Outreach Notice
2013 Seasonal Job Opportunities with the USDA-Forest Service
Gunnison Ranger District & Gunnison Forest Health Service Center
Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests (GMUG)
Gunnison, Colorado
The Gunnison Ranger District and Gunnison Forest Health Service Center MAY be hiring hew individuals for Forestry Technician, Forestry Aid, and Biological Technician positions to work out of Gunnison, Colorado. The number and specialty of the positions is subject to the number of persons rehired to their previously positions at the US Forest Service in Gunnison, and budget considerations particularly during the Federal Budget process in Washington.
NO PROMISES, NO GUARANTEES. Please apply to be considered when vacancies become available.
The potential positions are full-time (40-hours per week) temporary seasonal employment subject to a limit of 1,039 hours (six months). Depending on the position and budget, employment could start in May, 2013 and run until November, 2013. We can accommodate student schedules.
These are field-going positions which require employees to work in difficult terrain, at high elevations (7,000 to 14,000 feet), in any type of weather, and for prolonged periods. Persons will need to be in good physical condition. For individuals with primary fire or collateral fire duties, you will need to pass the Work Capacity Test (carrying a 45-pound pack for three miles in 45 minutes). The typical work week varies, but most often consists of ten-hour days, Monday through Thursday. The duty station is in Gunnison, Colorado. Expect to work in the woods every day and camp-out all week for certain projects. For the Biological Technician positions, considerable travel will be required around Southwest Colorado. Fire Technicians can expect to be on fire incidents locally and nationwide for extended periods (often as long as 25 days).
Wage level (GS) are based on education and experience. Wages in 2013 are as follow:
GS-3 $11.95 per hour
GS-4 $13.41 per hour
GS-5 $15.00 per hour
GS-6 $16.73 per hour
Employees are paid bi-weekly. You earn four hours of paid annual leave and four hours of paid sick leave each two-week pay period. Any federal holidays during employment will be paid time off (of eight hours pay). Government housing is available on a first-come, first-served basis at bunkhouses in the Gunnison area at a cost of about $35.00 per week.
Timber Crews
These are field-going positions whose major duties include cruising and marking timber for harvest, collecting GPS data, conducting stand examination and regeneration surveys, cone collection, precommercial thinning using chainsaws, dwarf mistletoe sanitation with chainsaws, hazard tree felling, silvicultural contract field preparation and inspections, and possibly firefighting duties as needed. The Timber Marking Crew is usual separate from the Silviculture Crew, but often personnel are shared between crews as needed.
Biological Science Technicians
The crew will resample aspen plots across southwestern Colorado to measure the aftermath of sudden aspen decline. The jobs require extensive overnight travel (expenses reimbursed). This is an opportunity to learn aspects of forest health while working in the beautiful national forests of southwestern Colorado.
We expect to hire one position at the GS-5 level, which requires a science-based bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience, and two positions at the GS-4 level.
The positions run from mid-May through August 2013. The job requires the ability to move over uneven terrain with obstacles and steep inclines. Ideal candidates (particularly at the GS-5 level) will have:
· Experience with forest sampling, particularly tree measurements
· Working knowledge of a GPS
· A good work ethic with a focus on safety
· Field experience
· Knowledge of major tree species
· Some background in forest biology
A separate individual Technician position has duties which may include field monitoring of new and on-going outbreaks of bark beetles, foliar and root disease, aspen decline, and other insect and disease issues. In the lab, one might culture unknown fungi, mount and count various insects, and mix chemical reagents. Office work includes mapping in ArcGIS, data analysis in excel, and updating Access databases.
Trail/Wilderness/Recreation Crews
These are positions whose major duties include construction, reconstruction and maintenance of district trails, travel management implementation and other duties as assigned for the Trail Crews and Wilderness patrols, trail maintenance and public contacts for the Wilderness Crew. Recreation Crews will perform recreation site or facility maintenance. Forest Protection Officer (FPO) work may also be required of some positions.
