Real people do these jobs. Talk about a hard day at work. The federal jobs described below–and many more not listed here–deal with some of the most complex topics and problems in America!

What I want to know is this: are these jobs worth the money, or any amount of money, that the employee receives for the headaches, frustrations, difficult negotiations, etc., that will no doubt be part of these positions?

Take, for example, the State Department Analyst who is responsible for promoting communication and cooperation among the various government agencies and private sector organizations supporting the U.S. mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. This employee is the ultimate negotiator and must demonstrate optimum patience, negotiation skills, flexibility and ability to navigate complex international and homeland security issues.

Is this job worth $51,630.00 – $81,204.00 a year?

Here are a few true-life examples of challenging federal jobs.

DC Park Ranger: Is this job worth $89,033.00 – $115,742.00 a year?

Duties: Negotiate the terms of right-of-way permits authorizing the use and occupancy of National Park Service land within the various units of the National Capital Region in response to applications submitted by the District of Columbia government for a wide variety of municipal projects, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for wetland rehabilitation and utility installations and upgrades, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for new and expanded metrorail facilities, from private utility companies for new and expanded telecommunication facilities, and electric power lines, and from a variety of federal, State, and local government agencies for various utility service connections, including those of a sensitive nature serving Department of Defense and Homeland Security agencies.

My take: This federal employee must be an amazing multi-tasker, problem-solver, negotiator, communicator and coalition builder. He or she needs to know the ins and outs of real estate and to be tough and HOLD his or her GROUND (The American Public’s Ground). To me, this job seems like too much for one person. This job should be split amongst at least 2 to 3 workers, so that each team member can specialize and work with a particular target issue or audience.

USDA Stakeholder Analyst: Is this job worth $62,467.00 – $97,333.00 a year?

Duties: Maintain contacts and build relationships with organizations including, but not limited to, those representing segments of the dairy, beef, poultry, swine, and equine industries; horticulture production; biotechnology industries and associations; wildlife organizations; and animal welfare interests.

My take: It amazes me that this job serves to protect not only humans with regard to food safety, but animal welfare as well. This analyst must be a subject matter expert who can talk to all kinds of agricultural experts and represent USDA with regards to all kinds of problems and requests from advocacy and manufacturing organizations with specific interests to protect. This USDA Stakeholder Analyst will be representing the American taxpayer before these groups. This is an important job, because we all like to eat healthy food, and we like the outdoors.

Chief Scientific and Technical Advisor (CSTA) for Flight Loads/Aeroelasticity: Is this job worth 114,600.00 – $168,500.00 a year?

Duties: Serve as the FAA’s recognized expert for structural loads on fixed wing airplanes and he/she defines and advances new technologies in flight and ground loads to establish leadership in the field.

My take: This job is a lot of pressure for one person. Airline manufacturers will depend on the new and updated payload policies from this Chief Scientist, who must continually update their expertise in new technologies. American public lives depend on this job.

Veteran’s Administration Budget Analyst: Is this job worth AD-0560-13/15 undisclosed dollars?

Duties: Estimates for Congress the needs of veterans for the costs of providing emergency, acute, and long-term care, specialized care for women veterans, treatment of diseases resulting from exposure to environmental hazards, and residential and community-based care.

My take: America’s veterans have huge needs, and the VA has tremendous budget challenges. This Budget Analyst must analyze, present sound facts, be a strong advocate, and negotiate for the vets and families. This person helps thousands of people.

Food Service Worker for the Army: Is this job worth $9.98 – $13.16 an hour?

Duties: Clean the cafeteria with a ‘sequence of tasks.’ Perform a variety of tasks having several steps or a sequence of tasks that requires attention to work operations in a kitchen or dining area following established procedures.

My take: This food service worker should be diligent, responsible, stand up straight, and work hard! The military personnel will be thankful for a clean and organized kitchen. This is a good job helping the morale of the soldiers and families.

