Summary This position is being announced under FEMA's Incident Management Assistant Team (IMAT) Program. This is a 4-year temporary appointment in the Excepted service. This position is located on a Type II, Regional IMAT and has a starting salary range of $55.97 per hour to $75.57 per hour; however, the maximum salary possible in this position is $85.99 per hour. Salary listed includes locality pay. View common definitions of terms found in this announcement. Responsibilities What will I do in this position if hired? In this position, you will serve as a Public Affairs Specialist (External Affairs Officer Type II) for Region One's IMAT Team in Maynard, MA. When deployed, the Public Affairs Specialist reports to the Federal Coordinating Officer and manages all response-related Federal external affairs elements under the guidance of the Operation Director. Typical assignments include: When deployed, typical assignments include: Leading a small group of subject matter experts that specialize in various fields across the entire public and governmental information enterprises. Making decisions, issuing directives, and providing guidance to the disaster federal external affairs staff. Developing the daily external affairs situational understanding in order to brief and provide updates to disaster leadership and staffers at the federal, state, and tribal level. Coordinating with the White House, DHS, the National Joint Information Center (NJIC), FEMA headquarters External Affairs (EA), and regional EA, Supporting joint crisis communications and Public Information and Warning messaging with other participating Federal, State, tribal, territorial and/or local agencies, political offices, and private sector entities. Targeting, facilitating, and accelerating media, congressional, intergovernmental, private sector, and community engagement programs on a national level, in a crisis environment requiring the rapid and inventive design of new approaches and novel ideas. When not deployed, typical assignments include: Participating in weekly conference calls to provide updates in EA activities as well as exercises at the national, regional and state levels; EA Division management; all training as required by the position; development of regional catastrophic planning and designing exercise events to test plans and policies. Ensuring regional disaster EA operations are closed out appropriately and consistently. Providing input for the development of and participation in the execution and documentation of functions and plans for critical aspects of FEMA's mission, operational responses and programs. Evaluating and providing recommendations to improve effectiveness of existing programs, activities and management EA components of any Lessons Learned/Continuous Improvement plans resulting from disaster field operations. Representing EA leadership on task forces, work groups, councils, etc related to incident communications and disaster operations. 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. This announcement is for a position as an IMAT CORE (Incident Management Assist Team, Cadre of Response/Recovery Employee). IMAT CORE employees are full time employees hired to directly support the response and recovery efforts related to disasters. IMATs are the first FEMA personnel deployed to an incident and manage the field-level federal response and early recovery with a primary focus on critical infrastructure stabilization, especially life-saving and life-sustaining efforts. Appointments to IMAT CORE positions are four years in duration and may be renewed based upon workload needs and funding availability. Employees are hired under the Robert T. Stafford Act and are excluded from the provisions of title 5, United States Code, governing jobs in the competitive service. They can be hired under a streamlined process instead of a competitive process. After 3 years of continuous service, Stafford Act employees may be granted competitive eligibility to apply for permanent full-time positions at FEMA. 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. Requirements Conditions of Employment You must be a U.S. citizen to be considered for this position You must successfully pass a background investigation. 24 hour on-call work schedule during emergency response periods required. You must be able to obtain and maintain a Government credit card. Selective service registration is required for males born after 12/31/59. Please review "Other Information" section for additional key requirements. To ensure the accomplishment of our mission, DHS requires every employee to be reliable and trustworthy. To meet those standards, all selected applicants must undergo, successfully pass, and maintain a background investigation for Public Trust Moderate Sensitivity as a condition of placement into this position. This may include a credit check after initial job qualifications are determined, a review of financial issues, such as delinquency in the payment of debts, child support and/or tax obligations, as well as certain criminal offenses and illegal use or possession of drugs (please visit: Mythbuster on Federal Hiring Policies for additional information). For more information on background investigations for Federal jobs please visit OPM Investigations. Please ensure you meet the qualification requirements described below and that you clearly describe how your experience meets these requirements within your resume. Qualifications All qualifications and eligibility requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement. To qualify for this position at the IT-04 level (starting salary $55.97), you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the IT-03 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 or Private Sector and must demonstrate all of the following: Establishing and managing public information strategies for an organization, Responding to news media inquiries or reporting on general news or activities of a government agency; and, Leading and managing subordinates in support of public or external affairs efforts. 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/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. Education 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. Additional Information STAFFORD ACT EXCEPTED SERVICE APPOINTMENTS: Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employee (CORE) is an appointment type granted under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, Section 306 (b), which authorizes FEMA to appoint such temporary employees as necessary to accomplish work authorized under the Act. Appointments under this authority within FEMA are made to the excepted service and are nonpermanent in nature. If you receive a conditional offer of employment for this position, you will be required to complete an Optional Form 306, Declaration for Federal Employment, and to sign and certify the accuracy of all information in your application, prior to entry on duty. False statements on any part of the application may result in withdrawal of offer of employment, dismissal after beginning work, fine, or imprisonment. DHS uses E-verify, an internet based system, to confirm the eligibility of all newly hired employees to work in the United States. Learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities. As an IMAT-CORE, all candidates must be able to deploy with little or no advance notice to anywhere in the United States and its territories for an extended period of time. Deployments may include working in excess of eight hours a day, or in excess of 40 hours per week, including weekends and holidays, and under stressful, physically demanding, and austere conditions. When activated and deployed, you serve in a federal travel status and are entitled to lodging, transportation and per diem reimbursements for authorized expenses in accordance with federal travel regulations. All candidates must be able to deploy with little or no advance notice to anywhere in the United States and its territories for an extended period of time. Deployments may include working in excess of eight hours a day, or in excess of 40 hours per week, including weekends and holidays, and under stressful, physically demanding, and austere conditions. When activated and deployed, you serve in a federal travel status and are entitled to lodging, transportation, and per diem reimbursements for authorized expenses in accordance with federal travel regulations. If selected for this position, you will be required to complete FEMA’s onboarding program and a subsequent orientation program. Additional orientation information will be provided post selection.