Resume for CBP Officer

In a job interview, first impressions do matter and the best place to impress is your resume. Your resume must be easy to read and highlight relevant work experience to stand out to hiring officers. Learning how to showcase your credentials on a resume will help you impress those hiring officers to get the job! Here are a few Key Resume-Writing Tips I learned thorough the 18 years working in the federal government as a CBP officer. 

1. Use the Key Words from the Job Announcement

Study the job announcement for keywords that show what the agency is looking for in an ideal candidate. Include those keywords in your resume where relevant.

For example, CBP Officer duties description states “conduct interviews of individuals seeking admission to the U.S.” The key words here are conducting interviews of individuals, so use that to highlight your experience:

• Experienced in conducting  interviews  of passengers to prevent dangerous items from entering commercial airlines resulting in dozens of prohibited items seizures

2. Use Active Language

Write your resume using active language without using complicated words. This means using power verbs, such as “Lead,” “Organized,” “Directed,” Accomplished.” Also, watch-out for long sentences, so consider editing to make your sentence active and concise. For example, you wrote:

Able to report the need for cleaning supplies, equipment repair

in advance and all other health and safety hazards noticed to the director, or

designated staff person participates in emergency drills and environmental

safety activities, as requested.

That example has no power verbs and its too long. So, break it down, highlight the important skills with power verbs and discard the rest.

• Led a 5-member staff in conducting emergency drills and environmental activities resulting in 25 percent reduction of work accidents

• Managed reports of multiple issues ranging from equipment needs and repairs that helped the company’s management saved $12,000 in the last fiscal year

3. Show Results  

Have you noticed a trend in the work experience bullets above? Yes, you got it, it’s not only presenting your relevant experience but showing results. Hiring officers see hundredths, if not thousands, of resume that mostly sound the same. Therefore, stand apart from the rest by illustrating the results you accomplished with your abilities and training. This can be done by showing exact results in the form of money save, increased productivity, reduction in waste, awards won, etc. 

• Led a 5-member staff in conducting emergency drills and environmental activities resulting in 25 percent reduction of work accidents

• Managed reports of multiple issues ranging from equipment needs and repairs that helped the company’s management saved $12,000 in the last fiscal year

4. Be Genuine

Don’t make the typical mistake of writing cliché statements in your resume. Such examples include: “I am highly-motivated individual seeking a rewarding and challenging job in blah blah blah.”

This sort of cliché statement make hiring officers zone out while reading your resume casting you in the reject pile. Therefore, be genuine in your statements to make them stop and want to learn more. Try something like this,

• With a strong interest in public service, I am eager to contribute to CBP’s mission of protecting the U.S. borders by applying my skills and education in risk management and security operations.

5. Call Attention to Important Skills- Leadership Roles

Instead of listing every job duty and experience of previous jobs, be selective in writing the most important and relevant for your new job. It does not matter if your previous employment was not related to security or law enforcement. What hiring officers want to see is “valuable qualities and skills” than can be translated into CBP, in particular leadership skills. Take for example a prior supervisor in maintenance: Designated employees to work areas to ensure cleanliness and safety while maintaining reports of repairs and supplies.

In that example, it’s not really important that you ensure cleanliness and kept reports of supplies. However, the important skills are that you led (shows leadership and reliability, a highly-coveted skill in a candidate) the employees and were able to create the reports managing different task simultaneously. Take a look now:

• Led a 12-person workforce to accomplished the company’s objective of maximum customer satisfaction
• Created and managed equipment and supply reports to streamline duties that increase productivity by 13 percent

6. Proof Read and Review

You might think this is obvious, but the hard truth is that must officers cannot write! That is coming from an 18-year CBP veteran that has reviewed and corrected tons of seizure reports from hundreds of officers. Thus, ask a trusted friend or colleague, who knowns how to write, to review things and give suggestions on improvements. Look, best-selling authors are always thanking people who reviewed and improved their books, so don’t you think you should do the same. Another thing you can do is find free help from online communities, such as Facebook groups or online forums.  

7. Use AI Apps

Writing is not easy for some people, but technology is here to help. Use AI software such as ChatGPT or Gemini to improve your writings. My method is to write my ideas down, review it and make corrections. Then, I use AI Writing apps to make it better and adjust it were necessary. A recent pro tip I learned is telling the AI App to assume the role of an authority. In this case, I would tell ChatGPT: “assume the role of an English professor that specializes in professional resumes to edit and improve the following entries observing all applicable English language rules in writing.”

In conclusion, those 7 resume tips will help you stand out from other applicants to obtain employment with CBP. These are the very tips I have used to help several people in the past to make an outstanding resume. Feel free to share it with other people because the point is not only to get the job, but create a great work environment by attracting other awesome future officers. Finally, once you become a CBP officer or if you know a current CBP, a sure way to keep on climbing up is mastering Interview Skills. Click here to learn Valuable and FREE (Yes, I know am crazy) interview techniques developed from direct-field experience working with the best CBP officers.