SUMMARY

All of these positions will require Specialized Experience in order to land the job. But they will need WAY more than that. The competencies needed to perform well in these positions will require: communications, interpersonal, negotiation, advocacy, building coalitions, problem-solving, vision, strategic thinking, subject matter knowledge, and more.

The individuals who are hired into these positions will be handling some of the biggest challenges in federal government today. These positions require more than average involvement and performance. Are you interested in dedicating yourself to a complex, important mission? If so, read more jobs like these at USAJOBS.gov.

No password is required, it’s free and easy to use!

Published with permission by http://www.wordle.net/.

By Kathryn Troutman, Certified Federal Job Search Trainer Program Director and President, The Resume Place, Inc.

At Yuma Private Industry Council, Reemployment Center, three very busy professional resume writers were telling me about their jobs in writing resumes. Their customers are the 26% unemployed “Yumans” who were not expecting to write a resume any time soon. In 2006 Yuma was written up as a Sizzing Hot Spot with NO unemployment.

This article is about some of the resume problems they see and fix at YPIC. Career professionals all over the US are working hard to help stressed-out jobseekers with resumes, so they can compete in a very tough job market.

Lori Heredia described how the jobseekers are so distraught about losing their positions that they don’t pay close attention to the details they need to write a good resume showcasing their experience and education. They have trouble remembering dates, duties and accomplishments. It’s hard to get them to concentrate.

Katie Fuchs noted that jobseekers often don’t even have a resume when they walk in the door. She interviews the jobseeker, creates the work chronology and writes draft descriptions while they wait. This is a lot of pressure to remember a career history on the spot and types it while the jobseeker tries to create and dictate job titles, companies, dates, duties.

Ralph Villa, Resume Writer and Community Outreach Coordinator / Trainer described his efficient method of writing resumes using O-Net Online to help write position descriptions because jobseekers are just not able to describe their jobs in much detail. He can find Occupations, skills and crosswalk search easily for building a better resume. This is a free program and can help a non-thinking jobseeker write about their past positions.

The YPIC has been providing professional resume writing, job search coaching, and interview preparation for the citizens of Yuma who are seeking new jobs since 1987. I was there to teach the career staff how to help the Yumans how to apply for federal jobs and write federal resumes. But we had to start with a good basic resume before we could convert that resume to a federal resume. So, we had a lot of discussion about a good resume – for private industry job searches or federal job searches.

Katie, Lori, and Ralph have discovered some major resume writing errors that are typical for a stressed-out job seeker:

Here are 10 of their Top Resume Problems that they see:

TOP TIP: START WITH A GOOD CHRONOLOGICAL RESUME. To provide the best quality resume writing services, Lori, Katie, and Ralph would like to have a good chronological listing of jobs, including employers, dates of employment, job titles, and a short position description. With this information, they can then edit, format, and develop position descriptions that are targeted toward specific positions more effectively.

1. Not Detailed Enough – Too many jobseekers don’t include the last employer’s name, specific dates, and job titles with a good position description. Many resumes are just not complete and detailed enough.

2. Functional Format is dead – HR recruiters want to see your specific job duties and accomplishments within the chronology of your positions. Even if the functional is great at highlighting your top level skills, the fact is, recruiters want to see what you did, as well as when and where.

3. Chronological with no focus – A “down the middle”, “everything” resume is okay for your starter resume, but not to submit to anyone. The reverse chronological resume (starting from your current or most recent position), is THE format you need to start with in order to build your focused resume.

4. Too many skills – You can’t do everything, and the HR recruiter isn’t going to hire someone who can “do everything”. People who say that have multiple skills, diverse skills, and will do anything are just not going to land anything. HR recruiters are not going to sit and try to figure out what your best skills are, and your highest level of skills. You have to pick your best five skills and stick with it. You can have two resumes: one with five skills; and another with five different skills.

5. Length – What is too short? One page is probably too short. Go for two pages and give the HR recruiter more details to select from. Give them some examples, details about the customers you served, and some challenges/obstacles that you overcame. Add a skills summary of your five best skills.

