How to hire a staff officer

How to hire a staff officer, step by step

Here's a step-by-step staff officer hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a staff officer job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new staff officer
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your staff officer job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a staff officer for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   Hiring the perfect staff officer also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.

   This list presents staff officer salaries for various positions.

   Type of Staff Officer	Description	Hourly rate
   Staff Officer		$21-45
   Call Center Supervisor	A call center supervisor is responsible for managing customer service operations, ensuring an efficient resolution to the customers' inquiries and complaints. Call center supervisors are the ones monitoring the staff's performance and productivity, especially at high call volumes, and take on escalated complaints... Show more	$11-25
   Front Desk Supervisor	The primary role of front desk supervisors is to oversee the front desk of an establishment. Their duties and responsibilities include welcoming guests, taking their personal information, and selecting the rooms that suit their needs... Show more	$12-21

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • IC
   • DOD
   • CI
   • SharePoint
   • NGA
   • Logistics Support
   • Situational Awareness
   • Defense Travel System
   • Geospatial-Intelligence
   • Government Agencies
   • Combatant Commands
   • DIA
   • SME
   • Federal Agencies

   Check all skills

   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.
   • Receive commendation for senior officer training seminar in glacial warfare and rescue.
   • Organize and lead the first-ever USAF conference on cyber manning and resource development.

   More staff officer duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the staff officer job description is a good way to get more applicants. A staff officer salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a staff officer in Utah may be lower than in Washington, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level staff officer. Additionally, a staff officer with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average staff officer salary

   $65,308yearly

   $31.40 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level staff officer salary

   $44,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 12, 2025

   Average staff officer salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	New Jersey	$84,366	$41
   2	District of Columbia	$76,384	$37
   3	New York	$75,265	$36
   4	Maryland	$74,840	$36
   5	Missouri	$74,555	$36
   6	Massachusetts	$73,094	$35
   7	Pennsylvania	$71,357	$34
   8	North Carolina	$70,618	$34
   9	Virginia	$69,068	$33
   10	Colorado	$59,997	$29
   11	Georgia	$56,847	$27
   12	Louisiana	$52,066	$25
   13	Texas	$51,667	$25
   14	Florida	$46,399	$22

   Average staff officer salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	ANSER	$105,873	$50.90
   2	University of Maryland Medical System	$102,151	$49.11	17
   3	Booz Allen Hamilton	$96,217	$46.26	12
   4	Deloitte	$85,823	$41.26
   5	Ernst & Young	$82,166	$39.50	140
   6	Parsons	$81,212	$39.04	16
   7	General Dynamics Mission Systems	$80,338	$38.62
   8	SAIC	$79,272	$38.11	11
   9	Rutgers University	$75,976	$36.53	52
   10	ABBTECH	$71,864	$34.55
   11	EisnerAmper	$68,868	$33.11	25
   12	ManTech	$68,764	$33.06	12
   13	Leidos	$66,907	$32.17	49
   14	The Hyperion Group	$66,804	$32.12
   15	Vectrus	$66,700	$32.07
   16	Nes Holdings	$65,933	$31.70
   17	Peraton	$65,929	$31.70	11
   18	Simpson Gumpertz & Heger	$64,424	$30.97
   19	General Dynamics	$63,503	$30.53	26
   20	Science	$62,663	$30.13

4. Writing a staff officer job description

   A staff officer job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. Below, you can find an example of a staff officer job description:

   Staff officer job description example

   Responsibilities:

   • The contractor shall perform the following GEOINT Staff Officer duties at the expert/senior/full performance level:
   • Provide the functional support required to maximize the Army’s ability to balance GEOINT current and future readiness.
   • Interpret higher authority direction, command guidance, and strategies to accomplish the Director DAMI-OI priorities as reflected in the operational goals and missions.
   • Support the Army’s sensor-to-shooter campaign of learning to develop new GEOINT Concepts of Operation (CONOPS), Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs), and Tasking, Collection, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (TCPED) architectures, and integrate Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/MI), where appropriate.
   • Provide verbal and written recommendations for General Officer/Senior Executive Service level audiences on multi-year projects, doctrine, and policies that will affect the entire Army.
   • Review and provide recommended positions on Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC) GEOINT-related requirement documents, plans, and strategies.
   • Work with members of the Army’s Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force, G-2 Science & Technology Advisor, Army GEOINT Office team, Army Futures Command, and Army TENCAP prior to submission as the approved position of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, as required.
   • Conduct senior level research, analysis, development, and coordination of GEOINT-related strategy, policy, doctrine, and requirements at the IC, DoD, Service, and Command levels.
   • Advance IC, DoD, and interagency policy formulations on GEOINT issues while ensuring AGO and Army authorities, concerns, and equities are accurately represented.
   • Conduct research to support and provide strategic and conceptual guidance on GEOINT-related issues to Army and IC leaders.
   • Conduct novel and systematic analyses of the tasking, collection, exploitation, processing, and dissemination of GEOINT.
   • Conduct data assembly and analysis; prepare draft documents and presentations at the expert level; and properly coordinate work among HQDA/AGO staff sections, project team members, and other stakeholders.
   • Provide support to Army, DoD, and IC GEOINT issues through interaction and collaboration with appropriate mission partners.
   • Advise and support advancement of key GEOINT projects, ensuring proper agency coordination is completed in a timely and effective manner, primarily with the Army Task Management Tool (TMT) and the Joint Staff Action Process (JSAP).

   Requirements:

   1. Must have high proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the Army Task Management Tool.
   2. Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree
   3. Minimum Experience: At least twelve (12x) years of experience as a Geospatial Intelligence Analyst (Army preferred).
   4. Experience as a staff action officer on the ARSTAF or a similar level at a DOD or IC organization/agency.

   Security Clearance:

   • Must have an active TS/SCI clearance.

   Bonus Points:

   • Broad understanding of Army GEOINT and Army Space programs, goals, and objectives.
   • Excellent communication (writing, briefing) and analytical skills.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find staff officers for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any staff officers they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level staff officers with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your staff officer job on Zippia to find and recruit staff officer candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   During your first interview to recruit staff officers, engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. During the following interview, you'll be able to go into more detail about the company, the position, and the responsibilities.

   Remember to include a few questions that allow candidates to expand on their strengths in their own words. Asking about their unique skills might reveal things you'd miss otherwise. At this point, good candidates can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new staff officer

   Once you've found the staff officer candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's also good etiquette to follow up with applicants who don't get the job by sending them an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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