Clarification from the agency

Status candidates may also apply under FEMA-AML-12957973-MP. This Job is open to: U.S. citizens

All MWEOC staff have emergency assignments and are considered deployed in place. Exercises and activations are planned and unplanned, and may require long hours, nights, weekends and holidays.

All MWEOC employees are: (1) required to use a government-issued electronic device (to include cellular phones); (2) subject to recall during emergency situations; and (3) required to perform work in locations both above and below ground.

What will I do in this position if hired?

In this position, you will be responsible for Industrial Hygiene (IH) systems, principles, best practices, and calculations and the application of IH methods, standards and materials. Typical assignments include:

• Developing and maintaining environmental, industrial hygiene, occupational health, and safety policies and procedures for a facility, ensuring that the facility meets federal and state requirements and regulations.
• Conducting indoor air quality surveys (IAQ), sampling and remediation of asbestos.
• Maintaining industrial hygiene, and Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health (ESOH) technical capabilities in support of essential Federal emergency missions always and under all conditions.
• Serving as the point of contact for inspections conducted by Federal agencies and the State of Virginia and as the central point of contact with mission partners for environmental, industrial hygiene, occupational health, and safety matters.
• Coordinating with DHS's Health and Medical Readiness (HMR) Branch and FEMA Headquarters to support FEMA's strategic goal to provide preparedness and response capability to support the Federal response to acts of terrorism and execute plans and procedures to prevent or mitigate the effects.

What else do I need to know?

At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management. Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee's official position description. Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions.

Conditions of employment

To ensure the accomplishment of our mission, DHS requires every employee to be reliable and trustworthy. To meet those standards, all selected applicants must undergo, successfully pass, and maintain a background investigation for a Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information as a condition of placement into this position. This may include a credit check after initial job qualifications are determined, a review of financial issues, such as delinquency in the payment of debts, child support and/or tax obligations, as well as certain criminal offenses and illegal use or possession of drugs (please visit: Mythbuster on Federal Hiring Policies for additional information). For more information on background investigations for Federal jobs please visit OPM Investigations.

Please ensure you meet the qualification requirements described below.

Key Requirements:

1. You must be a U.S. citizen to apply for this position.
2. You must successfully pass a background investigation.
3. Selective Service registration required.
4. Current federal employees must meet time-in-grade requirements.
5. You must be able to obtain and maintain a Government credit card.
6. You must be able to deploy with little or no advance notice to anywhere in the United States and its territories for an extended period of time.
7. Please review the Additional Information section for additional key requirements.

Qualifications

This position has a positive education requirement. In addition to the Specialized Experience requirement, you must meet the listed education requirement below. (Submission of transcript is required.)The education must be accredited by an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (external link) at the time the degree was obtained. Applicants must meet one of the following requirements:

• A bachelor's or graduate/higher level degree in industrial hygiene, occupational health sciences, occupational and environmental health, toxicology, safety sciences, or related science; or
• A bachelor's degree in a branch of engineering, physical science, or life science that included 12 semester hours in chemistry, including organic chemistry, and 18 additional semester hours of courses in any combination of chemistry, physics, engineering, health physics, environmental health, biostatistics, biology, physiology, toxicology, epidemiology, or industrial hygiene; or
• Certification from the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (external link) (ABIH).

Courses in the history or teaching of chemistry are not acceptable.

Evaluation of Education: All science or engineering courses offered in fulfillment of the above requirements must be acceptable for credit toward the completion of a standard 4-year professional curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in science or engineering at an accredited college or university. For engineering degrees to be acceptable, the curriculum must be in a school of engineering with at least one curriculum accredited by the ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) as a professional engineering curriculum.

Evaluation of Experience: Qualifying experience involves the recognition, evaluation, corrective actions, and elimination of environmental conditions in the workplace that causes sickness, impaired health, or illness. This experience must demonstrate a professional knowledge of the theory and application of the principles of industrial hygiene and closely related sciences such as physics and engineering controls.

Such work must have involved experience in all of the following areas: the acquisition of quantitative and qualitative data, and the measurement of exposures for a variety of chemical, physical, and biological stresses; the analysis of the data acquired and the prediction of probable effects of exposures on the health and well-being of workers; and the selection and recommendation of appropriate controls, including management, medical, engineering, education or training, and personal protective equipment.

And in addition to the basic requirements above you must meet the below specialized experience.

Current Federal employees must have served 52 weeks at the next lower grade or equivalent grade band in the Federal service. The time-in-grade requirement must be met within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement. To qualify for this position at the GS-13 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-12 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position. Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following:

• Performing investigations on complex industrial hygiene (IH) programs and processes and providing recommendations and/or corrective actions on best work practices for staff AND;
• Reviewing and providing guidance on industrial hygiene (IH) programs, processes, procedures, specifications and/or training courses AND;
• Conducting and/or assisting with industrial hygiene (IH) programs (i.e., sampling, monitoring, environmental data analysis and interpretation).

Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application:

• Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.
• Please limit your resume to two pages. The USAJOBS database will not allow an applicant to submit an application that includes a resume over two pages.
• Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity. Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience.

Are you qualifying based on your work experience?

