Clarification from the agency

Current or Former Federal employees, regardless of tenure Internal agency employees; including agency temporary employees, eligible agency Experts, and eligible agency personal services contractors.

The Criminal Investigator performs the following major duties:

• Criminal Investigative Case Work: Conduct investigations that require an expert level of planning and coordination for very complex investigations in terms of structure and coordination requirements. For example, investigations that have a number of primary and secondary activities involving jurisdictional overlapping with other Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies; involve foreign jurisdictions outside the United States; or involve high ranking government officials, or cases of national or international notoriety, such as the murder of a Peace Corps Volunteer overseas. Serve as investigators performing a variety of investigative assignments including surveillance, radio transmittals, etc. Devise methods, techniques, and approaches that often set patterns for subsequent investigations in similar areas and often are adopted for use by investigators in lower grades.
• Investigative Program Liaison Activities: Plan and execute liaison operations for novel, critical, or precedent-setting programs, with national or international implications. Coordinate liaison activities and apply authoritative judgment in developing and maintaining relationships with foreign governments, Federal, State, and local government agencies and other law enforcement agencies. For example, incumbents develop policies and procedures for specialized fields of law enforcement investigations. Plan liaison operations for critical law enforcement investigation programs with national and international implications
• Investigative Collection Activities: Plan and direct the development, coordination, and evaluation of investigative data to establish areas of conflicting or uncertainty in information such as reports of sexual assaults or sexual misconduct.
• Investigative Program Advice and Guidance: Serve as an authoritative expert and provides advice and guidance in areas that require extensive interpretation for many different and unrelated program processes and methods. Advises management of significant new changes and development in the broad areas of criminal investigations and law enforcement, and makes recommendations to modify existing policies and procedures as they relate to and impact criminal investigations.
• Criminal Investigation Policy Analysis and Development: Advising management regarding policies for collecting, controlling, and disseminating criminal investigation information. Analyze and advise management regarding policies, procedures, and guidelines applicable to specialized segments of criminal investigation programs. Based on an awareness of current operational needs and problems, identifies the need for revisions, changes, or deletions of current policies, procedures, or practices. Perform research and analysis; draft necessary written documentation; obtains input, review, and concurrence of affected parties; and coordinate the implementation of revised policies.
• Reports of Investigative Findings: Prepare or directs the preparation of written materials concerning the most controversial investigations, due to the extreme sensitivity of matters being investigated or an exceptional difficulty encountered in establishing interrelationships of facts or evidence.

Conditions of employment

• Applicants must be U.S. citizens.
• Applicants must successfully complete a background security investigation with favorable adjudication. Failure to successfully meet this requirement will be grounds for employment termination.
• All Federal employees are required to have federal salary payments made by direct deposit to a financial institution of their choosing.
• The selectee must undergo and complete a probationary period consisting of specific on the job training tasks which must be performed or demonstrated
• This job has been identified as a testing designated position under the OIG Drug-Free Workplace Program. Therefore, you must satisfactorily complete a drug test prior to being hired. As an employee, you will be subject to random drug testing.
• This is not a bargaining unit position.
• This position requires a Top Secret security clearance.

Peace Corps Information

• This is a Federal civilian job in the Excepted Service. Peace Corps employees are paid on the Foreign Personnel (FP) pay scale.
• Initial appointment of employment is permanent.
• Previous experience in a primary (rigorous) law enforcement position (or federal equivalent) is desired.
• Qualified internal applicants will be given full consideration.
• Additional hiring needs may be filled through this vacancy.
• The Peace Corps is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factors.
• The Peace Corps is a drug-free workplace and promotes a drug-free environment.
• The Peace Corps is committed to maintaining a diverse and inclusive culture. Our goal is to attract and develop the best and brightest from all lifestyles and backgrounds. The Peace Corps strives to create a culture of inclusion where individuals feel respected and are treated fairly in all aspects of differences.

