Qualification requirements in the vacancy announcements are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook, which contains federal qualification standards. This handbook is available on the Office of Personnel Management's website located at:
https://www.opm.gov/policy.
To qualify for the 1530 Series:
BASIC REQUIREMENTS: This position requires applicants to meet a Basic Education Requirement in addition to at least one year (52 weeks) of Specialized Experience OR substitution of education for experience OR combination (if applicable) in order to be found minimally qualified. Transcripts must be submitted with your application package. You MUST meet the following basic education requirements:
A. Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing.
OR
B. Combination of education and experience: courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.
SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to the next lower grade level in the Federal Service. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the particular competencies/knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. This experience need not have been in the federal government.
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.
To qualify at the ZP-3 or GS-11 level:
SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: In addition to meeting the Basic Requirements above, applicants must also possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the ZP-2 or GS-09 in the Federal service. Specialized experience MUST include all of the following:
- Utilizing analytical and statistical research tools to design and implement data gathering for fishery projects; and
- Assisting in the development, improvement, and maintenance of regional fisheries statistical and analytical programs, databases, and surveys.
OR
SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION: 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree
or Ph.D.
or equivalent doctoral degree.
OR
COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: Combination of education and professional experience. Combinations of successfully completed graduate level education and specialized experience may be used to meet total experience requirements. (
Note: Only graduate level education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be combined with experience.)