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Research Assistant

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
This job announcement has closed

Summary

 This position is located in the The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Division of Research Markets and Regulations, Office of Research. The purpose of this position is to collect and analyze data from primary sources, develop reliable reports, and prepare economic, statistical, or financial analyses on well-defined questions. 
 
See our tips on the application process and printable checklist to ensure each step of the application is completed.

Overview

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Reviewing applications
Open & closing dates
02/21/2020 to 03/13/2020
Salary
$45,580 to - $111,575 per year
Pay scale & grade
CN 30 - 40
Location
Washington, DC
Many vacancies
Telework eligible
No
Travel Required
Not required
Relocation expenses reimbursed
No
Appointment type
Term - Two Year Appointment, may be extended to a maximum of 4 years total
Work schedule
Full-time - Excepted Service - Time-Limited Appointment
Service
Excepted
Promotion potential
51
Supervisory status
No
Security clearance
Other
Drug test
No
Announcement number
20-CFPB-158-X
Control number
560224200

This job is open to

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Clarification from the agency

U.S. citizens or U.S. Nationals; no prior Federal experience is required.

Duties

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The following are the duties of this position at the CN51. If you are selected at a lower grade level, you will have the opportunity to learn to perform all these duties, and will receive training to help you grow in this position.

  • Develop and maintain shared databases; manage the timeliness and integrity of data; maintain documentation of database contents and data flows to ensure that future verification and reproduction of results can take place, coordinating activities of others as needed; produce reports and provide information on database contents to support the requirements of management, data maintainers, and data user.
  • Apply a variety of economic and statistical analysis and modeling techniques that are used by economists, psychologists, and statisticians for research. Perform straightforward mathematical and statistical calculations to support research and monitoring of policy developments.
  • Develop expertise in straightforward statistical sampling and modeling to provide technical assistance to researchers and policy analysts. Monitor and report on current developments in assigned consumer financial area.
  • Make modifications in existing data gathering and statistical reporting procedures and assists in review and adoption of new procedures, applying in-depth knowledge of the source data and data manipulation techniques. Seek out innovative, new sources of data to improve quality of analysis and incorporates them into analysis.



Requirements

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Conditions of employment

  • Please refer to "Conditions of Employment."
  • Click "Print Preview" to review the entire announcement before applying.
  • Public Trust Background Investigation will be required

NOTE: This job is interdisciplinary (or multiple series) and will be filled by one of five series: Economist CN-0110, Mathematician CN-1520, Mathematical Statistician CN-1529, Statistician CN-1530, or Computer Scientist CN-1550 upon selection of the candidate. Each of these five occupational series has a basic qualification requirement. Applicants must meet the basic qualification requirement for at least one of these five occupational series, in addition to the specialized experience and/or education requirement for the position at the CN-30 or CN-40 level.

The experience may have been gained in either the public or private sector or volunteer service. One year of experience refers to full-time work; part-time work is considered on a prorated basis. To ensure full credit for your work experience, please indicate dates of employment by month/year, and indicate number of hours worked per week on your résumé.


-This position is being filled under the Bureau's excepted service authority.
-Appointments under this authority will be made in the excepted service and do not convey competitive status.
-This appointment may be extended.

Qualifications

You must meet the following requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement.

You must meet the basic education requirements for at least one of the occupational series listed below plus the qualifying/specialized experience required for the position level. Candidates who are in the process of completing the requirements for education will be considered as long as the requirements are completed within 9 months from the closing date of this vacancy.

Economist Series (0110):
Basic Requirements
A.Degree: economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.
OR
B.Combination of education and experience: courses equivalent to a major in economics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Mathematics Series (1520):
Basic Requirements:
A.Degree: mathematics; or the equivalent of a major that included at least 24 semester hours in mathematics.
OR
B.Combination of education and experience -- courses equivalent to a major in mathematics (including at least 24 semester hours in mathematics), as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.
The total course work in either A or B above must have included differential and integral calculus and, in addition, four advanced mathematics courses requiring calculus or equivalent mathematics courses as a prerequisite

Mathematics Statistics Series (1529):
Basic Requirements:
A.Degree: that included 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, of which at least 12 semester hours were in mathematics and 6 semester hours were in statistics.
OR
B.Combination of education and experience -- at least 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, including at least 12 hours in mathematics and 6 hours in statistics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Courses acceptable toward meeting the mathematics course requirement of paragraphs A or B above must have included at least four of the following: differential calculus, integral calculus, advanced calculus, theory of equations, vector analysis, advanced algebra, linear algebra, mathematical logic, differential equations, or any other advanced course in mathematics for which one of these was a prerequisite. Courses in mathematical statistics or probability theory with a prerequisite of elementary calculus or more advanced courses will be accepted toward meeting the mathematics requirements, with the provision that the same course cannot be counted toward both the mathematics and the statistics requirement.

