What: The community planner position is under our Professional Development Program and is open to recent graduates (students expected to graduate this spring or who have graduated within the previous two years). The FHWA Professional Development Program is a two-year program consisting of on-the-job training, developmental assignments, and a leadership skills academy. Each component is designed to facilitate practical learning while maximizing individual talents to help set the course for a professional career with FHWA.
Apply at: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/563811000
Location: Lansing, Michigan
Responsibilities:
As a Community Planner in the Professional Development Program, you will:
- Act as a technical resource on FHWA procedures and guidance on transportation planning, project development and Federal laws related to social, economic, and environmental considerations applicable to the Federal-aid highway program.
- Review transportation plans, environmental and project development technical reports, impact analyses, and other documents.
- Participate with other Federal agencies and State Transportation Departments (STDs) and recommend changes to project plans and designs to eliminate conflicting factors relative to highway issues, with the goal of advancing Federal-aid programs and projects.
- Coordinate programs and projects with other Federal, State and local agencies, public officials, historic preservation offices, local development authorities, and other affected non-Federal organizations.
- Participate on interdisciplinary team reviews or activities, work groups, and task forces to address project or program issues or to ensure implementation of the transportation planning and project development processes.
- Demonstrate and promote new planning processes, procedures, techniques, and technology to the State, local agencies, and other groups.
- Participate in public involvement programs.
- Attend public hearings, agency meetings and technical discussions to obtain information and data that have an impact on highway programs and projects.
- Prepare and present technical findings and project information.
- Must meet the eligibility requirements for the Recent Graduate Program.
- Recent Graduates will enter a formal training program with a mentor and execute an Individual Development Plan outlining training requirements and program expectations.
- Recent Graduates must receive at least 40 hours of formal training directly linked to their employment field.
- Recent Graduates serve a trial period for the duration of their excepted service appointment.
- Recent Graduates will be required to sign a Pathways Recent Graduate Participant Agreement.
- If selected for this position, selectee is required to sign a service agreement to remain employed within Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for a period of at least 2 years.
- Applicants must provide documentation of completion within the previous 2 years of a qualifying, bachelors, masters, professional, doctorate, degree or certificate from a qualifying educational institution*.
- Applicants must meet grade qualifications by start date.
- Provide all required documents by the closing date of announcement.
- Selectee is required to complete a Declaration for Federal Employment (OF-306) to determine suitability for federal employment and to authorize a background investigation.
THIS POSITION HAS A MANDATORY EDUCATION REQUIREMENT. Applicants must meet all Qualification requirements by the closing date of the announcement.
TO QUALIFY FOR THE GS-09 on Experience, you must have at least one full year of experience equal or equivalent to the GS-07, which includes:
- Experience using planning principles, methods, and practices to correlate data, and follow an operation through a series of related detailed steps or processes in fact gathering or analysis; OR
- Experience conducting studies of the physical, social, and/or economic factors which are characteristic of a small community or a project area in a community; OR
- Experience preparing summaries, narrative statements, and analyses of the pertinent technical facts reported in project studies.
- Two full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree OR
- Master's or equivalent graduate degree OR
- LL.B. or J.D., if related. You can also qualify on a combination of higher level graduate education and matching experience.
In order to qualify for this series, you must meet the following education/experience requirements:
You must have completed a full 4-year course of study at an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree in community planning or a related field such as urban affairs, architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, sociology, geography, economics, political science, or public administration that included at least 12 semester hours in the planning process, socioeconomic and physical elements of planning, urban and regional economic analysis, and development finance, from an accredited college or university.
Note: Applicants with degrees in related fields, such as those listed above, who do not have the 12 semester hours of specified course work must have had at least 1 year of work experience in community planning acquired under the supervision and guidance of a community planner.
OR
You must have a combination of education and experience--courses equivalent to a major in one of the above disciplines, or a combination of related courses totaling at least 24 semester hours in any combination of the above disciplines of which at least 12 semester hours were in the planning process, and socioeconomic and physical elements of planning, plus appropriate experience or additional education.
The quality of the combination of education and experience must be sufficient to demonstrate that the applicant possesses the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform work in the occupation, and is comparable to that normally acquired through the successful completion of a full 4-year course of study with a major in the appropriate field. In addition to courses in the major and related fields, a typical college degree would have included courses that involved analysis, writing, critical thinking, research, etc. These courses would have provided an applicant with skills and abilities sufficient to perform progressively more responsible work in the occupation. Therefore, creditable experience should have demonstrated similarly appropriate skills or abilities needed to perform the work of the occupation.