How to Make Federal Opportunities Come to You

In 2025 alone, more than 7,200 federal contracts have been canceled (DOGE Wall of Receipts) — and over 70,000 new federal contract opportunities have been posted. In this time of fast-moving change, the key to winning government business is knowing where (and how) to look.

At GovTribe, we update federal opportunity data every 15 minutes — which is significantly faster than the industry standard of just once or twice a day. In this post, we’ll show you how to leverage our fast data with our saved search feature to make sure you see the right federal opportunities as soon as they’re available. (If you don't have an account yet, no worries — you can start a two-week free trial to try it out.)

What We’ll Cover

• How to find new federal opportunities
• How to stay ahead of potential recompetes
• How to identify federal forecast opportunities
• How to follow specific opportunities
• How to manage your saved searches
  
  

Find New Federal Opportunities
If you're tired of running the same searches daily just to stay on top of new opportunities, you're not alone. Saved searches can take that off your plate — just set your filters and keywords once, click save, and get alerts straight to your inbox when a new result appears (at your preferred cadence, of course).

How to set up saved search alerts:

Start by going to the Federal Contract Opportunities page, which you can find under the Opportunities tab in the navigation bar on the left side of your screen. Then follow these steps:

1. Set filters. In other words, tell us what kinds of opportunities you’re looking for.
   
   
   
   1. Use the filter button to narrow by agency, NAICS codes, or other categories (e.g., only Army contracts).
   2. Then, use the same filter button to select what timeframe you’re interested in (e.g., only opportunities posted since the new administration took office, only opportunities posted after today, etc.).
2. Enter search terms. This is where you flesh out the details. Use the keyword search bar to capture anything not covered by filters — specific terms like “Tech Support,” “cybersecurity,” or “language training.”
   
   
   
3. Save your search. With the perfect search built, the last step is saving it.
   
   
   
   1. Give your search a name.
   2. Turn on the toggle to receive alerts.
   3. Choose your alert cadence: instant, daily, or weekly.
   4. Click “Save.”
      
      
      
4. Get your alerts. That’s it — you’ll now get notified when new matching opportunities are posted.
   
   

Stay Updated on Potential Recompete Opportunities
Want to stay ahead of likely recompetes? Here’s how to get notified about them:

1. Go to Federal Contract Awards under the Awards tab in the navigation bar.
2. Set your filters and search terms.
3. Select a completion date within the next 12 months (or whatever timeframe you prefer).
4. Save your search.
   
   
   

Identify Federal Forecast Opportunities
To track federal forecasts from agencies like DHS, GSA, Commerce, Treasury, and NASA:

1. Go to Federal Forecasts under the Opportunities tab in the navigation bar.
2. Set your filters and search terms.
3. Save your search.
   
   

Follow Specific Federal Opportunities
If there's a single opportunity you want to keep tabs on — like one that just dropped or one you're actively pursuing — here’s how to track it:

1. Create a pursuit. Click the “Create Pursuit” button — at the top of your screen if you’re viewing the opportunity, or at the bottom of the opportunity if you’re just looking at it in search results.
   
   Here’s what the button looks like:
   
   
   
   Here’s where you can find the button in search results:
   
   
   
   Here’s where you can find the button when viewing an opportunity:
   
   
   
   
2. Add the pursuit to a pipeline. 
3. Move it to a stage. Go to the pursuit and move it from Triage to any stage in your pipeline. This automatically turns on tracking, and you’ll get notifications any time there's new activity (like document updates, changes, or cancellations).
   
   
   
   

Manage Saved Searches
It’s a good idea to set up multiple saved searches to keep tabs on different focus areas. You can manage all of them from the Saved Searches tab under the Capture section in the navigation bar.

And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention — manual searching is still a valuable part of your strategy. Saved searches are really just here to save you time, so you can focus more on that. Instead of repeating the same searches every day, we’ll let you know when something new pops up. That way, you can spend your time exploring new angles and getting creative with your search.

Bonus Search Tip
We also now offer semantic search, which makes the search process a little easier. You can simply type the way you talk, no need to hunt down specific keywords. Just tell us what you’re looking for, and we’ll pull up relevant results. It’s great if you’re newer to government contracting or just want to simplify things.

Get Started
You should be set up to start saving your searches now, and we’re very excited for opportunities to start coming to your inbox.

Questions? Reference our user guide or reach out to our team on the platform. (We’re quick responders.)

New to GovTribe? Glad to have you. Start your two-week free trial anytime to test it out — no credit card required, no strings attached, just great opportunities in your inbox.

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Get More Out of GovTribe

• Connect your GovTribe account to your CRM, Slack, and other tools. 
• Easily manage your pursuits from discovery to submission.
• Get trending federal opportunities in your inbox monthly.
• Follow us on LinkedIn for more GovCon resources.