Statistics Series (1530):
Basic Requirements:
A.Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing.
OR
B.Combination of education and experience -- courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.

Computer Science Series (1550):
Basic Requirements:
Bachelor's degree in computer science or bachelor's degree with 30 semester hours in a combination of mathematics, statistics, and computer science. At least 15 of the 30 semester hours must have included any combination of statistics and mathematics that included differential and integral calculus. All academic degrees and course work must be from accredited or pre-accredited institutions.

In addition to the completion of all requirements for a Bachelor's Degree in one of the fields described above (Economics, Mathematics, Mathematical Statistics, Statistics, or Computer Science), applicants must also meet the qualifying/specialized experience and/or education substitution.

To qualify at the CN-30 level: You must have competed all requirements for a Bachelor's Degree in one of the following fields - Economics, Mathematics, Mathematical Statistics, Statistics, or Computer Science- OR a combination of education and experience for one of the these fields as listed in the Basic Education Requirements for each series.

To qualify at the CN-40 level: You must have one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the CN-30 level in the Federal service. (For qualification purposes, the CN-30 level is broadly equivalent to the GS-07 level.)
Specialized experience must include:
• Hands-on research experience in the application of the principles of economics or statistical or econometric analysis; AND
• Application of standard quantitative techniques used to research economic, statistical or financial data and information; AND
• Programming, collecting, and analyzing data in an academic or professional setting; AND
• Creating and updating charts and data tables in statistical analysis programs such as SAS, STATA, R or Excel.
OR
Education: A master's degree or two full academic years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such degree from an accredited college or university. Graduate education qualifying for this position must be in economics, mathematics, mathematical statistics, statistics, or computer science and must have provided knowledge, skills and abilities comparable to those that would be gained through one year of specialized experience as described above. All academic degrees and course work must be from accredited or pre-accredited college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
OR
A combination of successfully completed graduate level education and specialized experience may be used to meet total experience requirements (only graduate level education in excess of the first 18 semester hours (27 quarter hours) may be combined to be considered for qualifying education).

Education

Education Requirements: You MUST meet certain education requirements that are outlined in the qualifications section.You MUST submit transcripts or equivalent.

The education generally must be from an accredited (or pre-accredited) college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Additional information

- We may select from this announcement or any other source to fill one or more vacancies. 
- This is a bargaining unit position.
- We offer opportunities for telework.
- We offer opportunities for flexible work schedules.
-Ethics:  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees are subject to government-wide ethical standards of conduct, financial disclosure requirements, and post-employment prohibitions, which applicants may review at www.oge.gov.  In addition, Bureau employees must comply with the Supplemental Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (5 CFR 9401), which, among other things, prohibit an employee or the employee’s spouse or minor child from owning or controlling a debt or equity interest in an entity supervised by the Bureau. Regulations also impose restrictions on the outside activities of certain Bureau employees, including examiners and attorneys.  Applicants may review the Bureau ethics regulations and a summary of the regulations at www.consumerfinance.gov.  Questions regarding these requirements and prohibitions should be directed to the Bureau Ethics Office at EthicsHelp@cfpb.gov.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
- A trial period that will cover the full period of the appointment may be required.
- Must successfully complete a background investigation.
- Complete a Declaration for Federal Employment to determine your suitability for Federal employment, at the time requested by the agency
- If you are a male applicant born after December 31, 1959, certify that you have registered with the Selective Service System or are exempt from having to do so.
- Go through a Personal Identity Verification (PIV) process that requires two forms of identification from the Form I-9.  Federal law requires verification of the identity and employment eligibility of all new hires in the U.S.
- Obtain and use a Government-issued charge card for business-related travel.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Your application includes your résumé, responses to the online questions, and required supporting documents. Please be sure that your résumé includes detailed information to support your qualifications for this position; failure to provide sufficient evidence in your resume may result in a “not qualified” determination.

We will evaluate your application by comparing your description of your work experience, education, level of responsibility, and accomplishments, with the requirements of the position to determine whether you meet all the qualification requirements.  The assessment questions are for information gathering purposes only.

Veteran's preference does not apply, however, will be considered a positive factor in the candidate evaluation process.


If you are among the top qualified candidates, your application may be referred to a selecting official for consideration. You may be required to participate in a selection interview. 


To preview questions please click here.

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