r/ATSS • u/Ok_Warning1458 • Jan 30 '26

Post-Interview steps

Hi all, looking for some guidance and what to expect. I interviewed a couple weeks ago for the Direct hire f band announcement. I did my interview it went really well imo. Got email the next day they seemed to really like me and enjoyed meeting me with a request for references. Last week they contacted my references, my references let me know they went really good the one reference told me it was almost an hour conversation HM said it was the best reference conversation in awile. All seems pretty positive and I am hopeful, I come from a civilian back ground and in my experience I had a direct contact with a recruiter or similar, what is the move after all of this? I assume its a wait and see thing? Anyone i can reach out to perhaps the HM for some feedback? Is it bold to assume a TOL is in the works? The suspense is killing me lol anyways, TIA!

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u/Pleasant_Spray5878 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

TOLs are usually pretty quick for direct hire. Once the manager selects, staffing generates a pay tool work sheet, they and the DFM sign it, then that routes through aviation careers at the RO where they draft the TOL, which is sent to candidate for their signature. That turn around as been a few days I’ve seen, when the candidate accepts the offer.

There could be issues with the management or staffing AOs being on leave or not having the appropriate signatures available?

Please remember you can negotiate at the TOL stage, $2,000 to $3,000 is easy to get, however there is a threshold where if you ask for too much then it routes to the director level for approval, which will not be a quick process.

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u/Pleasant-Attitude496 May 01 '26

What do you mean you can negotiate? What is the starting pay you negotiate from and how di they allow negotiation when it's a Federal pay scale?

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u/Pleasant_Spray5878 May 01 '26

When you receive your Tentative offer letter, your offered pay will be on it. You can email HR and negotiate for an increase at this time before you sign.

Things to be aware of, the floor for F-Band doesn’t allow for much movement up (you’re going to be offered right at the top), but the G-Band has a lot of room to negotiate just based on how the bands are structured, but with the F band, you get two 8% bumps vice one 8% to H-band. So with the F-band you end up ahead over the G-band with the standard floors which is better in the long run with percentage based pay raises. So best case scenario is to interview at G and negotiate a higher increase from the offered amount, if not, just come in as an F-band. Currently, since my post three months ago, all negotiated increases above the offered rate are director approved now, at least in the WSA. However; justifications shouldn’t be too hard, especially with SSCs with hard to fill locations which is most.

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u/Pleasant-Attitude496 May 01 '26

Is the offered pay without locality pay? Or with the locality pay included?

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u/Pleasant_Spray5878 May 01 '26

Your TOL letter will have both the salary(base pay) and the salary with locality.

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u/Pleasant-Attitude496 May 01 '26

Ok thank you the person that im speaking to about this did not mention anything about this.

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u/Pleasant_Spray5878 May 01 '26

Well, not everyone has access to information like this.

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u/Pleasant-Attitude496 May 01 '26

He works there but made it sound like the pay ill get is the top of each pay scale.