Clarification from the agency

Open to IRS Career/Career-Conditional employees who have completed a degree or certificate from a qualifying education institution within the previous 2 years or are within 9 months of graduating. Veterans unable to apply within 2 years of receiving their degree, due to military service obligation, have a full 2-year eligibility period upon release or discharge from active duty. The eligibility period for veterans must be within 6 years of degree completion.

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Conditions of employment

STANDARD POSITION DESCRIPTIONS (SPD):
PD96574 and PD96575
Visit the IRS SPD Library to access the position descriptions.

• Telework Eligible Positions: Telework eligible positions do not guarantee telework. Employees must meet and sustain IRS telework eligibility requirements (e.g., reporting at least twice a pay period to your assigned Post of Duty (POD)) and supervisor's approval to participate in the IRS Telework Program. Employees must also be within a 200-mile radius of their official assigned post-of-duty (POD) while in a telework status. As a reminder - If you are selected for a position, you are responsible for reporting to your designated POD (location) on the negotiated start date or as directed by management.
• All selectees must sign a Participant Agreement.
• A 1-year probationary period is required (unless already completed).
• Obtain and use a Government-issued charge card for business-related travel.

Qualifications

Federal experience is not required. The experience may have been gained in the public sector, private sector or Volunteer Service. One year of experience refers to full-time work; part-timework 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 resume.

In order to qualify, you must first meet IRS Recent Graduate Program eligibility:

You must have, within the previous 2 years, completed all educational requirements for a qualifying associate, bachelor, masters, professional, doctorate, vocational or technical degree or certificate from a qualifying institution; or intended graduation is no more than 9 months from date of application;
OR
Veterans (as defined in 5 U.S.C. 2108) who, due to a military service obligation, were precluded from applying to a Recent Graduates Program during any portion of the 2-year eligibility period may have their eligibility period extended so that they receive the full 2 years of eligibility. The remaining 2-year eligibility period will begin upon his or her release or discharge from active duty. The veteran's eligibility period may not extend beyond 6 years from the date of completion of all requirements of an academic course of study.

Secondly, you must meet any basic requirements of the position and the experience requirements described in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions, Professional and Scientific Positions.

BASIC REQUIREMENT OR INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT:
You must have a four (4) year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree in economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.
OR
A combination of education and experience. The education must include courses equivalent to a major in economics, as shown above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. To be qualifying your experience may have included the following or must be sufficient demonstrate the ability to perform the following: individual economic research assignments requiring planning, information assembly, analysis and evaluation, conclusions and report preparation; supervisory or project coordination assignments involving a staff of professional economists and requiring the evaluation and interpretation of economic information; teaching assignments in a college or university that included both class instruction in economics subjects and one of the following; (1) personal research that produced evidence of results, (2) direction of graduate theses in economics; or (3) service as a consultant or advisor on technical economics problems.

In addition to meeting the basic requirement above, to qualify for this position you must also meet the qualification requirements listed below:

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE FOR GS-07:
You must have one year of specialized experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-05 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience for this position includes: Experience applying the methods and principles of economics and their application to research projects; experience with research and study design and administration processes; experience with research procedures and basic techniques; experience in methods to develop, analyze, and present statistical information; experience using different types of economic and statistical programs for evaluating and/or completing research projects; experience in determining the economic significance of information reported on tax returns and a working experience of both present and prior tax laws; experience in communicating findings and in writing descriptive reports; and experience using User oriented computer programming languages and statistical software packages.

OR
You may substitute education for specialized experience as follows: four (4) year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree in economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.
OR
Superior Academic Achievement may be met by having a Bachelor's degree, with one of the following: A GPA of 2.95 or higher on a 4.0 scale for all completed undergraduate courses or those completed in the last 2 years of study, or a GPA of 3.45 or higher on a 4.0 scale for all courses in the major field of study or those courses in the major completed in the last 2 years of study, or rank in the upper one third of the class in the college, university, or major subdivision, or membership in a national honor society recognized by the Association of College Honor Societies.
OR
You may have a combination of experience and graduate level education to that described above.

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE FOR GS-09:
You must have one year of specialized experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-07 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience for this position includes: Experience applying methods and principles of economics and their application to research projects; experience with research, study design and administration processes; experience in determining the economic significance of the information reported on the tax returns, and tax laws; experience in oral communications and descriptive report writing; experience developing, analyzing, and presenting statistical information; experience using economic and statistical programs and understanding their usefulness in evaluating or completing research projects; experience using user oriented computer programming languages and statistical software packages; and demonstrated experience in the rules, regulations, procedures, and related systems applicable to the area of responsibility.
OR
You may substitute education for specialized experience as follows: a master's or equivalent graduate degree in economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.
OR
Two (2) years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to master's or equivalent graduate degree in economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.
OR
You may have a combination of experience and graduate level education to that described above.

MEET TIME IN GRADE (TIG) REQUIREMENT: You must meet applicable TIG requirements to be considered eligible. To meet TIG for positions above the GS-05 grade level, you must have served at least one year (52 weeks) at the next lower grade (or equivalent) in the normal line of progression for the position you are applying to. Advancement to positions up to GS-05 is permitted if the position to be filled is no more than two grades above the lowest grade held within the preceding 52 weeks.

AND

TIME AFTER COMPETITIVE APPOINTMENT: By the closing date (or if this is an open continuous announcement, by the cut-off date) specified in this job announcement, current civilian employees must have completed at least 90 days of federal civilian service since their latest non-temporary appointment from a competitive referral certificate, known as time after competitive appointment. For this requirement, a competitive appointment is one where you applied to and were appointed from an announcement open to "All US Citizens".

For more information on qualifications please refer to OPM's Qualifications Standards.

How you will be evaluated

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

You will be evaluated based on how well you meet the qualifications listed in this vacancy announcement. Your qualifications will be determined based on your application materials (e.g., resume, supporting documents) and the responses you provide on the application questionnaire. Please be sure that your resume 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. In order to be considered for this position, you must complete all required steps in the process and meet all qualifications. Overstating your qualifications and/or experience in your application materials or application questionnaire may result in your removal from consideration.

Rating: Your application will be evaluated on the Critical Job Elements (CJE) of the position to be filled per the National Agreement Article 13.

Your application will be rated and ranked among others, based on your responses to the online questions, regarding your experience, education, and training performance appraisals and awards relevant to the duties of this position. You may obtain your most recent awards listing at https://persinfo.web.irs.gov/. Your rating may be lowered, if your responses to the online questions are not supported by the education and/or experience described in your application.

Referral: If you are among the top qualified candidates, your application may be referred to a selecting official for consideration. Candidates, if required to participate in a selection interview (telephonic and/or in person at the discretion of the Selecting Official in accordance with hiring practices), will be interviewed in quality group order. We will not reimburse costs related to the interview such as travel to and from the interview site.

If you are a displaced or surplus Federal employee eligible for Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP), you must receive a score of 80 or better to be rated as well qualified to receive special selection priority.