Your steps to apply
Foreign Affairs Specialist
National Nuclear Security Administration · Washington, District of Columbia · Closes tomorrow
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1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: Federal employees - Excepted service, The public.
Only U.S. citizens can apply. The job is open to the public and to current federal employees in the excepted service, which means agencies with their own hiring rules.
Experience: You need at least 1 year of specialized experience comparable to GS-11 or EN-00, the next lower grade level. Specialized experience means supporting U.S. national security and foreign policy goals through international engagement, coordination with partners, and program work, such as coordinating with interagency partners, supporting bilateral initiatives, or advising senior leaders.
Education: Education can qualify you along with experience. A major or at least 24 semester hours in fields like international relations, political science, economics, history, law, or statistics can count, and you can combine courses with experience. Four years of appropriate experience can also qualify you in place of education. Foreign degrees need a written evaluation from an accredited organization.
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 tomorrow (November 4, 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: You answer an online questionnaire and your application is rated with the Self-Assessment Rating procedure. HR checks the first two pages of your resume for minimum qualifications and rates how well you show four competencies: project management, planning and evaluating, stakeholder management, and partnering. Resumes that do not support your questionnaire answers can be rated ineligible or not qualified.
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 (Q Access Authorization), then the final offer with your start date.
Tips for this job:
- Keep your resume to two pages or less, because longer resumes lead to disqualification and only the first two pages are reviewed.
- Describe how your past work shows each of the four competencies in your application, and do not write 'see resume'.
- Create your login.gov account early and submit before 11:59 PM ET on the closing date.
Kandidatu is an independent website: only the official posting counts. Read it before you apply.