Fire Fighters
The primary responsibility is fire suppression as a member of an engine crew on the assigned district. When local conditions and/or staffing levels allow, the person will be made available for off-Forest fire assignments according to needs and qualifications. Duties involve rigorous fieldwork requiring above average physical performance. The position also assists with the Forest’s hazardous fuels reduction goals by supporting the implementation of mechanical fuels reduction and prescribed fire.
Application Process
To be considered for employment, candidates will need to apply through the USAJOBS website at: www.usajobs.gov. For those who have applied for or been employed by the Forest Service in past years, the AVUE application system is no longer in use. We have included some instructions later in the outreach.
The Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP) is no longer being used. A new program called “Pathways” is being developed, but is not yet available for use. Students must apply through USAJOBS to be considered. STEP employees from 2012 will need to apply in USAJOBS as they will not have Rehire rights.
Candidates will need to apply to the Temporary Open Continuous Recruitment (OCR) announcements for the positions, specialties, and grade levels (wage rate) shown in the table below. Applicants to other OCR announcement numbers will not be considered. Applicants MUST SPECIFY “Gunnison, Colorado” as the job location to be considered. Application to other job locations cannot be abstracted from the candidate database.
GUNNISON RANGER DISTRICT and GUNNISON SERVICE CENTER SEASONAL POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT NUMBERSGrade / Series / Job Title / Announcement Number
3 / 462 / FORESTRY AID – GENERAL (TIMBER) / TEMPOCR-0462-03-GEN-DT
4 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (TIMBER STAND IMPROVE) / TEMPOCR-0462-04-TSI-DT
5 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (TIMBER STAND IMPROVE) / TEMPOCR-0462-05-TSI-DT
6 / 462 / LEAD FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (TIMBER SALE PREP) / TEMPOCR-0462-06-LDTSP-DT
4 / 404 / BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE TECHNICIAN (PLANTS) / TEMPOCR-0404-04-PLANTS-DT
5 / 404 / BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE TECHNICIAN (PLANTS) / TEMPOCR-0404-05-PLANTS-DT
4 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (RECREATION) / TEMPOCR-462-04-REC-DT
3 / 462 / FORESTRY AID – GENERAL (TRAILS) / TEMPOCR-0462-03-GEN-DT
4 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (TRAILS) / TEMP-OCR-0462-04-TRAILS-DT
4 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (WILDERNESS) / TEMPOCR-0462-04-WLDN-DT
5 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (WILDERNESS) / TEMPOCR-0462-05-WLDN-DT
3 / 462 / FORESTRY AID – GENERAL (FIRE) / TEMPOCR-0462-03-FIRE-DT
4 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (ENGINE) / TEMPOCR-0462-04-ENGINE-DT
5 / 462 / FORESTRY TECHNICIAN (ENGINE) / TEMPOCR-0462-05-ENGINE-DT
Recruitment will close March 1, 2013 for Timber positions and March 15, 2013 for Recreation, Trails, Fire and Biological Science positions. After those dates, Certificates of Eligible Candidates will be requested from USAJOBS for in the specialties listed above.
Tip: Experience in Agriculture (Ranching and Farming) count toward General Experience. Include it in your resume.
Tip: Experience in Parks, Natural Resources, and Fire count toward Experience, be sure to include all those job experiences in your resume. Volunteer time also helps.
Contacts:
Timber Arthur Haines 970-642-4423
Fire Pat Medina 970-642-4407
Trails Greg Austin 970-642-4402
Wilderness Tambi Gustafson 970-642-4417
Biological Science Suzanne Marchetti 970-642-1188
Warning -- Our telephone numbers may be changing, so contact:
Gunnison Ranger District Office- Front Desk for General Information @ 970-641-0471.