The Peace Corps provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the hiring process, please notify the Office of Human Resources by calling 202-692-1200 or the Office of Civil Rights and Diversity on 202-692-2139. Decisions on granting reasonable accommodation are made on a case-by-case basis.

Qualifications

This position is a primary law enforcement position under 5 U.S.C. 8412(d). Applicants must be no more than 37 years of age upon entry into the GS-1811 series, unless the applicant has 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 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. Applicant must provide evidence of current or previous coverage that would qualify. This age restriction does not apply to those entitled to Veteran's Preference. Criminal Investigators under the 1811 occupational series are eligible for law enforcement availability pay (LEAP), not to exceed 25% of the rate of basic pay. Selectee 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 convicted of a misdemeanor or felony crime of domestic violence, unless such conviction was expunged, set aside, or the applicant received a pardon. Selectee must meet the initial agency suitability determination (i.e. local police checks, review of past employment data, review of Query National information Center report, results of special agency check, etc.) before a final offer can be made.


Specialized Experience:

You must meet the specialized experience at the grade level(s) in which you choose to be considered by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on 01/17/2023 (the closing date of the announcement). You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. To ensure full credit for your experience, please indicate dates of employment by month, day, and year and the number of hours worked per week in your resume.

This vacancy is being announced at two grade levels:

FP-3

Qualifying experience for the FP-3 level includes one year of specialized experience at least equivalent to the FP-4 or GS-12 level which is in or directly related to the line of work of the position to be filled and which has equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience includes: Experience conducting investigations that require an expert level of planning and coordination for very complex investigations in terms of structure and coordination requirements; Experience preparing investigative reports with the responsibility for presenting necessary aspects of investigation; Experience revising and evaluating investigative reports to establish areas of vulnerability.

FP-2

Qualifying experience for the FP-3 level includes one year of specialized experience at least equivalent to the FP-3 or GS-13 level which is in or directly related to the line of work of the position to be filled and which has equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience includes: Experience conducting investigations that require an expert level of planning and coordination for very complex investigations in terms of structure and coordination requirements; Experience preparing investigative reports with the responsibility for presenting necessary aspects of investigation; Experience revising and evaluating investigative reports to establish areas of vulnerability. Experience analyzing and developing policies, procedures, and guidelines applicable to specialized segments of criminal investigation programs.

Medical Requirements

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, corrective lenses permitted, 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.

Additional information on qualification requirements is outlined in the OPM Qualifications Standards Handbook of General Schedule Positions. It is available for your review on the OPM web site at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/

Time-in-Grade Requirements: Internal applicants and Federal employees who are currently holding, or who have held within the previous 52 weeks, a position under a 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 (FP-4 or GS-12; FP-3 or GS-13).Note: All current or former Federal employees (including internal employees) must provide a copy of their SF-50 (you may need to submit more than one), "Notice of Personnel Action" that indicates proof of status and time-in-grade eligibility. The SF-50 must include your position, title, series, grade, step, tenure, and type of service (Competitive or Excepted).

All qualification requirements must be met by 01/17/2023 (the closing date of this announcement). Qualification claims will be subject to verification.

Please note: Peace Corps employees are employed using the Foreign Personnel (FP) pay scale. The FP pay plan does not follow the same structure as the GS pay plan. In the FP pay plan, as the grade-level numbers decrease the level/pay for the position increases (e.g., the FP-09 is the lowest entry-level pay and the FP-01 is the highest senior-level pay).

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Your application will be evaluated based on your resume, attached supporting documentation, and your responses to the self-assessment questionnaire. Your materials will be evaluated to validate your possession of any required knowledge, skills, abilities, and/or competencies. The following competencies will be evaluated in the self-assessment questionnaire:

• Criminal Investigation
• Stakeholder Management
• Strategic Thinking

Please note that a complete application is required for consideration, including any documentation that is being used for qualifications. A Human Resources Specialist will review your resume and supporting documentation, which must support the answers you provided. Falsifying your background, education, and/or experience is cause for disqualification.

National service refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through national service programs such as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, as well as other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, community, student).