Entry bubble Get a Job at Census!

By: Jake | December 29, 2008 | Category: General

Uncle SamWith the economic challenges we are facing in the U.S., a lot of people have been asking us how to get a job with the U.S. federal government. Nancy wrote a great post about finding a federal job, but I thought I'd mention that the U.S. Census Bureau offers a unique opportunity for those who want to serve for the next couple of years.

I know it's not even 2009 yet, but the Census is not wasting any time. They are already recruiting for the 2010 Census. As you probably know, the U.S. Constitution mandates a count of everyone living in the United States every 10 years. The Census is important since data from the count is used to distribute Congressional seats to states, make decisions about what community services to provide and how to divide $300 billion in federal funds to state, local and tribal governments each year.

Law requires that everyone in the U.S. fill out the 10-minute survey when it hits the street in March of 2010. It's the Census Bureau's job to get the survey out and make sure everyone is counted.

The most basic position the Census offers is the census taker. This person goes door to door verifying address lists in his or her local community. If you have a knack for "office work" there are census taker positions in local Census offices where you can do office work. Keep in mind these are temporary positions, but the Census Bureau is almost always hiring for various permanent full-time positions.

If you are looking for a way to work for the federal government, the 2010 Census is a great way to get started.

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Entry bubble Wanna Work for the Government?

By: Nancy | November 06, 2008 | Category: Money

Last week, I promised in the comments section of my blog entry on preparing for a job layoff that we'd talk this week about how to start a career with the federal government. uncle sam

I've got to be honest: becoming a fed was not on my life's to-do list. Didn't even occur to me. But as a communications major, I graduated into a really tough private sector job market in 1990. Despite my fussing that "No, there couldn't possibly be a job in the government for broadcasters," a friend passed my resume to her friend, who passed it to her bosses who eventually became my bosses.

Almost 18 years later, I can tell you that I've used what I learned in my major every single day, and I've learned so much more from my years on the job growing and exercising my communications experience. Plus, I've appreciated the relative stability of working for Uncle Sam while so many of those companies I initially applied to went under or went through massive layoffs.

While I still have nightmares of typing up and using gallons of correction fluid on my "SF 171" federal job application, today's generation of would-be feds can just go to USAJobs.gov or its partner site for students to find and apply for federal jobs. Both sites are from the US Office of Personnel Management, the mega HR department of the federal government.

Don't want to move to Washington, DC to work for the federal government? Not a problem. Only about one in ten of the more 1.8 million federal jobs are actually located in the nation's capitol. Right now USAJobs.gov is showing more than 3,000 federal job openings in the Denver area, more than 2,500 in and around Dallas, more than 1,000 each in Nashville and Detroit and nearly 700 each in Milwaukee and Raleigh.

Before you dive into applying for that federal job, it'll pay to get some tips on the application process, and to learn writing techniques that can help your resume and application rise to the top of the applicant pool.

You can find out about different agencies you're interested in by visiting BestPlacesToWork.org and the Partnership for Public Service's downloadable publication: "Where The Jobs Are". It outlines the mission of individual government agencies, features examples of each agency's most popular jobs and provides projections of agencies' hiring needs in the coming years. And you can get a taste of federal work life by checking out Joe Davidson’s Federal Diary in the Washington Post and the website and the radio station dedicated to the life and work of government employees: Federal News Radio.

If you're looking for state or local government jobs from law enforcement to teaching, USAJobs.gov's State and Local page is the place to start.

Ok, I know lots of Gov Gab's readers are government employees like me. So I really want to hear from you about your experience working for the government—the good and the not-so-good. Are you new or are you an 'old timer' like me? What tips can you share with people who are considering a career in public service?

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Entry bubble The Climbing Chinook at the Bonneville Dam

By: Stephanie | July 18, 2008 | Category: Travel

Bonneville Dam fish ladderHere's a ladder that you can't use to paint your kitchen or screw in that hard-to-reach lightbulb. It's reserved for use by Oncorhynchus tshawytscha and Acipenser transmontanus. That's chinook salmon and white sturgeon, for short. At the Bonneville Dam in Cascade Locks, Oregon, venerable fish such as these swim up "fish ladders" made just for them. The ladders, which are used across the U.S., allow fish to bypass dams and natural barriers, usually on their way upstream to spawn.

As my husband and I stopped in to the Bonneville Dam's visitor's center awhile back, Woody Guthrie's "Roll On Columbia" played in my head. While we were interested in seeing the historic dam, who knew that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could make watching fish swim a truly captivating endeavor?

Outside the visitor's center, I could clearly see the fish ladder coming from the Columbia River. Designed to simulate a set of rapids, it has helped an average of more than one million salmon and other fish migrate past the dam each year. Inside the center, we were greeted by huge windows that surprised us with an underwater view into the fish ladder itself. Schools of steelheads and jacks swam by in the cloudy water as we ran to the windows like little kids to get a better look. We also were lucky enough to spot a lone lamprey, which stopped to rest on the glass with its suction-cup mouth before it continued its fight against the current.

Bonneville Dam fish counter in her office

And file this under "cool government job." We met one of the fish counters at the dam—a very nice woman who sits in an office with a huge window for hours at a time, counting and identifying the various fish that swim past her window through the ladder, for conservation and other purposes.

If you want to see a murky view of what the fish counters see in real time, visit the Bonneville Dam's Fishcam. It sure beats watching an aquarium screen saver any day.

Have you been to an interesting government visitors center?

| View Comments [5] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: bonneville_dam   columbia_river   fish_ladder   government_job   salmon   stephanie   visitors_center