Your steps to apply
Chemical Engineer
Environmental Protection Agency · Durham, North Carolina and 2 more · Closes in 4 days
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1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: Career transition (CTAP, ICTAP, RPL), The public.
The job is open to the public, but the conditions section requires U.S. citizenship. Displaced federal employees eligible under CTAP or ICTAP get selection priority if they are rated well-qualified.
Experience: For the GS-12 level, you need 1 year of full-time specialized experience (work closely matched to this job) at about the GS-11 level. That experience must involve analyzing scientific or chemical data and assessing chemical manufacturing, waste treatment, or worker exposure. For the GS-13 level, you need 1 year of similar experience at about the GS-12 level, and it must also include evaluating conditions that affect releases and worker exposure, including engineering controls.
Education: You can qualify with a professional engineering degree from an accredited college or university. You can also qualify with college education or training plus technical experience that shows strong knowledge of engineering, backed by one of these: professional engineer registration, passing the Engineer-in-Training exam, at least 60 semester hours of physical, math, and engineering science courses, or a bachelor's or higher degree in engineering technology or a related field plus 1 year of professional engineering experience under supervision.
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 4 days (November 9, 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: Subject matter experts review your resume against the job's competencies, with General Engineering, Problem Solving, and Critical Thinking weighted most heavily. You are placed in Best Qualified, Well Qualified, or Qualified, and veterans' preference is applied after assessment. Using a consultant or an AI tool on any 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, then the final offer with your start date.
Tips for this job:
- Give specific start and end dates for each job on your resume, or reviewers cannot confirm your experience.
- Keep your resume to 2 pages or less, because a longer-only resume leads to removal.
- If you use education to qualify, send transcripts or a course list showing the required engineering science courses.
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