End to End - RFI Final V.docx

USSS - Standard Sensitive Info

USSS - Standard Sensitive Info

USSS - Standard Sensitive Info

SOURCES SOUGHT/REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY/UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE OFFICE OF HUMAN RESOURCES/TALENT ACQUISITION AND AWARDS MANAGEMENT SOLUTION This notice constitutes a Request for Information (RFI) pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 15.201 for the purpose of determining the capability of sources in the marketplace for a contemplated effort for an enterprise-wide End-to-End Talent Acquisition Lifecycle and Awards Management System Solution. This RFI is for procurement planning purposes only for eventual award and shall not be construed as a request for proposals/quotes, solicitation, or commitment on the part of the Government to issue any future solicitation or award. The Government will not reimburse any costs associated with the development and submission of materials in response to this request.

The contemplated effort would be a firm fixed price contract with a 12-month base period and 4 (12-month) option periods. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is anticipated to be determined by the Government based on market research and the final acquisition strategy. The anticipated NAICS code for this requirement is 541990 – Professional Scientific, and Technical Services.

The United States Secret Service (USSS), Office of Human Resources (HUM), requires an enterprise-wide technical solution to modernize and integrate its talent acquisition lifecycle and awards management program. The effort seeks to replace and significantly improve manual, fragmented systems, and paper-based processes with a secure, cloud-based system that is role-based, configurable, and scalable across the agency.

The desired solution will support the full talent acquisition lifecycle and awards program, beginning with initial outreach to candidates and continuing through the internal hiring assessments, onboarding, offboarding, and managing all award types. Key capabilities include public-facing candidate portal and communications managements through Short Message Service (SMS), email, and bulk messaging, as well as internal workflow management, digital forms, electronic signatures, automated notifications, task tracking, analytics, reporting, and real-time dashboards. The system must also support inter-system data exchanges to improve efficiency, reduce duplication, and enable better visibility into talent acquisition and awards operations.

Overall, USSS HUM is seeking a non-personal services contract for a modern, integrated platform that improves operational efficiency, enhances the candidate and agency user experience, strengthens data-driven decision-making, and provides a secure foundation for managing talent acquisition processes and awards management across the agency.

Request for Information: Candidate Portal, Recruitment, Hiring Workflow, Onboarding, Offboarding, and Awards Management Solution Purpose:

The agency is conducting market research to identify commercially available and configurable solutions that can support end-to-end recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and offboarding lifecycle. In addition, the agency also seeks an Awards module to add to its talent acquisition solution. The module will manage all award types, including performance awards, foreign language awards, on-the-spot awards, directorate awards, and other recognition programs. Awards may be monetary or non-monetary.

The desired solution should provide a secure public-facing candidate portal, internal workflow and administrative tools, role-based access controls, assessment scheduling, employment forms management, centralized communications, dashboards, reporting, system integrations, and configurable workflows for multiple position types and hiring processes.

To support market research and acquisition planning, respondents are requested to provide nonbinding budgetary pricing information for the capabilities described in this notice. Pricing information may include estimated unit prices, labor categories and hourly rates, estimated total costs, commercial price lists, and the assumptions used to develop the estimate.

This request is for planning and market research purposes only. It is not a solicitation, request for proposal, request for quotation, or commitment by the Government to award a contract or reimburse respondents for any costs incurred in responding. Any pricing submitted will be used solely to inform the Government’s acquisition strategy and independent cost estimate.

Scope of Capabilities Sought:

The agency seeks a secure, mobile-responsive candidate portal that allows candidates to create and manage profiles, update contact information, view active and inactive applications, track application status by Job Opportunity Announcement (JOA), by stage and sub-status, view key dates and JOA information, manage location or position preferences, upload documents, complete questionnaires, submit and electronically sign required forms, and withdraw from consideration when appropriate. The portal should also support eligibility-to-reapply tracking, automated reminders, and incentive tracking, including referral or recruitment-related incentives.

