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Research Assistant

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
This job announcement has closed

Summary

This position is located at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of Research. The purpose of this position is collect and analyze data from primary sources, develop reliable reports, and prepare economic, statistical, or financial analyses on well-defined questions.

Overview

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Hiring complete
Open & closing dates
11/04/2022 to 11/28/2022
Salary
$48,106 to - $117,762 per year
Pay scale & grade
CN 30 - 40
Location
Many vacancies in the following location:
Washington, DC
Remote job
No
Telework eligible
Yes—as determined by the agency policy.
Travel Required
Occasional travel - You may be expected to travel for this position.
Relocation expenses reimbursed
No
Appointment type
Term - 2 year appointment and may be extended an additional 2 years.
Work schedule
Full-time
Service
Excepted
Promotion potential
51
Supervisory status
No
Security clearance
Other
Drug test
No
Announcement number
23-CFPB-30-X
Control number
686196300

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 CN-51, broadly equivalent to the GS-11. 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 incorporate them into analysis.
  • Keep abreast of and write segments of reports on economic or financial developments, and perform systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of economic data to support findings.

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

Key Requirements:

  • Must be U.S. Citizen or U.S. National
  • This position is being filled under the Bureau's excepted service authority.
  • A two year trial period may be required.
  • A trial period that will cover the full period of the appointment may be required.
  • Public Trust - Background Investigation will be required.
  • Complete a Declaration for Federal Employment to determine your suitability for Federal employment, at the time requested by the agency.
  • Appointments under this authority will be made in the excepted service and do not convey competitive status.
  • This appointment may be extended an additional 2 years.
  • Have your salary sent to a financial institution of your choice by Direct Deposit/Electronic Funds Transfer.
  • 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.
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 each grade level that you apply (CN-30, CN-40). Please refer to the qualification section of this announcement.

Qualifications

* For the CN-40: You must meet the following requirements within 30 days of the announcement's closing date.

Specialized Experience
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, and R.
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).
* For the CN-30: You must meet the following requirements within 9 months of the announcement's closing date.

To qualify at the CN-30 level: You must have completion of 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 Requirements for each series.

The experience may have been gained in either the public, 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/day/year, and indicate number of hours worked per week on your resume.

Education

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 at either the CN-40 or the CN-30 level. For the CN-30: 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.

You MUST submit a copy of your transcripts or equivalent.

Basic Requirements (Individual Occupational Requirements)
Economist, 0110:

  • Degree: economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.

OR

  • Combination of education and experience: courses equivalent to a major in economics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Mathematics, 1520:
  • Degree: mathematics; or the equivalent of a major that included at least 24 semester hours in mathematics.
OR
  • 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.

Mathematical Statistics, 1529

  • 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

  • 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, 1530:
  • 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
  • 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, 1550:
  • 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.

Additional information

OTHER INFORMATION:

  • We may select from this announcement or any other source to fill one or more vacancies.
  • This announcement may be used to fill like positions in other organizations within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
  • This is a bargaining unit position.
  • We offer opportunities for telework.
  • We offer opportunities for flexible work schedules.
  • 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, 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.
A new hire's direct and overall experience are critical factors in determining a salary offer, it is important that your resume fully reflects all of your work experience. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau determines the salary offer for each selectee based primarily on three key factors:
  • The selectee's directly related experience at the same level as the position
  • The selectee's overall experience in a particular industry or area
  • The salaries of other Bureau employees in similar positions and with similar levels of experience.

We also take the selectee's skill set into account. Applicants should note that salary offers seldom fall near the upper end of the salary range as listed in this vacancy announcement. Salary may be set from the minimum of the salary range to the midpoint of the salary range. In some instances, based on a selectee's extensive experience directly related to the position, salary may be set at or above the mid-point up to the maximum salary for that band level. See information on our base pay ranges and salary structure.

Our comprehensive benefits are among the most generous in the federal government. They include:- Challenging and rewarding work benefiting American consumers - Opportunities for development and advancement- Comprehensive Federal health, vision, dental, life, and long-term care insurance programs- Learn more about Federal benefits programs at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201706_cfpb_benefits.pdf

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 résumé may result in a "not qualified" determination.

Category rating will be used to rank and select eligible candidates. If qualified, you will be assigned to one of three quality level categories: A (highest quality category), B (middle quality category), or C (minimally qualified category) depending on your responses to the online questions, regarding your experience, education, and training related to this position. 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.

Qualifications and Rating: If you meet the eligibility and specialized experience requirements, you will be required to participate in an assessment exercise to determine qualifications and category rating for this position. An Assessment Specialist from the Bureau's Office of Human Capital will email you at the email address associated with your USAJobs account and you will have at least 48 hours to submit your assessment response back to the CFPB_Assessments@cfpb.gov inbox. It is advised to routinely check your "junk mail"/SPAM folders within your email to ensure you do not miss an email from the Assessment Specialist. You may request reasonable accommodation to complete the exercise through your Assessment Specialist. The entire process must be completed by the applicant within two weeks from the initial contact from a CFPB representative or he/she will be removed from consideration.

Your submitted assessment response will be reviewed and assessed by a panel of trained Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to determine your level of proficiency in the following competencies:

  • Subject Matter Expertise: Applies knowledge of common data management and statistical programming languages (for example SAS, Stata, R, Python) to clean and construct datasets to be used for economic or social science research. Performs mathematical and statistical calculations using common data management and statistical programming languages (for example SAS, Stata, R, Python).
  • Written Communication: Prepares written materials that are accurate, clear, concise, organized, and responsive to requests; adheres to appropriate style, format, and guidelines/ requirements.
Veterans' preference is applied after applicants are assessed. CN-30: Preference-eligibles will be listed at the top of their assigned category and considered before non-preference-eligibles in that category. CN-40: Qualified preference-eligibles with a compensable service-connected disability of 10% or more will be listed at the top of the highest category.

Referral: If you are scored by the SMEs at or above the passing grade score and among the top qualified candidates, your application may be referred to a selecting official for consideration. You may be required to participate in one or more selection interviews.

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