Paid Student Internship

Paid Student Internship

I. Overview

The Paid Student Internship (PSI) is an 8-10 full-time temporary work experience designed to attract high caliber students and provide a real-life, relevant work experience to college and graduate level students. The PSI program is limited to offices and directorates which have received pre-approved and allocated billets.

Purpose: The goal of the program is to provide the agency with a pipeline of candidates for possible future permanent employment. During the internship, managers will be provided the following opportunities:

 Monitor and assess the students work performance

 Familiarize the student with DSS and the Intelligence Community (IC)

 Provide interns with networking and learning opportunities

Students will also be required to submit a 500 word essay with their applications. The essay topic will be provided in the USAJobs.gov announcement and assessment questionnaire. The PSI application, interview and selection process will utilize the competitive hiring process to ensure fairness and compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity requirements. Other criteria that you should take into consideration when distinguishing between candidates are GPA, degree program, and coursework reflective of your office’s goals and objectives. Please be advised of the following: Resumes and applications will not be accepted through

Interviews and Selections

Each Directorate will be responsible for the disbursement of Paid Student Intern billets and assigning hiring managers for each billet and location. Hiring managers will be the designated POC for certificates of eligible applicants and coordinating interviews. We strongly encourage you to consider developing rating criteria for reviewing resumes using the guidance outlined in the DSS Hiring Guide for Supervisors and Managers.

While summer intern positions are below GG-12 and do not require the use of resume review/interview panels, you may want to consider conducting telephone interviews to reaffirm each candidate’s interest in the internship, and how he or she thinks the internship will help him or her grow as an individual.

Because candidates may decline or otherwise become ineligible during the selection and hiring process, we ask that you provide your servicing staffing specialist with a list of your top five selections in order of preference so that we can keep the selection process moving forward should one or more of your candidates decline or become otherwise ineligible.

Once interviews and selections have been conducted, hiring managers will need to submit complete certificates back to