The solution should support recruitment, outreach, event management, and candidate relationship management. Desired capabilities include management of recruiting events, candidate registration and attendance tracking, source tracking, recruiter assignment, communication preferences, candidate categorization, follow-up reminders, veteran candidate tracking, and return-on-investment analysis for recruiting events, advertising, social media, referrals, and other sourcing channels. The solution should also support accelerated candidate events, including applicant selection, bulk invitations and updates, event registration, scheduling, check-in and check-out, mobile assessment scoring, event logistics, heat map forecasting, resource planning, after-action reporting, and real-time operational dashboards.

The solution should provide configurable hiring workflow management across multiple position types, JOA, grades, locations, and hiring processes. It should allow authorized users to create, modify, skip, cancel, and authorize hiring stages; configure stage sequences, forms, requirements, scoring criteria, due dates, and workflows; and track application status, stage status, assessment results, key dates, responsible offices, hiring offices, assigned personnel, task completion, yield rates, and time-to-hire metrics. The solution should also support applicant profile views showing all active applications, current stages, statuses, key dates, alerts, and eligibility-to-reapply information, with the ability to synchronize applicable stages or results across applications when authorized.

The agency is interested in assessment scheduling and management capabilities, including applicant self-scheduling, staff-managed scheduling, rescheduling, cancellation, reasonable accommodation processing, time zone management, conflict detection, staff availability management, automated reminders, and reporting on scheduled, completed, cancelled, no-show, failure-to-respond, pass, and fail outcomes. The solution should capture scores, scoring criteria, assessment versions, assessment locations, fail reasons, and eligibility-to-reapply dates, and should support mobile or tablet-based score entry and secure upload or exchange of assessment results with designated systems.

The solution should provide centralized communication and inquiry management for candidates, recruiters, hiring offices, and other stakeholders through email, SMS text messaging, secure messaging or chat, portal alerts, and other configurable channels. It should maintain a searchable communication history tied to candidate profiles, JOAs, applications, hiring stages, events, recruiters, and assigned offices. The solution should also support inquiry assignment, routing, escalation, response tracking, and stage-specific or audience-specific FAQs, knowledge articles, user guides, standard operating procedures, and points of contact.

The solution should support employment forms management, onboarding, and offboarding workflows. Candidates and authorized internal users should be able to access, complete, certify, electronically sign, submit, route, review, approve, adjudicate, download, and track employment forms with audit history and automated reminders. Onboarding capabilities should include final job offer management, welcome notifications, entry-on-duty tracking, position and office assignment data, incentive tracking, law enforcement training class roster tracking, orientation tracking, equipment issuance tracking, onboarding dashboards, hiring goal visualization, and time-to-hire reporting. The solution should also support configurable new hire communication and outreach at key intervals during the first year of employment, such as 7, 30, 60, 90, and 180 days, or other organization-defined milestones. These communications should include automated reminders, check-ins, surveys, resource links, and task follow-ups to support employee engagement, onboarding completion, and early retention. Offboarding capabilities should include exit checklist management, clearance workflows, stakeholder task tracking, return of government-furnished equipment, exit survey capture, supervisor input, rehire recommendation documentation, and retrieval of relevant offboarding information if an individual reapplies.

The solution shall provide an Award Management capability to support the full lifecycle of monetary and non-monetary awards, including initiation, verification, approval, tracking, and payment processing. The system shall allow authorized users to select the award type, enter required justification, organizational code, award amount, funding information, and other required data elements. The solution shall include configurable validation rules to verify that each award meets the applicable requirements based on award type, including eligibility, documentation, approval thresholds, and budget availability.

The solution shall support budget allocation and management at the directorate, division, and office levels, including tracking of allocated, pending, approved, spent, and remaining funds. The system shall provide workflow routing for review and approval, maintain an audit trail of award actions, and provide reporting or dashboards to monitor budget allocation versus expenditures. Once awards are verified and approved, the solution shall support secure transmission or integration with applicable payroll, financial, or payment systems to process payment and track status.

