Department: Department of Agriculture
Location(s): Chicago, Illinois
Salary Range: $165386 - $197200 Per Year
Job Summary: This position is located in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General. This position serves as a Supervisory Criminal Investigator (Special Agent-in-Charge) within the Office of Investigations, Midwest Region. This application will close upon receiving 50 applicants or at 11:59 PM on 18 May 2026, whichever occurs first.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: Applicants must meet all qualifications, eligibility requirements, and specialized experience minimums (and time-in-grade restrictions for merit promotion applicants) by the closing date of the announcement. This position is a primary law enforcement position under 5 U.S.C. 8336 (C) (CSRS and 5 U.S. C 8412 (d) (FERS). You must not have reached your 37th birthday prior to entry into the GS-1811 series, unless you have previous service creditable under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) or Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) law enforcement provisions sufficient to enable you to retire at age 57 with 20 years of creditable service. Persons already in covered secondary positions or persons with previous approved service who apply for a primary position cannot be considered if their age at reentry into the primary position exceeds 37 years after subtracting their years of service in covered positions. Applicants must provide evidence of current or previous coverage that would qualify. This age restriction does not apply to those entitled to Veteran's Preference. You will be required to qualify to carry and use firearms and other weapons as part of assigned duties and maintain such qualification. Applicants are ineligible for this position if, at any time, they have been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony crime of domestic violence, unless such conviction was expunged, set aside, or the applicant received a pardon. Refer to the Lautenberg Amendment, titled "Gun Ban for Individuals Convicted of a Misdemeanor Crime of Domestic Violence", Pub.L.104-208,[1] 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including time-in-grade restrictions and specialized experience as defined below. THIS POSITION HAS A BASIC MEDICAL REQUIREMENT: The duties of positions in this series require moderate to arduous physical exertion involving walking and standing, use of firearms, and exposure to inclement weather. Manual dexterity with comparatively free motion of finger, wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, and knee joints is required. Arms, hands, legs, and feet must be sufficiently intact and functioning in order that applicants may perform the duties satisfactorily. Sufficiently good vision in each eye, with or without correction, is required to perform the duties satisfactorily. Near vision, with or without correction, must be sufficient to read printed material the size of typewritten characters. Hearing loss, as measured by an audiometer, must not exceed 35 decibels at 1000, 2000, and 3000 Hz levels. Since the duties of these positions are exacting and responsible, and involve activities under trying conditions, applicants must possess emotional and mental stability. Any physical condition that would cause the applicant to be a hazard to himself/herself or others is disqualifying. IN ADDITION TO MEETING THE BASIC MEDICAL REQUIREMENT ABOVE, APPLICANTS MUST MEET THE MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS BELOW. Time in grade: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience at the next lower grade to be considered for the next higher grade (one year at the GS-14 level is required to meet the time-in-grade requirements for the GS-15 level). Under competitive merit promotion procedures, any individual who is currently holding, or who has held within the previous 52 weeks, a General Schedule position under non-temporary appointment in the competitive or excepted service, must meet "time-in-grade" requirements (have served 52 weeks at the next lower grade of the grade for which you are applying). Restrictions are contained in 5CFR 300, Subpart F. You must include an SF-50 (you may need to submit more than one) that supports meeting this requirement with your application package. MINIMUM SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE QUALIFICATIONS REQUIREMENT FOR GS-15: Applicants must possess one (1) year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-14 in the federal service or the private sector that has equipped the applicant with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience is defined as: Criminal and administrative investigations, from planning and conducting fact-finding, to reporting the results of investigations; performing undercover and surveillance work; conducting investigative interviews; and analyzing investigative facts to arrive at sound conclusions. This experience includes the preparation of comprehensive administrative and technical reports in order to present findings in a clear, logical, impartial, comprehensive, and concise manner. In addition, must have experience conducting liaison activities with other investigative agencies, including Federal, State, and local agencies, and developing new approaches to performing investigative functions, including responses to identified weaknesses and vulnerabilities in on-going operations. Evidence of one year or more of specialized experience must be clearly documented in your resume. 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, documented in your resume.
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. REASONABLE ACCOMODATION - This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin follow the steps below: Step 1: Create a USAJOBS account (if you do not already have one) at www.usajobs.gov. It is recommended that as part of your profile you set up automatic email notification to be informed when the status of your application changes. If you choose not to set up this automatic notification, then you will have to log into your USAJOBS account to check on the status of your application. Step 2: Create a Resume with USAJOBS or upload a Resume into your USAJOBS account. You may want to customize your resume to ensure it documents duties and accomplishments you have gained that are directly related to this position in order to verify that qualifications are met. In addition, your resume must support your responses to the online questionnaire (you may preview the online questionnaire by clicking on the link at the end of the How You Will Be Evaluated section of the job announcement). Step 3: Click "Apply Online" and follow the prompts to complete the Occupational Questionnaire and attach any additional documents that may be required. You can update your application or documents anytime while the announcement is open. Simply log into your USAJOBS account and click on "Application Status." Click on the position title, and then select "Update Application" to continue. This agency provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process, please notify the agency at 202-260-8128. The decision on granting reasonable accommodation will be on a case-by-case basis. NOTE: If a document is resubmitted, it replaces the previous submission, which means the previous document is no longer available to the Human Resources Office. If you are adding to, rather than replacing a previous submission, you must upload both the old document and the new document. You must verify that uploaded documents 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. Applicants may combine all like required documents (e.g. SF-50s or veteran docs) into one or more files and scan for uploading into the application. Each file must not exceed 3MB. Grouping like documents into files will simplify the application process. Documents must be in one of the following formats: GIF, JPEG, JPG, PDF, PNG, RTF, or Word (DOC or DOCX). Uploaded documents may not require a password, digital signature, or other encryption to open. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. 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: 2026-05-18