How To Become A Staff Officer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a staff officer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a staff officer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $31.4 an hour? That's $65,308 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 189,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreStaff OfficerUS Average

Salary

5.1

Avg. Salary $65,308

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.0

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.64%

Asian 5.29%

Black or African American 12.83%

Hispanic or Latino 16.09%

Unknown 4.73%

White 60.42%

Gender

female 21.84%

male 78.16%

Age - 48

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 48

Stress level

8.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.7

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.2

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a staff officer

Explore staff officer education requirements

Most common staff officer degrees

Bachelor's

66.2 %

Master's

18.4 %

Associate

8.3 %

Start to develop specific staff officer skills

Skills	Percentages
IC	16.40%
DOD	12.84%
CI	9.99%
SharePoint	9.61%
NGA	8.37%

Complete relevant staff officer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New staff officers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a staff officer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real staff officer resumes.

Research staff officer duties and responsibilities

Lead a team of three managers and 60 professionals in coordinating manpower allocations and international logistics.
Develop and populate entries on lessons learned SharePoint site and provide weekly updates to leads and management.
Manage human sources of information program, and perform duties as intelligence oversight and personnel reliability/security program manager.
Represent DIA at planning conferences.

Prepare your staff officer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your staff officer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a staff officer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable staff officer resume templates

Build a professional staff officer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your staff officer resume.