The solution shall provide secure interfaces and/or data exchange capabilities with relevant internal and external systems, including but not limited to USAJOBS, USA Staffing, USA Hire, USA Performance, eOPF, eApp, ISMS, NCIC, Pearson VUE, Leidos, NFC, Core HCM, and other systems or vendors identified by the Government. The solution shall support secure processing of sensitive Government information and personally identifiable information in accordance with applicable Federal, Department of Homeland Security, and USSS security and privacy requirements.

The solution shall support the full talent acquisition lifecycle for multiple position types to include multiple applications submitted by applicants. Multiple position types include Special Agents, Secret Service Police, Technical Law Enforcement, Administrative, Professional, and Technical positions, Rehired Annuitants, Internal Hires, Student Paid and Unpaid Hires, DHS Hires, Direct Hires, Veteran Hires, Reinstatements, Contractors, Joint Duty Assignments, Task Force Officers, and Locally Employed Staff.

Technical, Security, and Administrative Capabilities:

The solution should include an administrative configuration module that allows authorized users to manage roles, permissions, drop-down values, hiring stages, stage rules, notifications, communications, events, assessment versions, scoring criteria, due dates, workflow rules, position types, and JOA specific configurations. It should support approximately 100 global permission types with the ability to expand, role-based access to records, forms, reports, and dashboards, segregation of duties, audit logging, and user transaction history.

The agency seeks interactive, filterable, exportable, real-time or near-real-time dashboards and reports for operational users, hiring offices, administrators, executives, recruiting offices, staffing teams, security teams, and awards program managers. Reporting should include application volumes, stage aging, task aging, time-to-hire, yield rates, source performance, event outcomes, heat maps, veteran candidate reporting, onboarding, offboarding, law enforcement training class rosters, pass/fail/withdrawal/failed to respond/no-show statistics, user activity, transaction logs, and historical process changes.

Vendors should describe available integrations with federal staffing systems, testing vendors, background investigation systems, human capital systems, and other agency-designated platforms. Supported integration methods may include Application Programming Interface (API), secure file transfer, batch exchange, web services, or other secure mechanisms. The solution should support federal security and privacy requirements, encryption, identity and access management integration, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, records management, data retention and disposition, Section 508 accessibility, mobile-responsive design, disaster recovery, scalability, secure data exchange, and configurable workflows without extensive custom code.

Desired End State:

The desired end state is an integrated recruitment, hiring, onboarding, offboarding, and awards management platform that improves visibility across the hiring lifecycle, reduces manual tracking and email traffic, supports high-volume and event-based hiring, enables worldwide and mobile access, centralizes candidate and stakeholder communications, automates workflow activities, protects sensitive information, and provides reliable data for operational and executive decision-making.

Vendor Response Requested:

The Government is seeking information from industry on available secure, cloud-based, enterprise-wide solutions to support the USSS End-to-End Talent Acquisition Lifecycle and Awards Management System Solution. Responses should assist the Government in refining the requirement and acquisition strategy by addressing proposed technical solutions, implementation approaches, integration capabilities, security posture, estimated timelines, licensing structures, rough order of magnitude cost information, and recommendations for phased implementation.

The Contractor should describe their proposed Software-as-a-Service or equivalent cloud-based solution, including deployment model, architecture, configurability, scalability, mobile functionality, data migration and export capabilities, and ability to support the full talent acquisition lifecycle and awards management. Responses should address support for candidate engagement, recruitment, applicant processing, event management, onboarding, awards and incentives, offboarding, public-facing portals, internal role-based workflows, dashboards, reports, analytics, workflow automation, forms digitization, electronic signatures, notifications, task management, and secure data exchanges with Government-designated systems.

The Contractor should describe any artificial intelligence, automation, analytics, workflow optimization, process guide development, and user training capabilities included in the proposed solution. Responses should identify safeguards for transparency, auditability, human oversight, data protection, role-based access, and compliance with applicable Federal, DHS, and USSS requirements.

