Pros
I genuinely enjoy my day to day job role.
Cons
The first 12 months, before policy change, I was an APS2 in my late 30s bringing home $1732/fortnight. The recruit rate went to APS3 less than 4 weeks after I had graduated. None of the fresh graduates were back paid. In these first 12 months as a sole income I had to chose between feeding myself or feeding my pet. Because I went from APS2 to APS3 less than 3/6 mo during tge PDA cycle finish, I did not receive a payrise. Until I had graduated to a sworn in officer, APS3. Meaning the bforts on the new APS3 scale were making the same as me. I had my first PDA pay advancement 2.5 years after my start date as policy states you must be at the substantive position for 12mo in the pda and must get meets/exceeds. I went from a 2 to 3 and then had to do another 12 mo as aps3 to qualify. Currently, any recruit graduating in Aug would go to APS3 level 2 upon completion of this PDA. Meaning a recent graduate would make the same as I. More if they are on shift, which is likely. Go to overnight/shift, you say? People have very valid reasons as to why they can't. Medications, families, single parents, etc. Plus the airport is the most toxic work area in all of abf. Get a promotion, you say? Well, I am glad you mentioned that. Due to workplace politics and the APS promotional process the only way to get a promotion is win over your inspector and have them write your "applicant response using the STAR method" and then the rest is easy. Alternatively, just get into a merit and win over your inspector and they'll find a way to .ake it be an "80% match" All else fails, rely on programs like the Apollo program or graduates program or more to Darwin who desperately need people, but cant actually get anyone to apply because you cannot afford to live. Merit? Job knowledge? Who cares! This is why people with no "leadership " skills end up as APS5-EL2. Because as long as you play the game, use GPT or someone else to write your applicant response, you'll go far but have no idea how to actually LEAD the team. "Read the P.I." is how they lead. Our "home affairs" branch has APS4 approve visas (often wonder the integrity level behind their investigations as well as accessing protected information during WFH) from an office based/WFH based heavily admin role and have an opportunity to do 9 hours per day to build flex to have a "9 day fortnight". They "must attend" the office 1 day a week. Meanwhile, in ABF, an APS3 can be non use of force (or) use of force on a warrant covered in meth, needles, etc. Theres also a significant amount of APS5-EL2 who actually do not manage a team or have any delegations minus "making an informed decision ". Taking the capacity to have operational officers on the ground. The fluff is "we are at FTE" which is true, but FTE is a full time employee headcount. Get rid of the unessential 5-el2 and employ more operational. 1 fte is 1 fte. You have easily 6 FTE chasing up duty and WFH all but 2 days a month when you could have 3 more APS3 doing the actual work. You know, stopping drugs ans tobacco at the border. Our APS values have jargon about being drug and alcohol free, but when so many of these people who WFH can literally do absolutely anything they want while at home, don't you think maybe that core value gets blurred? Ontop of this, they no longer do a psychological assessment before employment. You can very much tell because the latest batch are absolutely something else. On that, to get into ABF you must do the BFORT. To paypass this completely you can get hired into immigration field work as an aps 4-5, get a lot more allowances and training then move into customs with no experience, high rank and allowances.