Administrative Support Specialist (Training)

In this position you will work as a member of the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center (MWEOC), Logistics Division team. MWEOC is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, approximately 60 miles west of Washington, DC. The ideal candidate will have experience providing administrative support of programs and coordination for budgeting, training requests, and procurement and be able to possess excellent communication and organizational skills.

Education substitution: This position permits applicants to qualify based on education (or a combination of education and experience), as outlined in the “qualifications” section. If you are using education to qualify, you must submit a copy of your transcripts (unofficial are acceptable) with your online application. Once selected and prior to appointment, applicants must provide official college transcripts.

Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet Federal qualification requirements if you can show that your foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the United States. For example, specific courses accepted for college-level credit by an accredited U.S. college or university, or foreign education evaluated by an organization recognized for accreditation by the Department of Education as education equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. college or university. It is your responsibility to provide such evidence with your application. Visit the Department of Education’s Recognition of Foreign Qualifications for more information.

All MWEOC staff have emergency assignments and are considered deployed in place. Exercises and activations are planned and unplanned, and may require long hours, nights, weekends and holidays.

All MWEOC employees are: (1) required to use a government-issued electronic device (to include cellular phones); (2) subject to recall during emergency situations; and (3) required to perform work in locations both above and below ground.

What will I do in this position if hired?

In this position, you will serve as an Administrative Support Specialist (Training) responsible for implementing regulations, developing and monitoring internal tracking systems for administrative tasks, budgets, training requests and records and office operations of a division. Typical assignments include:

• Overseeing the administrative operations such as budget development and tracking, procurement, human resources and property management, security, health and safety while providing support for the facility on training records, requests and payment verification.
• Managing office operations for an organization with a mission that affects a wide range of activities.
• Evaluating and analyzing administrative programs and provides recommendations on the most economical methods of achieving administrative goals and objectives as they support the organization and its mission.
• Performing specialized budget support duties and serving as liaison to the facility Finance Office while participating with supervisors or other managers in reviewing organizational needs, plans, and goals to develop budget data and justifications for review and approval.
• Serving as the liaison officer for organizational management and discussing issues with leadership regarding policies, commitments, and interests.

What else do I need to know?

At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management. Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee’s official position description. Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions.

FEMA is committed to ensuring that its workforce reflects the diversity of the nation. At FEMA, our workforce includes the many identities, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, abilities, ages, cultures, and beliefs of the people we serve. To learn about FEMA’s ongoing diversity and inclusion efforts, reasonable accommodation process, and the FEMA Core Values, please visit www.fema.gov.

The qualification requirements listed below must be met by the closing date of this announcement.

To qualify for this position at the GS-09 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-07 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position. Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following:

• Providing administrative support (i.e, managing calendars, preparing reports, taking phone calls, receiving of visitors or high-level officials) for meetings, conferences, briefings, and/or appointments OR;
• Receiving and reviewing correspondence from customers and providing status updates OR;
• Collecting, entering, and maintaining various types of data ((i.e., time and attendance, budget justifications, etc.) in automated tracking systems.

OR
Master’s or equivalent doctoral degree,
OR
2 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree,
OR
LL.B. or J.D., if related,
OR
Combination of education or experience

Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application:

• Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.

• Please limit your resume to five pages. If more than five pages are submitted, only the first five pages will be reviewed to determine your eligibility and qualifications.

• Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity. Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience.

Are you qualifying based on your work experience?

• Qualifications are based on your ability to demonstrate in your resume that you possess one year of the specialized experience for this announcement at a comparable scope and responsibility. To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the USAJOBS online Resume Builder. If you choose to use your own resume, it must contain the following information organized by experience/position: (1) job title, (2) name of employer, (3) start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY), (4) detailed description of duties performed, accomplishments, and related skills, and (5) hours worked per week (part-time employment will be prorated in crediting experience). Federal experience/positions must also include the occupational series, grade level, and dates in which you held each grade level.

• Are you a current or former FEMA Reservist/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE)? To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of deployments that are relevant to your qualifying experience, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment.

• Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information. Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found “not qualified.”

• 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 provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

• For additional information on crediting experience and/or education, please reference the OPM General Schedule Qualification Standards