The Contractor shall provide, or partner with, a qualified system integrator to support planning, configuration, testing, deployment, integration with USSS enterprise systems and related technical environments. This should include future option periods of configuration, testing, and deployments. The Contractor shall identify the integrator, describe its specific roles and responsibilities, and provide evidence of relevant Federal Government enterprise integration experience. The Contractor remains responsible for successful end-to-end integration, coordination among all participating vendors, and delivery of a fully integrated solution that meets USSS technical, security, operational, and future requirements.

The Contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, tools, materials, supervision, software, licenses, configuration, integration, implementation, training, help desk support, operations and maintenance, and other non-personal services necessary to implement and sustain the solution for the duration of the contract.

The proposed solution must meet applicable Federal, DHS, and USSS security, privacy, and accessibility requirements, including FedRAMP Moderate or High authorization requirements, Federal Information Security Modernization Act requirements, role-based access, single sign-on, PIV/CAC authentication, audit logging, encryption, data protection, privacy requirements, and accessibility conformance. Responses should also address experience supporting systems that process sensitive Government information and personally identifiable information.

The Contractor is expected to conduct business between 0800 and 1700, Monday through Friday, excluding Federal holidays and Government-directed closures. Hours may be adjusted, as coordinated with the Government, to support implementation, testing, training, system deployments, production releases, accelerated hiring events, onboarding events, or other mission requirements.

This is an unclassified requirement. Contractor employees and subcontractors shall be U.S. citizens and will be required to comply with USSS security requirements, including DHS Public Trust background investigations, before performing work within USSS-controlled facilities or on USSS information technology systems. Contractor personnel may also be subject to additional background checks to ensure continued fitness and suitability.

Responses must demonstrate recent, relevant experience within the last two years providing secure, cloud-based human capital, applicant tracking, onboarding, workflow automation, enterprise case management, awards management, or similar solutions. Responses should address Federal deployment experience, experience with Federal or law enforcement hiring, implementation of FedRAMP-authorized or FedRAMP-required environments, integration with Federal human resources, hiring, credentialing, personnel, or financial systems, and support for training, help desk, operations and maintenance, configuration, testing, deployment, and continuous improvement.

Responses should identify Federal agencies or other customers for which similar work has been performed, including references where available. If specific contracts are cited, include contract numbers, points of contact, and the capability demonstrated. If teaming or subcontracting arrangements are referenced, identify the applicable contract numbers and the specific role performed by each party. For private-sector work, provide a verifying reference.

Interested parties shall submit a capability statement demonstrating understanding, capability, approach, qualifications, past experience, and ability to meet the requirements described in this notice. The capability statement shall also identify challenges, risks, assumptions, limitations, dependencies, and proposed mitigation strategies. Submissions shall not exceed fifteen (15) total pages and shall use no smaller than 12-point Times New Roman font.

Capability statements shall include:

1. Organization name

2. Organization address

3. Primary point of contact name, telephone number, fax number if available, mailing address, and email address

4. CAGE Code and Unique Entity ID

5. Business size status

6. If a small business, applicable socioeconomic category or categories

7. Applicable contract vehicles, schedules, or programs, such as GSA Schedule or SBA 8(a) Program

8. Description of the organization’s capability to meet the requirements

9. Summary of the organization’s experience with similar requirements

10. Years of experience performing similar work

11. Highest education level completed for proposed key personnel, if key personnel are identified

12. Relevant certifications, authorizations, or technical qualifications held by the organization or proposed key personnel If a teaming arrangement is contemplated, the response shall clearly describe the work the small business intends to perform and the work any large business teaming partner or subcontractor intends to perform. Small business respondents should address applicable limitations on subcontracting requirements under FAR 52.219-14.

Capability statements should be nonproprietary to the extent practicable. Company-sensitive data and proprietary concepts will be accepted if appropriately marked, and the Government will respect restrictive markings. Receipt of classified materials is not anticipated.

All responses shall be submitted electronically, via email, no later than 2:00PM, ET; October 23, 2026. to the point of contact listed below. Only attach MS Word/Excel compatible files or Adobe Acrobat PDF files in electronic correspondence.

Point of Contact:

Contracting Officer: Shauntynee Penix, Shauntynee.Penix@usss.dhs.gov