{"id":84774,"date":"2014-11-21T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=84774"},"modified":"2014-11-21T09:41:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T15:41:15","slug":"federal-job-application-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=84774","title":{"rendered":"Federal Job Application 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Holly Boyer<\/a>, Senior Editor, INALJ Utah<\/a>, Vermont<\/a>, Virginia<\/a>, West Virginia<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Federal Job Application 101<\/h3>\n

\"holly<\/a>Let\u2019s say in your quest to find a job (any job in your field!) you stumble across the perfect dream job\u00a0for you. Yay! I know how exciting this is and that you\u2019ve already told all your family and friends. So you\u00a0sit down in your special job application spot, put on your job application mood music<\/a>, possibly light a\u00a0candle to Saint Jude the Apostle<\/a> even though you aren\u2019t Catholic. And then you realize that applying for\u00a0a federal job is a whole different level of job application, and that you need more than a good resume to\u00a0even make it past the first cut.<\/p>\n

Here are 7 tips that will help you put together your first (stellar) application package.<\/p>\n

1. USAJOBS.gov<\/a>\u00a0is the place to be.<\/strong> And for librarian positions, the key series you want to search\u00a0for are: 1410 (Librarian), 1411 (Library Technician), 1412 (Technical Information Services), 1420\u00a0(Archivist), 1421 (Archives Technician), 1499 (Library and Archives Student Trainee.) You can find\u00a0a full list of series here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. Give yourself plenty of time.<\/strong> You know how you see a job and wait until the last day to throw\u00a0something together and submit it? Well, you absolutely cannot do that for federal application.\u00a0Estimate how much time you would normally spend putting together the best possible resume\/CV and cover letter for a non-government job. Now add 3 days. At the very least. It will take\u00a0hours (it took me about 6 over 2 days) just to complete the initial resume on usajobs.com.\u00a0You\u2019ll want to review it before sending it in. And you need to leave time for answering the\u00a0Questionnaire, if necessary.<\/p>\n

3. Use a highlighter on that job announcement.<\/strong> Comb through the announcement and highlight\u00a0all the keywords you find. There will be a lot. These are the words that you want to use in\u00a0creating your resume. Conventional wisdom says we tailor our resume for the job we\u2019re\u00a0applying to. This is even more important when applying for a federal job.<\/p>\n

4. Pay attention to specialized experience requirements.<\/strong> If the announcement requires 52 weeks\u00a0of experience in a certain area at a certain grade, you need to show that on your resume. If you\u00a0can\u2019t, you don\u2019t qualify for that grade or possibly that job.<\/p>\n

5. Use the resume builder.<\/strong> Yes, you can upload your resume to usajob.com, but I had better\u00a0experience working through each step of the resume builder. This forced me to think about\u00a0each item as I went through. I was able to incorporate all those keywords much easier because\u00a0I wrote most of it from scratch instead of copying directly from my resume. And make sure to\u00a0answer everything, in detail if possible.<\/p>\n

6. Make sure you include any additional documents.<\/strong> This seems obvious, but there is enough\u00a0diversity in requirements that it needs to be highlighted. If you\u2019re qualifying based on education,\u00a0you\u2019ll need to upload your transcripts. You may be able to upload a cover letter or other\u00a0supporting documents. Just make sure to check that you\u2019ve included everything you need.<\/p>\n

7. In addition to a resume, you may have to answer a questionnaire.<\/strong> If you do, excellent. This is\u00a0place where you really get to highlight your accomplishments as they directly pertain to the job.\u00a0Again, use your keywords! Be realistic about your experience, but don\u2019t be afraid to really toot\u00a0your own horn. And if you find yourself answering \u201cnone of the above\u201d or \u201cno experience\u201d too\u00a0many times (and it\u2019s not because you\u2019re being modest), don\u2019t bother applying. You\u2019ll score too\u00a0low to make it past the cut.<\/p>\n

If you come away with only one thing from this article, let it be finding and using keywords from the\u00a0job announcement. I\u2019ve read that the initial screening process is\/is not automated. Regardless, with\u00a0the number of applications that come in for each job, using keywords makes it easier for the hiring\u00a0personnel to put you in the yes pile.<\/p>\n

Good luck! Please share your federal job application words of wisdom in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Holly Boyer, Senior Editor, INALJ Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia\u00a0 Federal Job Application 101 Let\u2019s say in your quest to find a job (any job in your field!) you stumble across the perfect dream job\u00a0for you. Yay! I know how exciting this is and that you\u2019ve already told all your family and friends. So…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[5096,69,3592,4323,5883,3651,3606,3663,3595,4538,51],"class_list":["post-84774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-applications","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-federal-jobs","tag-holly-boyer","tag-inalj-utah","tag-inalj-vermont","tag-inalj-virginia","tag-inalj-west-virginia","tag-job-application","tag-jobs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/inalj-wordle-feb-2013.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-m3k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}