being submitted do's and dont's

Contract comes after the interview. You should have a general idea about an agency's pay before discussing particular assignments.

What you need before submission is compensation details about that assignment. It will be different for every potential assignment usually. You need to collect the basic hourly rate, housing and per diem allowance, travel reimbursement, and if they provide health insurance, the COBRA value less any payroll deductions, and completion bonus if any.

So if you are not happy with the compensation, you have no reason to bother being submitted - at least by that agency.

Armed with the info above (usually from a phone call - take notes!), you can do further analysis on the compensation, perhaps with the help of PanTravelers calculator to boil it down to numbers you can understand or compare to other offers.

Ok this may seem like a stupid question but what exactly is per diem? is that the same as over time? I have just never heard that term before.

The IRS allows two basic (or fundamental) allowances (also called reimbursements) for expenses incurred for working away from home temporarily on business. You can get receipts for all legitimate expenses and either get reimbursed for them by your employer, or if your employer doesn't do that, you can deduct unreimbursed business expenses on your tax return. That is a lot of work for you, your employer or your tax preparer, and the IRS. So instead of receipted expenses, if you can prove the business purpose of your trip (the contract and proof of assignment housing does it for travelers), you can use these nifty maximum amounts (or less) that the General Services Administration (who handles federal employees) have determined are fair amounts at any location in the country, and receipts are mostly unnecessary.

These allowable expenses are categorized as lodging and meals and incidentals (M&IE), and you can find them on the GSA site (which you can find by Googling "per diem"). Per diem simply means by the day, and different employers will use the term differently. In the travel industry, per diem usually means M&IE but can mean both. Meals may sound like a strange business expense, but the theory is you will have to eat out away from home so your cost of working away from home is higher. Incidentals might be things like shower curtains at your rental (extra costs that you would not incur at home).

Per diem is also what local agency work is called. You work by the day. Different context, different sort of meaning but still per day.

OK makes sense now, FYI cross country calls it M&I stipend and flexcare calls per diem.