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Clinical Laboratory Scientist

Employer
USAJobs
Location
Bethesda, Maryland
Closing date
Sep 24, 2019
Duties

Summary

About the Position: Work is primarily performed in a laboratory environment which includes multiple rooms and sophisticated equipment. Work involves regular and recurrent exposure to a range of hazards to include caustic chemicals, radioactive materials, biological hazardous agents and cold temperatures. You must make use of protective devices such as gloves, mask, safety goggles, and biological safety hoods as required.
Position is being filled using EHA - Critical Need Health Care Occupations.
Learn more about this agency

Responsibilities

  • Provide research and education service to medical fellows and researchers by assisting in the development of research protocols. Perform experimental procedures for assigned research protocols to support the research activities.
  • Develops, standardizes, optimizes, and validates new procedures not previously available as required to carry out research projects, and evaluates published available techniques to assess applicability to the ongoing research studies.
  • Execute standard and advanced techniques in the following research fields: protein and analytical chemistry, chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis, and assays for nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and other biomolecules.
  • Performing assays for separation, detection, and analysis of proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules using standard and advanced analytical chemistry techniques.
  • Utilize standard and advanced analytical chemistry techniques including high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC), and various mass spectrometry techniques.
  • Operating and trouble-shooting analytical instruments including various chromatography and mass spectrometry systems.


Travel Required

Not required

Supervisory status
No

Promotion Potential
None

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

  • This position requires the incumbent be able to obtain and maintain a determination of eligibility for a Tier 3 security investigation or access for the duration of employment. A background investigation and credit check are required.
  • This position requires the incumbent to have tuberculosis testing.
  • Appointment may be subject to a suitability or fitness determination, as determined by a completed background investigation.
  • This position requires you to satisfactorily complete a pre-employment physical examination.


Qualifications

Who May Apply: US Citizens

In order to qualify, you must meet the education and/or the experience requirements described below. 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). You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Your resume must clearly describe your relevant experience; if qualifying based on education, your transcripts will be required as part of your application. Additional information about transcripts is in this document .

Basic Requirements

Education:
  • A Bachelor's or graduate/higher level degree from a regionally accredited college/university including courses in biological science, chemistry and mathematics, AND successful completion of a Medical Laboratory Scientist/Clinical Laboratory Scientist program accredited by the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS) or an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (external link) at the time the degree was obtained.
    OR
  • A full 4-year course of study that included 12 months in a college or hospital-based medical technology program or medical technology school approved by a recognized accrediting organization. The professional medical technology curriculum may have consisted of a 1-year post- bachelor's certificate program or the last 1 or 2 years of a 4-year program of study culminating in a bachelor's in medical technology.
    OR
  • A Bachelor's or graduate/higher level degree from an accredited college/university, including 16 semester hours (24 quarter hours) of biological science (with one semester in microbiology), 16 semester hours (24 quarter hours) of chemistry (with one semester in organic or biochemistry), one semester (one quarter) of mathematics, AND five years of full time acceptable clinical laboratory experience in Blood Banking, Chemistry, Hematology, microbiology, Immunology and Urinalysis/Body Fluids. This combination of education and experience must have provided knowledge of the theories, principles, and practices of medical technology equivalent to that provided by the full 4-year course of study described in A or B above. All science and mathematics courses must have been acceptable for credit toward meeting the requirements for a science major at an accredited college or university. Acceptable experience is responsible professional or technician experience in a hospital laboratory, health agency, industrial medical laboratory, or pharmaceutical house; or teaching, test development, or medical research program experience that provided an understanding of the methods and techniques applied in performing professional clinical laboratory work. Certification/licensure as a medical technologist (generalist) obtained through written examination by a nationally recognized credentialing agency or State licensing body is a good indication that the quality of experience is acceptable.

Employees currently assigned to positions in this occupational series as of September 2017 will be considered to have met the basic requirements for the position occupied (you must still provide a copy of your transcripts with your application package).

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

Experience required: To qualify based on your work experience, your resume must describe at least one year of experience which prepared you to do the work in this job. Specialized experience includes developing and optimizing methods and performing assays for separation,
detection, and analysis of proteins, nucleic acids, and/or small molecules using analytical techniques and instrumentation including high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC) and ultra high-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), and various mass spectrometry techniques such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and/or matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). This definition of specialized experience is typical of work performed at the next lower grade/level position in the federal service (GS-09).

