Debra-Federal Job Guidance

02/27/2026

📊 DHS HIRING: WHAT THE NUMBERS TELL US

The Department of Homeland Security remains one of the largest federal employers, with approximately 186,000 employees across its components.

Recent public workforce data and reporting show:

• Over 90% of DHS positions are permanent federal roles
• Law enforcement components such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and Homeland Security Investigations continue active hiring
• ICE alone has reported hundreds of thousands of applications, signaling extremely high interest and competition

What this means for applicants:
✔ DHS is still hiring
✔ Competition is intense
✔ Preparation and accuracy matter more than ever

Understanding these numbers helps you apply strategically, not blindly.

I help applicants interpret hiring trends, align their experience correctly, and prepare before and after submission so they don’t get lost in the numbers.

02/26/2026

Recent government updates highlight continued vetting and background investigation delays across ICE and CBP hiring. While recruitment remains active, suitability and screening reviews are taking longer due to increased applicant volume.

What this means for applicants is simple: how well you prepare before submission matters more than ever.

📣 What You Should Do Now
Carefully review your USAJobs application to ensure all information is accurate and consistent. Your resume, assessment responses, and supporting documents should align exactly. Inconsistencies can slow screening or result in removal from consideration. Prepare documentation early, including education records, employment history, references, and SF-86 details if required.

This is the stage where many qualified applicants lose momentum.

I work with applicants before and after submission to help them properly position their experience, reduce avoidable screening issues, and navigate the process with clarity so they can move forward with confidence.

If you are serious about ICE or CBP, preparation is not optional. It is strategic.

02/23/2026

One of the biggest misunderstandings about working for the Department of Homeland Security is thinking it is only law enforcement or uniformed roles.

That is not the case.

DHS hires across a wide range of mission support and professional series, including program management, human resources, finance, IT, cybersecurity, policy, logistics, acquisition, communications, and data analysis.

Many roles sit at DHS Headquarters or within components like FEMA, USCIS, TSA, and CISA and do not require carrying a badge or wearing a uniform.

What matters most in DHS hiring is how well your experience aligns with the specialized experience listed in the announcement and whether your resume clearly demonstrates that experience at the required grade level.

This is where many applicants get stuck. They have done the work, but their resumes do not clearly show scope, impact, or federal relevance.

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing practical guidance on how DHS evaluates experience, how to read vacancy announcements correctly, and how to position your background for DHS roles.

If you’ve ever thought, “I’m qualified but keep getting overlooked,” this page is for you.

💬 Question for you:
Are you interested in an operational role or a mission support role within DHS?

02/21/2026

I created this page because I kept seeing qualified people struggle to get into the Department of Homeland Security.

Not because they lacked experience.
Not because they weren’t doing the work.
But because the federal hiring process can be confusing, inconsistent, and difficult to navigate without clear guidance.

I’ve worked with professionals who met the specialized experience, aligned with the right series and grade, and were already performing at a high level. Yet they were getting referred but not selected, or not referred at all, simply because their experience was not being communicated the right way on a federal resume.

That is why I decided to use my time to share what I know.

If you are interested in working for the Department of Homeland Security, this page will focus on helping you understand how DHS hires, what different components are looking for, and how to properly position your experience for federal roles.

On this page, I will be sharing DHS hiring trends based on public information, career insights across DHS components, federal resume and USAJobs guidance, and lessons learned from real coaching experiences shared ethically and confidentially.

Federal careers should not feel like guesswork. My goal is to help bring clarity to the process.

If DHS is a goal for you, I invite you to follow along. #̳u̳s̳a̳j̳o̳b̳s̳

09/25/2024

09/24/2024

Can we STOP with the addressing your career gap while you were on maternity leave?

I was watching a local news program and they had a hiring expert on who suggested that you talk about all the skills you brushed up on to address the maternity leave gap.

LOL.

For anyone who has had a baby, I can assure you that you were probably not taking online courses, volunteering at your local non-profit, or going to networking meetings.

You were doom scrolling for 97 seconds while your baby took a 97 second nap. Their 3rd one of the day.

You didn't shower for 3 days, but you managed to brush your teeth twice, and throw a grilled cheese together for dinner. Accomplishment!

You only wore that milk stained shirt for 2 days. Accomplishment!

You were able to drag a brush through your hair (maybe), and put on deodorant. Accomplishment!

You were seriously sleep deprived, yet managed to keep a tiny little human being alive. Accomplishment!

You dealt with sore b***s, visits from your well meaning mother or mother-in-law, and managed to throw in a load of laundry.

You did all these things while recovering from the hardest thing your body will ever do, and feeling the greatest joy you've ever felt.

Isn't that enough?

Maybe we've taken the "I'm going to hold this short period of time that you weren't working against you" business too far.

Sometimes, we just take time off from work.

And that's perfectly okay.

09/24/2024

After 7 interviews.
A personality test.
A skills test.
A math test (I s**t you not).
A background check.
A reference check.
And an exhaustive process, a client we worked with took a new job.

It was a VP level role for an Analytics Company.

It was 100% remote, a $40K bump in salary and a larger team than he'd ever managed before.

On the 3rd day of his new job, he was at home that evening, giving his kids a bath and his new boss called and asked to chat.

Our guy said 'sure, give me 20 minutes and I will call you back.'

So, he put the kiddos in front of the TV and called his boss.

The boss wanted to chat about his first few days, an idea he had to expand the team and a few other things.

Our guy listened for a bit, then said, he had to go get his kids to bed.

His wife traveled extensively for her job, so he was jazzed about being remote.

A week later, his new boss told him 2 days before, he had booked them a flight and hotel to go and meet with a new customer.

His wife was out of town and he scrambled to make arrangements to be away.

By the 4th week of his new job, after countless after hours calls, emails, texts and surprise 'you need to come into the office request', he quit.

Nothing else lined up.
No other interviews scheduled.
No other prospects waiting in the wings.

His previous employer (a smaller company that he liked, but had no room for advancement), heard that his new job did not work out.

His old boss called him and asked him to come back.

Our guy told him that he would like that, but he needed to be remote (something they did not offer), and needed more money.

You know what?
They gave it to him.
And they met his salary requests.

So he took his old job back, and now they are in discussions about creating a new role where he would manage a larger team and he is working from home 100%.

The most valuable lesson he learned from this terrible experience was that HE is in control of his own life.

He needed to be more vocal about HIS needs and the needs of his family.

And, sometimes the job you want is the one you already have.

With a little tweaking.