6. NO dates – Even if your employment chronology has problems with too many jobs, multiple or long gaps in employment dates, keep the dates and chronology in the resume. HR recruiters are getting used to gaps, multiple jobs, or too many jobs over a short amount of time. The job market isn’t like the old days where someone stayed with one company 20 years. Today, jobseekers routinely have six to eight jobs on their resume and do have some gaps. The HR recruiter is looking for the specialized experience needed for THEIR position. They can find that at any point in the resume. Just stick with the dates.

7. Too many jobs – Yes, a person can have too many jobs and raise a red flag for potential employers. You can reduce the number of positions by taking out any small jobs that you took to earn extra cash between jobs or while employed in a more permanent position, as well as any jobs that were really short term – didn’t turn out for whatever reason. The HR recruiter is looking at your major positions with some longevity. Save them time and leave out the small, short-term jobs; focus on the positions that will present your skills and experience most effectively.

8. No accomplishments – If your resume is all about your competition, your job duties, and what you were responsible for all day long, then this is not going to stand out above the other resumes that are written the same way. If you want to stand out, add two or three accomplishments that show you have initiative, new ideas, creativity, and will go the extra mile to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The supervisors LOVE this and might want to interview you.

9. Too generic – Resumes that contain no specifics about customers, programs, scope of work, dollars, or any numbers are going to put the HR specialist to sleep and your resume will just scoot over to the NO pile in one second. Not good.

10. No direction in sight – Make a decision about the direction of your job search. If your resume includes a list of various jobs with no real skills or mission direction, this could be a problem for the HR recruiter. Many resumes are just a list of various, unrelated jobs that people take to earn money. With this type of resume, it is hard for the HR recruiter to see your best skills and abilities.

To see excellent samples of resumes that feature keywords, accomplishments, details, a chronological work experience section consider this book: Resumes for Dummies, 5th Edition by Joyce Lain Kennedy. The Resume Place, Inc. produced ALL of the sample resumes in this book. Joyce writes about a Core Resume that can be refocused for each resume application with keywords, qualifications, skills. They are on-target and easily changed for each position.

Here’s the short version. The Contract Specialist manages contracts for federal agency program managers who need goods or services to complete their mission. Contract Specialists purchase millions of dollars of IT services, training programs, specialty services, or computers, office furniture or food.

This job involves researching the best vendors, writing a “statement of work” about the services needed, receiving bids from the vendors, negotiating terms, and helping to select the vendor. And then maybe monitoring the contractor to make sure they perform correctly.

SAMPLE LANGUAGE FROM USAJOBS: A Sample Contract Specialist Position, posted 5/16

These positions are in the Division of Contracting and General Services, Portland, Oregon.

These positions serve as contract specialists procuring supplies or services through formal advertising or negotiation procedures, intra/interagency agreements, cooperative agreements, and grants. The contract specialist plans, coordinates, negotiates and administers complex purchases, such as construction material, heavy equipment, construction of hatchery/refuge facilities, structural and living quarters, building rehabilitation, dam and bridge construction, architect-engineer services, janitorial services, IT and telecommunications hardware, software and programming services, contracts for installation of building equipment systems, and various supplies.

At the GS-9 and 11 grade levels, duties will be performed under closer supervision, and training will be provided to prepare the employee for eventual promotion to the full performance level.

THE KEYWORDS SHOULD BE IN ALL CAPS IN YOUR RESUME. OUTLINE FORMAT. The words in the Duties section of the announcement should be added to your resume. And preferably the resume should be in our Outline Format. Scroll down on this page to see the Outline Format. Click on the graphic to see the entire resume.

SEARCH FOR RECOVERY ACT JOBS. There are many Contract Specialist positions post now to help with Recovery Act contracts and jobs, as well as other federal positions. Kathryn Troutman, Author Ten Steps to a Federal Job