Some federal jobs allow you to substitute your education for the required experience in order to qualify. For this job, you may qualify if your education meets the definitions below:

Education Substitution for Specialized Experience for GS-11: Successful completion of a Master's degree or equivalent degree, or two full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree in a field which demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform the work of this position, such as Clinical Laboratory Science or Medical Technology.

Combination of Experience and Education Substitution for Specialized Experience for GS-11: If you have some, but not all, of the experience or education described above, you may still qualify by combining the amount of creditable experience and education that you possess. To compute the percentage, divide your months of qualifying experience by 12. Then divide your semester hours of graduate education beyond the first year (total graduate semester hours minus 36) by 18. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify.

Education

FOREIGN EDUCATION: If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities to meet the qualification requirements, you must show the education credentials have been evaluated by a private organization that specializes in interpretation of foreign education programs and such education has been deemed equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. education program; or full credit has been given for the courses at a U.S. accredited college or university. For further information, visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html

Additional information

  • Male applicants born after December 31, 1959 must complete a Pre-Employment Certification Statement for Selective Service Registration.
  • You will be required to provide proof of U.S. Citizenship.
  • Two year trial/probationary period may be required.
  • Direct Deposit of Pay is required.
  • Selection is subject to restrictions resulting from Department of Defense referral system for displaced employees.
  • If you have retired from federal service and you are interested in employment as a reemployed annuitant, see the information in the Reemployed Annuitant information sheet.
  • Salary includes applicable locality pay or Local Market Supplement.
  • If you are unable to apply online or need to fax a document you do not have in electronic form, view the following link for information regarding an Alternate Application .
  • Payment of Permanent Change of Station (PCS) costs is not authorized, based on a determination that a PCS move is not in the Government interest.


How You Will Be Evaluated

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

Once the announcement has closed, a review of your application package (resume, supporting documents, and responses to the questionnaire) will be used to determine whether you meet the qualification requirements listed on this announcement. If, after reviewing your résumé and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your qualifications and/or experience, you may lose consideration for this position. Please follow all instructions carefully when applying, errors or omissions may affect your eligibility.

You should list any relevant performance appraisals and incentive awards in your resume as that information may be taken into consideration during the selection process. If selected, you may be required to provide supporting documentation.

Interagency Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP). If you are a Federal employee in the competitive service and your agency has notified you in writing that you are a displaced employee eligible for ICTAP consideration, you may receive selection priority for this position. To receive selection priority, you must: (1) meet ICTAP eligibility criteria (2) be rated well-qualified for the position and; (3) submit the appropriate documentation to support your ICTAP eligibility. To be considered well-qualified and receive selection priority applicants must satisfy all qualification requirements for the position and receive a score of 90 or above. Additional information about the program is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website .

Background checks and security clearance

Security clearance
Not Required

Drug test required
No

Required Documents

The documents you are required to submit vary based on whether or not you are eligible for preference in federal employment. A complete description of preference categories and the associated required documents is in the Applicant Checklist (External).

As described above, your complete application includes your resume, your responses to the online questionnaire, and documents which prove your eligibility to apply. If you fail to provide these documents, you will be marked as having an incomplete application package and you will not be considered any further.

1. Your resume:
  • Your resume may be submitted in any format and must support the specialized experience described in this announcement.
  • If your resume includes a photograph or other inappropriate material or content, it will not be used to make eligibility and qualification determinations and you may not be considered for this vacancy.
  • For qualifications determinations your resume must contain hours worked per week and the dates of employment (i.e., HRS per week and month/year to month/year or month/year to present). If your resume does not contain this information, your application may be marked as incomplete and you may not receive consideration for this position.
  • For additional information see: What to include in your resume .
2. Other supporting documents:
  • Cover Letter, optional
  • Most recent Performance Appraisal, if applicable
  • If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements: You MUST submit a copy of your transcript if you want to substitute your education for experience. If you claim qualifications based on education, and do not submit a transcript, your education will not be used in making a qualification determination and you may be found "not qualified." See: Transcripts and Licenses .
NOTE: Documents submitted as part of the application package, to include supplemental documents, may be shared beyond the Human Resources Office. Some supplemental documents such as military orders and marriage certificates may contain personal information for someone other than you. You may sanitize these documents to remove another person's personal information before you submit your application. You may be asked to provide an un-sanitized version of the documents if you are selected to confirm your eligibility.

If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education .

Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.

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