Your steps to apply
Biological Science Laboratory Technician (Animal)
Veterans Health Administration · Portland, Oregon · Closes in 2 days
Sign in to save your progress. Free, with just your email. You can read all the steps without an account.
1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: The public.
This job is open to the public, but you must be a U.S. citizen, national, or someone who owes allegiance to the U.S. Males born after 12/31/1959 must have registered with Selective Service.
Experience: You need at least 1 full year of specialized experience comparable to GS-5 for the GS-5 level, or comparable to GS-6 for the GS-6 level. Relevant experience includes animal husbandry, handling and caring for research animals, keeping animal care records, and maintaining animal care equipment.
Education: You can qualify with a bachelor's degree with a major in biology or a related field, or with at least 24 semester hours in courses such as biology, chemistry, statistics, animal husbandry, or mathematics, including at least 6 semester hours directly related to the position. Combinations of college courses and experience also count. Transcripts must be submitted.
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 2 days (November 5, 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: Your application is rated using category rating, which places you in quality categories from Qualified up to Best Qualified. You are rated on your resume, questionnaire answers, and an online USA Hire assessment that measures skills such as attention to detail, teamwork, and stress tolerance. Overstating your experience or cheating on the assessment can get you removed from consideration.
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:
- Your resume must be two pages or less and must list hours per week for each job
- Send transcripts with your application if you use education to qualify
- Complete the online USA Hire assessment, which may take at least 3 hours, and check your spam folder for the email
Kandidatu is an independent website: only the official posting counts. Read it before you apply.