Good morning all, hopefully this is the correct place to ask this question and apologies if it is not. Looking for some clarification regarding the FBI Phase II Interview core competencies. I know there is a thread on here from about 2 years ago from a supposed former agent who made a study guide and talked about there being 8 core competencies with a bunch of sub-competencies we need to prepare for during the panel interview.

When I look on the official website, including the email and links provided from the FBI Jobs account, I can only find these 6 bulleted competencies. I’m unaware if something changed and want to start preparing for my interview.

While I really appreciate an agent taking the time to make that study guide if it’s true, I don’t want to over complicate preparing using everything from the study guide if I don’t have to. But of course I also don’t want to be under prepared by not including all the sub competencies if those are indeed the official list that I cannot find anywhere.

Anyone who successfully completed the interview and could provide some insight and clarification I would really appreciate it.

(Attaching 6 bulleted competencies & screenshot from the thread for reference)

Given by the flurry of DMs asking about if XYZ experience is qualifying, IRS-CI must be hiring

See here: https://www.usajobs.gov/job/880917400

IRS-CI is hiring 100 new 1811s, announcement opens today 8/17 and closes 8/27/26.

What's different this time?

This announcement is NOT a direct hire announcement. It is back to the old competitive service announcement.

What does this mean for you, dear applicant? The hiring process is going to go back to taking longer, with more steps. You will also be categorized into Category A, B, or C. EDIT: The categorization, from my own experience, occurred after all assessments were taken and before you were offered an interview. It is based on your performance on the assessments, not your qualifying experience/education from what I remember.

Direct Hire: if you qualified, you went to an interview, got a TJO, then went into background/medical, then FJO.

Competitive service: If found qualified, you take an online assessment, then proctored assessment (back to the KaSE?? What a throwback), then interview, then TJO, then background/medical, then FJO.

I am glossing over a lot of detail here. I do not know what a competitive service announcement will look like now. I am not a recruiter, and HQ does not share these details ahead of time with the rest of us.

What is qualifying?

Education or experience. EDUCATION. OR. EXPERIENCE. Education or experience. Education OR experience.

What is the operative word there? OR. ONE. OR. THE OTHER.

Yes, technically, you could qualify via a combination, but that is more difficult than not to qualify with.

So, you have TWO kinds of requirements to fulfill to be found qualified in this announcement:

1. General requirements (in Experience or Education)
2. Specialized requirements (also in Experience or Education)

General Requirements

• EXPERIENCE - Must (meaning, no exceptions) have been acquired in investigative work related to the ACCOUNTING OR AUDITING OF BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES OF SUBJECTS INVESTIGATED. For examples of specialized experience, click here.
• EDUCATION - If substituting education for specialized experience for the grade 7 or 9, education must be supplemented by at least 15 semester/23 quarter hours in accounting plus an additional 9 semester/14 quarter hours from among the following fields: business law, economics, finance, tax law or money and banking. You may qualify by a combination of experience and education. Combinations of education and experience are qualifying.

Specialized Requirements

Look, I could repost the specialized requirements for Grade 7 and 9 here verbatim, but that's just regurgitating the same thing again.

You need to meet both General and Specialized requirements for EITHER education OR experience to be found tentatively qualified for either grade 7 or grade 9.

The simplest way to qualify is via education. A bachelor's degree that meets Superior Academic Achievement (per OPM, there's 3 ways, one of which is at least a 2.95 GPA overall) with 15 hours of accounting is sufficient to be found qualified for grade 7 . Or, one year of graduate education (no need for Superior Academic Achievement for this). Two years of graduate education or a graduate degree for Grade 9 (again, with 15 hours of accounting, no need for superior academic achievement).

YOU CANNOT QUALIFY VIA EDUCATION WITHOUT THE 15 HOURS OF ACCOUNTING.

UNLIKE PREVIOUS ANNOUNCEMENTS, THERE IS NO LANGUAGE IN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT THAT PERMITS YOU TO APPLY WITHIN SO MANY MONTHS OF GRADUATION. You need to meet the requirements at the time of application.

