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Consumer Safety Officer

Department of Health and Human Services
Food and Drug Administration
Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA)
This job announcement has closed

Summary

Positions are located in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs. The incumbent serves as a Consumer Safety Officer demonstrates and is recognized for a high level of competence in the full range of commodities regulated within the boundaries of an FDA Program such as; foods, drugs, medical devices, imports, etc. or in a narrow specialty within a program area. Applicants may apply to one of the duty stations as listed.

Overview

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Hiring complete
Open & closing dates
03/13/2023 to 03/24/2023
Salary
$49,028 to - $63,734 per year

The salary listed in the vacancy announcement is at the base level. The geographical locality pay will be determined at the time of selection.

Pay scale & grade
GS 9
Locations
11 vacancies in the following locations:
Boise, ID
Eastport, ID
Chicago
Hinsdale, IL
Remote job
No
Telework eligible
Yes—as determined by the agency policy.
Travel Required
50% or less - You may be expected to travel 25% up to 50% for this position.
Relocation expenses reimbursed
No
Appointment type
Permanent
Work schedule
Full-time
Service
Competitive
Promotion potential
12
Job family (Series)
Supervisory status
No
Security clearance
Other
Drug test
No
Position sensitivity and risk
High Risk (HR)
Trust determination process
Announcement number
FDA-ORA-23-MP-11870747-MT
Control number
711995500

Duties

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  • Plans and conducts regulatory inspections and in-depth investigations of various industry establishments; such as manufacturers, repackers, own label distributors, and importers.
  • Documents and organizes required evidence, data, and other information to support violations noted during inspections, investigations, sample collections or filer audits.
  • Prepares final reports, position papers and other written documentation that support investigative findings and recommendations.
  • Interacts with various levels of officials representing the establishments subject to regulatory review.

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

  • Citizenship Requirement: You must be a U.S. Citizen to be considered for this advertisement unless explicitly stated otherwise.
  • Selective Service Registration: All applicants born male, on (or after) 12/31/1959, must be registered with the Selective Service System OR have an approved exemption. Visit www.SSS.gov for more info.
  • FDA participates in e-Verify: All new hires must complete the I-9 form; this information will be processed through e-Verify to determine your employment eligibility. If a discrepancy arises, you must take affirmative steps to resolve the matter.
  • Background Investigation Requirement: All employees must pass a security investigation. Failing to pass the background check may be grounds for removal or legal action. If hired, you may be subject to additional investigations at a later time.
  • Time-in-Grade Requirement: If you are applying as a current Federal employee, you must meet the time-in-grade requirements described in the Qualifications section, generally, 52-weeks of comparable experience at the next lowest grade.
  • You must meet ALL requirements by the closing date of this announcement to be considered. Only education, experience, and qualifications attained by this date will be considered. You must continue to meet all requirements through the hiring process.
  • Certification of Accuracy: All information concerning eligibility and qualification is subject to investigation and verification. False representation may be grounds for non-consideration, non-selection, or appropriate legal action.
  • Direct Deposit: You will be required to have all federal salary payments electronically deposited into a bank account with a financial institution of your choice.
  • Additional selections may be made from this vacancy, within the same geographical area, by other organizational elements from within FDA, through shared corporate recruiting activities.
  • You may be required to serve a one-year (1) probationary period (if requirement has not previously been satisfied).

Qualifications

The position of Consumer Safety Officer falls under the 0696 occupational series. To qualify for this position at grade GS-9, you must meet Time-in-Grade requirements by 11:59 pm EST on 03/24/2023.

Time-in-Grade: Any individual who is currently holding, or has held within the previous 52 weeks, a General Schedule position under non-temporary appointment in the competitive or excepted service, must meet time-in-grade requirements (must have served 52 weeks at the next lower grade or equivalent in the Federal service). Time-in-grade requirements must be met by the closing date of this announcement.

Time-in-Grade GS-09: Applicants must have held grade GS-07 or higher for at least one year to be eligible for the GS-09 grade level.

BASIC REQUIREMENT:

You must possess the basic requirements identified below to be considered eligible for the position. Transcripts must be provided with the application to validate that coursework requirements are met. Unofficial transcripts will be accepted in the application package; however, official transcripts will be required prior to beginning employment. Failure to submit all transcripts will be considered an incomplete application.

The education must have been obtained at a college, university, or an accrediting body recognized by the Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, at the time the degree was obtained. Applicants must have successfully completed one of the following basic qualifications:

Applicants must meet one of the following requirements, and must provide transcript(s) at the time of application submission.

