applies knowledge of agency farm loan programs and eligibility requirements.
  • Applies technical knowledge of farm financing and credit, financial management concepts and practices, farm operations, land use and value, production and marketing of various crops and livestock, and prices and markets in the serviced farming areas.
  • This position works in a developmental capacity receiving on-the-job and classroom training in the administration of farm loan programs.
  • These positions assist the Farm Loan Manager in administering farm loan programs in a USDA Service Center serving one or more Counties.
  • Upon completion of training program, FLOs may be reassigned, at any time, to a different duty station if workload activity changes or vacancies occur.
  • Farm Loan Officers (FLOs) are required to successfully complete all of the requirements of the Farm Loan Training Program. FLOs may be reassigned to another training office during their training program.

Qualifications: In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. If education is required or being used to qualify, you must submit a copy of your transcripts. Individual Occupational Requirements Education Undergraduate and Graduate Education: Major study -- finance, business administration, economics, accounting, insurance, engineering, mathematics, banking and credit, law, real estate operations, statistics, or other fields related to the position, such as agriculture, agricultural economics, farm, livestock or ranch management, or rural sociology. -or- Experience General Experience (for GS-5 positions): Experience that required gathering and analyzing facts and figures and presenting the information or conclusions in clear oral and written language; or that provided a knowledge of the principles of financial analysis or of insurance laws, such as contract, property, life, casualty, or marine insurance. Specialized Experience (for positions above GS-5): Experience that demonstrated competence in agricultural, commercial, realty, or other types of loans. Experience may have been gained in such work as reviewing and passing upon applications for agricultural, commercial, bank or mortgage loans; servicing a loan portfolio of a bank or other loan association; performing financial analysis of commercial concerns for investment purposes; appraising real estate to determine property valuation; or similar work. In addition to meeting the Individual Occupational Requirements, you must also possess experience and/or directly related education listed below. General Experience Requirement For the GS-5 grade level: You must have three years of general experience, one year of which was equivalent to at least GS-4 grade level. Education at the GS-05 grade level: Four-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree Advancement to positions up to GS-5: Candidates may be advanced without time restriction to positions up to GS-5 if the position to be filled is no more than two grades above the lowest grade the employee held within the preceding 52 weeks under his or her latest non-temporary competitive appointment. Specialized Experience Requirement For the GS-7 grade level: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-5 grade level in federal service or comparable experience not gained through federal service. Education at the GS-07 grade level: One full year of graduate level education or superior academic achievement Superior Academic Achievement (SAA): Academic Achievement must have been gained in a curriculum that is qualifying for the position to be filled, such as that identified in Education above. SAA is based on: Class Standing - Applicants must be in the upper third of the graduating class in the college, university, or major subdivision, such as the College of Liberal Arts or the School of Business Administration, based on completed courses, OR Grade-Point Average (G.P.A.) - Applicants must have a grade-point average of either (a) 3.0 or higher out of a possible 4.0 ("B" or better) as recorded on your official transcript, or as computed based on 4 years of education, or as computed based on courses completed during the final 2 years of the curriculum; or (b) 3.5 or higher out of a possible 4.0 ("B+" or better) based on the average of the required courses completed in the major field or the required courses in the major field completed during the final 2 years of the curriculum.; OR Honor Society Membership - Applicants may be considered eligible based on membership in one of the approved national scholastic honor societies listed by the Association of College Honor Societies (https://www.achsnatl.org/). Time-in-Grade Requirement for the GS-7: If you are a current federal employee in the General Schedule (GS) pay plan and applying for a promotion opportunity, you must meet time-in-grade (TIG) requirements of 52 weeks of service at the GS-5 grade level. You must meet this requirement by the closing date of this announcement. For the GS-9 grade level: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-7 grade level in federal service or comparable experience not gained through federal service. Education at the GS-09 grade level: Master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher- level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.B. or J.D., if related Time-in-Grade Requirement for the GS-9: If you are a current federal employee in the General Schedule (GS) pay plan and applying for a promotion opportunity, you must meet time-in-grade (TIG) requirements of 52 weeks of service at the GS-7 grade level. You must meet this requirement by the closing date of this announcement. 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 and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. of this announcement.

How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (normally 8:00a.m. - 4:00p.m., Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement to be entered into the system prior to its closing. Resumes must not exceed two pages. This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.

Application Deadline: 2025-12-19