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

NOTE: Qualifications are based on breadth/level of experience. In addition to describing duties performed, applicants must provide exact dates of each period of employment (from MM/YY to MM/YY) and the number of hours worked per week if part time. As qualification determinations cannot be made when resumes do not include the required information, failure to provide this information may result in disqualification. Applicants are encouraged to use the USAJOBS Resume Builder to develop their federal resume. For a brief video on How to Create a Federal Resume, click here.

Current or former FEMA Reservists/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE): To accurately credit your experience for these intermittent positions, make sure to list the dates (from MM/YY to MM/YY) of each deployment, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment. Failure to provide this information may result in disqualification.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your resume & supporting documentation to ensure you meet the basic qualification requirements. If you meet the basic qualifications, your experience, education & training will be rated using USA Hire Assessment based on the following competencies needed to perform this job:

• Communication
• Customer Service
• Representing the Agency
• Teamwork & Collaboration
• Technical Proficiency

Based on the review of your resume for the specialized experience required for this position & the results of the USA Hire Assessment, you may be referred to the hiring manager for consideration & may be called for an interview.
We recommend that you review USA Hire Applicant Resource Center before you start the application process.

If you meet the minimum qualifications, you will be placed in one of the following categories:

1. Best Qualified: Applicants possessing experience that substantially exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position and demonstrate high proficiency in all of the critical competencies, including all Selective Placement Factors (SPF), & appropriate Quality Ranking Factors (QRF) as determined by the job analysis.
2. Well Qualified: Applicants possessing experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position & demonstrates acceptable proficiency in all of the critical competencies, including all SPF's & appropriate QRFs as determined by the job analysis.
3. Qualified: Applicants possessing experience that meets the minimum qualifications of the position and demonstrate basic proficiency in most of the critical competencies, including all SPFs & appropriate QRFs as determined by the job analysis.

If you are best qualified, you may be referred to the hiring manager for consideration & may be contacted for an interview.

We recommend that you preview the online questions for this announcement before you start the application process.

https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12957972

Veterans: Qualified veterans who have a compensable service-connected disability of at least 10% are listed in the best-qualified category, except when the position being filled is scientific or professional at the GS-09 grade level, or higher. This position is scientific/professional. Other 10-point preference eligibles and veterans with 5-point preference who meet the eligibility & qualification requirements are placed above non-preference eligibles within the category they qualify in. View information on veterans' preference.
Interagency/Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP/CTAP) Eligibles: If you haven't worked for the federal government, you are not ICTAP/CTAP eligible. View information about ICTAP/CTAP eligibility on OPM's Career Transition Resources website. To receive selection priority for this position, you must: 1) meet eligibility criteria for CTAP or ICTAP; 2) be rated well-qualified for the position; &, 3) submit the appropriate documentation to support your CTAP or ICTAP eligibility (see "Required Documents" section of the announcement). Well-Qualified is defined as an applicant who is rated with a minimum score of 85.00 for this position.

After FEMA completes hiring, the resumes of the remaining candidates referred for selection consideration may be shared with other DHS Components & other federal agencies. During the application process, you may choose to opt-in if you would like your name, application material, & assessment results to be shared.

Do not include photos, personally identifying information (PII) (including birthday and social security numbers), or personal information such as age, sex, medical history, etc. Resumes that include any of this information will be disqualified.

You must provide the following supporting documentation for your application package, including:

1. Resume. Limit your resume to no more than two pages. The USAJOBS database will not allow an applicant to submit an application that includes a resume over two pages.
2. Your responses to the job questionnaire - You will be directed to the online job questionnaire once you begin the application process for this position.
3. Are you qualifying based on education? Check the Education section above to see what is allowed and what is required.
4. Are you a veteran? Submit Member Copy 4 of your DD-214 (Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty) or other acceptable documentation (i.e., a letter from your Command reflecting rank, dates of service, and type of discharge), which verifies veteran's status and type of discharge prior to the closing date of this announcement. Those applying for 10-Point preference may fill out the SF-15 and/or provide documentation that demonstrates preference eligibility. If applying based on eligibility under the Veterans Opportunity to Work (VOW) Act, you must submit certification from the Armed Forces that you will be discharged or released from active duty service under honorable conditions, within 120 days after the certification is submitted by the applicant. This must indicate your dates of service, expected release dates, your rank, and confirm that you will be separated under honorable or general conditions. View more veterans' information.
5. Are you claiming special priority selection rights under the Agency Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) or the Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP)? Submit:
   • a copy of your agency notice,
   • a copy of your most recent performance rating, and
   • a copy of your most recent SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, noting your current position, grade level, and duty location
6. Are you a current or former federal employee? Submit a copy of your most recent SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action that demonstrates your eligibility for consideration, e.g., length of time you have been in your current grade; your highest grade held; your current promotion potential and proof of permanent appointment if applying based on an interchange agreement. Examples of appropriate SF-50s include promotions, within-grade increases and accessions. (see Note 1).

Note 1: Examples of applicable SF-50's for submission include appointment, promotion, and with-in-grade/range increases - award SF-50's will not be accepted.

Documents for Auto-Request:

• CTAP/ICTAP
• College Transcript
• Cover Letter
• DD 214 Member 4 Copy
• Misc. Documentation
• SF15
• SF50
• VA Letter

Next steps