Your steps to apply
Accountant
Western Area Power Administration · Loveland, Colorado and 1 more · Closes in 9 days
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1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: Career transition (CTAP, ICTAP, RPL), Military spouses, The public.
The job is open to the public, but applicants must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or people who owe allegiance to the U.S. Career transition program candidates, certain eliminated-job federal employees, and military spouses may also apply under special priority rules.
Experience: You can qualify with a degree (see education) or with at least 4 years of accounting experience plus 24 semester hours of accounting or auditing courses, a CPA or Certified Internal Auditor certificate, or substantial accounting coursework with a panel review. For GS-11, you need 1 year of experience at GS-9 level that includes preparing and analyzing financial statements and reports, and reconciling accounts payable, accounts receivable, and general ledger accounts. For GS-12, you need 1 year at GS-11 level that includes preparing or reviewing month-end and year-end journal entries, tracking capital assets, and applying Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
Education: A degree in accounting, or in a related field such as business administration, finance, or public administration, that included or was supplemented by 24 semester hours in accounting. Up to 6 of those hours can be business law. For GS-11, a Ph.D. or at least three years of graduate study in a related field can substitute for the specialized experience, and graduate study beyond the first two years can be combined with experience. Education must come from a school accredited by a U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting body.
Experience can be paid or unpaid, volunteer work included: if it matches the duties, it counts. The full rules are in the announcement.
2 Resume and documents
Write a federal resume for this job. For each job you held, give the month and year you started and ended, your hours per week and what you did, using the words of the experience the announcement asks for. Many announcements accept resumes of up to 2 pages: check this one.
3 Apply on USAJOBS
Closes in 9 days (November 12, until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time).
You sign in to USAJOBS with a Login.gov account, answer the questionnaire and upload your documents, then you submit. Answer the questionnaire honestly: your resume must show what you claim.
How they rate you: The HR office first checks whether you meet minimum qualifications using the first two pages of your resume and your supporting documents. Qualified applicants then complete a questionnaire and a USA Hire online assessment that measures 13 general skills, such as attention to detail, decision making, and teamwork. Scores are ranked with any veterans' preference points, and candidates may be rated ineligible if the resume is incomplete or does not support questionnaire answers.
4 After you apply
In USAJOBS, under Applications, you can see where your application stands: received, reviewed, referred to the hiring manager or not, then selected or not. It can take a few weeks.
For the interview, prepare three examples with the STAR method: the Situation, the Task, what you did (Action) and the Result.
If they choose you: a tentative offer, then a background check, a security clearance (Other), then the final offer with your start date.
Tips for this job:
- Only the first two pages of your resume are reviewed, so put the most relevant accounting experience there.
- Show the specific tasks listed for GS-11 or GS-12 in your resume, with exact dates and hours per week.
- Upload transcripts if you rely on education, and send all documents only through the online system, not by email.
Kandidatu is an independent website: only the official posting counts. Read it before you apply.