Emergency Management Specialist (Response)

This position is located in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Management Agency (FEMA), Region 9, Response Division, Regional Watch Center. The Regional Watch Center maintains uninterrupted, 24-hour, 365-day situational awareness of FEMA’s response capabilities, readiness postures, and all events or incidents (natural or man-made) that may require a coordinated Federal response.

No Educational Substitution: There is no educational substitution for this position, and you must meet the qualifications listed in the “requirements” section of this announcement.

What will I do in this position if hired?

In this position, you will perform emergency management work in a watch operations center environment, including managing, and coordinating with other entities the response to intentional and/or unintentional crises, disasters, other humanitarian emergencies, hazards, or natural and man-made /technological (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high-yield explosives) incidents. Typical assignments include:

• Performing substantive mission-oriented work in a FEMA region and serving as a Watch Officer responsible for informing regional response staff and leadership concerning policy issues dealing with immediate response to intentional and/or unintentional crises, disasters, other humanitarian emergencies, hazards, or natural and man-made/technological (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high-yield explosives) incidents.
• Monitoring information from a variety of sources and providing daily situational reports, analysis, and briefings to regional staff regarding a broad range of hazards within the region and issues concerning the regional application of FEMA’s enabling statutes, pertinent regulations, and/or general laws affecting the operation of the Federal government.
• Implementing headquarters and regional emergency management standards, regulations, practices, training, and procedures to identify, minimize or eliminate hazards and threats with a focus on response center operations.
• Conducting mission-oriented analyses of difficult and complex survivor-centric emergency response issues.
• Evaluating and producing improvements regarding efficiency issues of substantive, mission-oriented programs.

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.

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

To qualify for this position at the GS-12 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-11 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:

• Monitoring the readiness and actions of partners (i.e., State, Territory, Local, Tribal, and/or Federal) for potential, emerging, or ongoing incidents, AND
• Creating a current operating picture by utilizing maps, graphics, and Geographic Information System (GIS) products to convey information, AND
• Presenting in-depth analysis of potential effects for events through formal briefings & written products.

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) employee? 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