2013 Seasonal Hiring Application Process Notes
February 20, 2013
These are notes from a Manager who was going into USAJOBS for the first time. My intention was to learn how the system worked and to anticipate potential trip points applicants may face. I applied to one of my Forestry Technician vacancies in the experiment. In writing these notes, I may have made mistakes, omissions, or misinterpretations. If so, I apologize. Arthur Haines
Jobs will be applied for via USAJOBS at www.usajobs.gov. Vacancies will be in the Temporary Open Continuous Recruitment (OCR’s) announcements for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service. In USAJOBS you can also view and apply to job vacancies in many Federal agencies like the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service.
You will need to establish an account in USAJOBS. Once applied for, the system will notify you by email fairly quickly. Go in through the email and manage your password and profile in USAJOBS. Answer the questions in the Profile pages. Hit SAVE at the bottom of each page prior to going to the NEXT page button. Always hit SAVE if available.
In your basic profile, you can specify job locations for vacancy searches on the third page. Locations include ALL COLORADO, Gunnison, Crested Butte, Gunnison County, Almont, Parlin, Doyleville, Powderhorn, etc. I did not explore how many sites you can have, but it looks to be fluid and changeable as needed. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME LOCATIONS AS TO WHERE YOU ACTUALLY APPLY, THAT IS A SEPARATE PROCESS!
Never include your social security number in your resume.
You can now build your resume inside USAJOBS for positions you are or may become interested in. Resumes maybe built outside of USAJOBS and uploaded into the system. If building a resume inside USAJOBS, you can use a copy/paste method to transfer words from a Word-type document into the resume. You may upload PDF, JPG, and other document formats into your resume here. However, I found that uploading appears to be cleaner when you actually apply to a vacancy (more info later). USAJOBS allows you to have five different resumes in your profile.
Hints: Use Spell Check.
Watch your spelling, capitalization, and grammar.
Attempt to be concise.
Hit Save often.
Applying to a specific OCR.
In USAJOBS, find a job you are interested in and hit Apply.
At this point, you are electronically transferred from the USAJOBS website to a Forest Service website. Do not be alarmed.
You will be able to attach your prebuilt or uploaded resume to your application. You can also upload an outside resume at this point. LOTS OF OPTIONS! I found that uploading PDF, JPG, and other types of supporting documents worked better at this point. Supporting documents include college transcripts, SF-50 Notifications of Personnel Actions, Performance Evaluations, Letters of Recommendations, and other useful information. Be careful not to overwhelm the Hiring Manager, keep your resume and supporting documentation concise and relevant. ALWAYS INCLUDE YOUR COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS!
If you are a former Federal employee, you will need to submit a copy of your last SF-50 Notification for Personnel Action with your application. If you do not have a copy, you will need to contact the Albuquerque Service Center. Contact information is on the next page.
The OF-306 question (Declaration of Employment form) is not required at this level of employment (at least not yet). The SF-15 and DD-214 forms are for those claiming Veteran preference.
You will be asked to specify the Job Location for which you are interested. Here is where you must specify GUNNISON, CO to be considered for employment at Gunnison. For many of the vacancy announcements, the job location pull down list includes up to 770 towns nationwide. These are all the Ranger District and National Forest Offices in the nation. You can pick more than one location for your application to be considered at. What is the limit on locations, I do not know.
You will be asked a series of questions with canned multiple answers. These are the “Bubble Questions” which are used to do an initial check of your basic qualifications. Some questions take only one answer, other questions allow multiple answers. The wording is often vague. Read and answer carefully. Make sure your resume supports your answers to the Bubble Questions. The Bubble Questions change by OCR and grade level based on the Position Description for that job.
Always hit SAVE.
At some point you will be asked to SUBMIT your application. Follow the instructions and hit SUBMIT. There may be a question about confirming or “certifying” your interest in the vacancy. Hitting the CERTIFICATION or RECERTIFICATION button starts a 60-day timer during which your application will be considered if a request for a Referral List is made. To keep an application active, go into USAJOBS occasionally and recertify. I recommend doing so before March 1, 2013. If your interest in an application lapses just before the Referral List is requested, you will not show up on the list!
You will be able to track your application status by email or going into USAJOBS and checking.
Note: Former Federal Employees will need to provide an SF-50.