Have a bachelor's or graduate/higher level degree in quality assurance or a related degree that included at least 30 semester hours in one or a combination of the following: consumer laws, biological sciences, food science, chemistry, pharmacy, physical sciences, food technology, nutrition, medical science, engineering, epidemiology, veterinary medical science, legal investigations, law enforcement, or related scientific fields that provided knowledge directly related to consumer safety officer work. The 30 semester hours may include up to 8 semester hours in statistics, or course work that included the principles, theory, or practical application of computers or computer programming.

-OR-

Have a combination of education and experience with courses consisting of at least 30 semester hours in the fields of study described above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Minimum Qualifications:
To meet specialized experience requirements, the applicant's work experience must have demonstrated the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies necessary to perform at the grade level of the position. Qualifying experience involves enforcing laws and regulations to protect consumers from foods, drugs, cosmetics, fabrics, toys, equipment, and household products that are defective, dangerous, impure, unwholesome, ineffective, or improperly or deceptively labeled or packaged.

For the GS-9: You must possess one (1) year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-07 grade level in the federal service which includes: gathering and performing standard analyses of scientific data; reviewing and evaluating scientific data for efficacy and safety and preparing reports on scientific/technical study findings.

-OR-

Have two years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a master's degree or master's or equivalent graduate degree related to the position being filled.

-OR-

Have a combination of specialized experience and graduate level education in a field related to the duties of this position that meets 100% of the qualification requirements for this position. This experience and education together meet 100% of the qualification requirements for this position.

In accordance with Office of Personnel Management policy, federal employees are assumed to have gained experience by performing duties and responsibilities appropriate for their official series and grade level as described in their position description. Experience that would not normally be part of the employee's position is creditable, however, when documented by satisfactory evidence, such as a signed memorandum from the employee's supervisor or an SF-50 or SF-52 documenting an official detail or other official assignment. The documentation must indicate whether the duties were performed full time or, if part time, the percentage of times the other duties were performed. It is expected that this documentation is included in the employee's official personnel record. In order to receive credit for experience in your resume that is not within the official series and grade level of your official position, you must provide a copy of the appropriate documentation of such experience as indicated above.

If you are applying based on some other qualifying eligibility (i.e. you are not applying as a current Federal employee), you must meet the specific requirements of the eligibility you are claiming, and must have sufficient past experience to demonstrate that you are minimally qualified for this position. See Unique Hiring Paths on USAJOBS for more information about various ways you may be eligible to apply!

PHS Commissioned Corps Officers interested in performing the duties of this position within the Commissioned Corps may apply online to this announcement. Candidates will be referred to (CC) personnel and not as candidates for conversion to a permanent career or career-conditional appointment.

NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. To verify your application is complete, log into your USAJOBS account, https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Login, select the Application Status link and then select the More Informationlink for this position. The Details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Qualifications are based on breadth/level of experience. In addition to describing duties performed, applicants must provide the exact dates of each period of employment (from MM/YY to MM/YY) and the number of hours worked per week if part time. As qualification determinations cannot be made when resumes do not include the required information, failure to provide this information may result in disqualification. Applicants are encouraged to use the USAJOBS Resume Builder to develop their federal resume.

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 can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

You must submit supporting documentation to verify your eligibility to apply for this vacancy. For most applicants, an SF-50 will be required. However, if you are applying as a Veteran, individual with a qualifying disability, or a displaced employee, you will be required to provide other supporting documents as applicable. See the Required Documents section for details.
Be sure that any files you upload as supporting documentation are free of security or compression features which render such documents unreadable to our system.

Education

TRANSCRIPTS:
Positions which are scientific or technical in nature often have very specific educational requirements. You must submit an official transcript, unofficial transcript, or a list including courses, grades earned, completion dates, and quarter and semester hours earned. If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities, see the Foreign Education section below for additional requirements.

Pay careful attention to the Qualifications and Education sections to identify vacancies where a transcript is required. Even if you hold a similar position or are a current employee, you are not exempt from transcript requirements.


Electronic Transcript Caution: If you have obtained your transcripts electronically, the file might contain security measures that could prevent our application system from reading the file. Therefore, you should consider asking the institution to provide the file in a non-secured electronic format. Alternatively, you could scan or take a photo of the printed copy of the transcript. If your uploaded transcript cannot be read by our system, you may receive consideration and credit for the information we can access.

See the Application Manager Documentation for tips on submitting your paper-based documents.


FOREIGN EDUCATION
Applicants using part, or all of their education completed outside of the U.S. to meet the qualification requirements, must have their foreign education evaluated by an accredited organization to ensure that the foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the U.S. We will only accept the completed foreign credential evaluation.