Experience: Your experience needs to meet the specialized requirements listed out in Grade 7 or Grade 9, in the context of the generalized requirement of having been acquired in investigative work related to the ACCOUNTING OR AUDITING OF BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES OF SUBJECTS INVESTIGATED. 

Can Local LEO experience qualify? Only if your investigative work was related to the ACCOUNTING OR AUDITING OF BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES OF SUBJECTS INVESTIGATED. 

Can your corporate banking, public accounting, or otherwise private sector experience qualify? Only if your investigative work was related to the ACCOUNTING OR AUDITING OF BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES OF SUBJECTS INVESTIGATED. 

If your experience does not meet the criteria listed out in Grade 7/Grade 9 specialized requirements, does it qualify? No, not even was related to the ACCOUNTING OR AUDITING OF BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES OF SUBJECTS INVESTIGATED.

Realistically, in the past under competitive service announcements, you essentially needed to be doing this exact same job in a different place to be considered qualifying UNDER EXPERIENCE (think, the equivalent at state tax agency). Under direct hire that loosened up but I can't tell you if that will remain the case under this competitive announcement.

Your CPA license is not qualifying no matter how special you think it is. Nowhere in the announcement does it mention a CPA. The underlying education to qualify for a CPA would be qualifying. But the CPA in and of itself is a non-factor in qualifying.

Follow-up to last week's 4% vs 6% withdrawal post.

That one assumed a flat 7% return every year for 38 years, which is how nearly every retirement projection you will ever be handed is built, including the ones people pick a date off of. A straight line is fine for comparing two options against each other. It is a bad way to find out whether either one actually holds up.

So I stress tested the same two paths. Same 1811 retiring at 50 with $720,000, same draw rates, 10,000 runs with the returns shuffled. Every run averages the same 7% with 12% volatility. The only thing that changes between them is the order of the good and bad years.

The 4% draw (first chart). The straight line says it never runs dry and ends at 88 with $2,210,522. Across 10,000 markets it ran dry in 3,129 of them, the median run ends with $1,065,870, and the bottom 10% of runs are empty by 76.

Two things worth pulling out of that. The plan that looked bulletproof fails almost a third of the time. And the median outcome is less than half of what the smooth projection promised, on an identical average return. That gap is what volatility costs you.

The 6% draw (second chart). The straight line says the account dies at 78. Across 10,000 markets, 78% of runs die at some point, and the median run is empty at 75.

So the flat projection wasn't just optimistic about whether the money lasts. It was optimistic about when it ends. Half the runs are dry before the age the smooth chart handed me as the answer.

The reason is sequence. Walk out in January 2000 and you get three down years back to back, then negative 37% in 2008 at 58, selling shares the whole way, and 2021 through 2023 raising your withdrawal because the draw is indexed to inflation. Average all 38 years and you can still land near 7% with an empty account. Walk out in March 2009 instead and the first decade compounds before anything goes wrong, so the bad years land on a balance big enough to absorb them. Same plan, same average, and nobody gets to pick which one they retire into.

Two limits. The simulation covers the TSP only, no RMDs, no taxes, no annuity or Social Security underneath, so "ran dry" means the account hit zero and not that the guy is broke. His 6(c) annuity and SS keep paying in all 10,000 runs, which is the part that makes federal early retirement a different problem from the private sector version. And randomized normal returns still aren't real markets, where crashes cluster and tails are fatter, so this is probably generous to the higher draw.

What I'd actually suggest, and the reason I bothered running this: take whatever drawdown number you're planning around and stress test it before you commit to a date. A projection that only shows you the average is showing you one outcome out of thousands, and it tends to be a flattering one. Doesn't matter what you run it in. Just don't let a straight line be the last word on a 38 year retirement.

A withdrawal rate isn't a number you solve once. It's odds you either accept or manage down as you go, and 4% here is 69/31.

If you see a hole in the method, say so. I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly.