RANGELAND MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST

Summary

This position is located on the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), State Resource Conservationist's Staff in the Elko field office. Serves as the principal staff rangeland specialist for the state, with responsibility for furnishing technical guidance, leadership, and coordination to the range phases of the Service's soil and water conservation programs.

Duties

• Works with other staff to coordinate and correlate on the rangeland management program to other service programs.
• Integrates the range program with the programs of other entities to promote a uniform and common understanding of range management principles.
• Develops and maintains an effective working relationship on matters affecting the rangeland management program with various entities that administer rangelands or are concerned with range problems on ranches.
• Consults with others on planning, developing, and maintaining an effective, technically sound rangeland management program.
• Provides technical assistance to personnel developing conservation plans for operators of large or complex ranching operations facing acute seasonal issues and wide variations in range, climate, and topographic conditions.
• Conducts ecological investigations to determine sites to map based on soils, climates, natural vegetation, and management best suited various sites.
• Develops and maintains technical guides for classification of ecological sites, similarity index, and safe, recommended stocking rates to fit the varied combinations encountered on rangelands throughout the state.
• Coordinates with management officials to determine the need for revisions to technical guidelines.
• Provides adequate training to agency staff on the basic principles of rangeland management in a multiple use environment.

Qualifications

In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. If education is required or being used to qualify, you must submit a copy of your transcripts. Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including time-in-grade restrictions, specialized experience and/or education, as defined below. Basic Education Requirement: Degree: range management; or a related discipline that included at least 42 semester hours in a combination of the plant, animal, and soil sciences, and natural resources management, as follows: Range Management -- At least 18 semester hours of course work in range management, including courses in such areas as basic principles of range management, range plants, range ecology, range inventories and studies, range improvements, and ranch or rangeland planning. Directly Related Plant, Animal, and Sil Sciences -- At least 15 semester hours of directly related courses in the plant, animal, and soil sciences, including at least one course in each of these three scientific areas, i.e., plant, animal, and soil sciences. Courses in such areas as plant taxonomy, plant physiology, plant ecology, animal nutrition, livestock production, and soil morphology or soil classification are acceptable. Related Resource Management Studies -- At least 9 semester hours of course work in related resource management subjects, including courses in such areas as wildlife management, watershed management, natural resource or agricultural economics, forestry, agronomy, forages, and outdoor recreation management. OR Combination of education and experience: at least 42 semester hours of course work in the combination of plant, animal, and soil sciences and natural resources management shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. In addition to meeting one of the Basic Requirements listed above, applicants must meet the following Minimum Qualifications Requirement to be considered at the GS-11: Specialized Experience: To qualify for the GS-11 level, you must possess at least one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-09 level or higher in Federal service, or comparable experience not gained through Federal service. This experience must include the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of this position. Examples of specialized experience include: Analyzing and protecting natural resources, developing programs and standards for rangeland use and preservation, and advising officials and landowners on rangeland management practices. Developing and reviewing multiple-use conservation plans on grazing lands; Providing guidance to land owners, operators, and field office staff on the identification of resource concerns on grazing lands; Working with landowners to implement grazing management plans, evaluating problems, and proposing land improvement alternatives Conducting onsite measurement, monitoring, collection, and analysis of data regarding land use and natural resources conditions and trends. OR Substitution of education in lieu of specialized experience at the GS-11 grade level: Possess 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or equivalent doctoral degree in range management or a directly related discipline. OR A combination of education and experience as listed above. A combination of graduate-level education and experience, as described above, may be used to qualify for this position. This combination must have equipped you with the necessary knowledge and/or experience to successfully perform the duties of this position. Combinations of experience and education must total at least 100% as outlined in OPM Qualifications policy. 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 and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Education

College Transcript: If qualifying based on education, you must submit a copy of your college transcript with course number and department (i.e., Bio 101, Math 210, etc.), course title, number of credit hours, and grade earned. If a relevant course is not clearly qualifying (e.g., special topic, seminar, research, thesis, obscure or misleading course title, etc.), please submit an official course syllabi and/or detailed course description from the university/college to ensure proper evaluation. Your education must have been successfully obtained from an accredited school, college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to be credited toward qualifications. You may verify accreditation by visiting the U.S. Department of Education Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs website. We will verify your education accordingly. Foreign Education: You must submit verification that education completed in a foreign institution, was recognized by an accreditation body accepted by the U.S. Department of Education. You must include a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript. There are private organizations that specialize in this evaluation and a fee is normally associated with this service. For a list of private organizations that evaluate education, visit the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) website. Your transcripts must be in English or include an English translation. You may submit an unofficial copy of your transcript at the initial phase of the application process. However, if selected, you will be required to submit official transcripts prior to entering on duty. Please refer to the "How to Apply" section for instructions on submitting transcripts.

How to apply

Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply and be considered for this position, you must complete all required questionnaires, assessments and submit all required documentation as specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. Resumes cannot exceed two pages. The application process is as follows: Click the Apply Online button. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. Set aside about 1-2 hours to take the USA Hire Assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. To view the announcement status or your application status: Visit https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/howto/application/status/. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.