To be acceptable, the foreign credential evaluation must include/describe at a minimum, the following information: (1) The type of education received by the applicant; (2) The level of education in relation to the U.S. education system, and state that its comparability recommendations follow the general guidelines of the International Evaluation Standards Council; (3) The content of the applicant's educational program earned abroad, and the standard obtained; (4) The status of the awarding foreign school's recognition and legitimacy in its home country's education system; and (5) Any other information of interest such as what the evaluation service did to obtain this information, the qualifications of the evaluator, and any indications as to other problems such as forgery. Note: Some positions require the completion of specific courses or a specified number of credit hours. Therefore, the foreign credential evaluation should provide information similar to that of an official transcript, to include a list of the courses taken, quarter and/or semester hours awarded, the cumulative grade point average (GPA), honors received, if any, date degree awarded.
Applicants can request an evaluation from a member organization of one of the two national associations of credential evaluation services listed below:

  1. National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES)
  2. Association of International Credentials Evaluators (AICE)
Credential evaluations are not free, and applicants are responsible for the cost of the selected service.
For more information about this requirement, please visit the U.S. Department of Education website for Foreign Education

Additional information

For some advertisements, the Food & Drug Administration receives hundreds, even thousands, of applications from job-seekers. Because of this high level of interest, FDA reserves the option of setting an application number limit.
When an application limit is set, USAJOBS will close the vacancy at 11:59 pm Eastern Time on either:
(A) the day the limit is reached, -OR-
(B) the pre-defined closing date of 03/24/2023, whichever comes first.
If the limit is reached before 11:59 pm ET, all applications in excess of the limit will continue to be accepted until 11:59 pm ET.
The application limit for this advertisement, if applicable, is: Not applicable/no limit.
For more information about announcement closing, see: https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/faq/job-announcement/expiration/

ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT THAT MAY BE REQUIRED

Pre-employment physical: No
  • Drug testing: No
  • License: Yes, valid driver's license
  • Mobility agreement: No
  • Immunization: No
  • Bargaining Unit: Yes - 3591 National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU)
  • Special Appointing Authorities: If you are applying to this announcement based a special eligibility, such as those for people with disabilities, veterans (or military spouses), or displaced employees under a career transition program, please pay careful attention to the Required Documents section for details on application requirements for each eligibility path, to include supporting document requirements.
All requirements must be met by the closing date of this announcement (03/24/2023 ); only education and experience gained by this date will be considered. You must continue to meet all requirements throughout the entire hiring process.
This position may require financial disclosure reporting and will be subject to FDA's prohibited financial interest regulation. If you are hired, you may be required to divest of certain financial interests. You are advised to seek additional information on this requirement from the hiring official before accepting any job offers. For more information please visit the FDA Ethics web page: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/jobs-and-training-fda/ethics.

All requirements must be met by the closing date of this announcement (03/24/2023). You must continue to meet all requirements throughout the entire hiring process.

How you will be evaluated

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

Once the job opportunity announcement closes (at 11:59 pm EST on03/24/2023 ), a review of your resume and supporting documentation will be conducted, the information will be compared against your responses to the assessment questionnaire to determine your eligibility for Federal employment, and then whether you are qualified for this particular position.
If you are referred to the hiring manager for consideration, you may be further evaluated based on an interview; review of requested work samples, writing samples, most recent performance evaluation(s), or professional references; or results of an oral presentation or work-related test. Failure to comply with any of the additional assessment requirements will result in removal from further consideration. These assessment methods/tools may also be listed under Key Requirements.
If, after reviewing your resume and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your responses when compared to your background information, you may be deemed ineligible, or your score may be adjusted to more accurately reflect your skills and abilities. Additionally, we will review your supporting documents and resume to determine if you are in the "Area of Consideration" for this vacancy. Government-Wide Merit Promotion vacancies may only accept applications from a limited audience, pay careful attention to the "Who May Apply" and the "Hiring Paths" information. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your eligibility.
Basis of Rating: Best qualified competitive merit promotion candidates and all qualified noncompetitive candidates will be referred to the hiring manager for consideration.
Interagency / Career Transition Assistance Program (I/CTAP):Well-Qualified is defined as an applicant who meets the qualification standards and eligibility requirements for the position, including minimum educational and experience requirements; any qualifications and suitability; is able to perform the essential duties of the position, with or without reasonable accommodation; meets any applicable selective placement factors for the position (such as the ability to speak a specific language or any other factor required immediately upon hire); and is able to satisfactorily perform the duties of the position upon entry. To be well-qualified and exercise selection priority for this vacancy, surplus or displaced Federal employees must be rated at 85.0 or above on the rating criteria for this position. Learn more on the USAJOBS Career Transition Assistance Site.
Your qualifications will be evaluated on the following competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics). You need not respond to the KSA's separately, but your resume should contain sufficient information to demonstrate possession of these competencies.

  1. Research
  2. Technical Competence
  3. Writing
  4. Oral Communication
To preview the application questionnaire, click the link below
https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/11870747

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