Duties

Summary

The News and Multimedia Division within the NASA Office of Communications in Washington, DC, is seeking a skilled individual to serve as a public affairs specialist supporting the agency's human spaceflight activities. Will be responsible for writing and editing agency news releases, web articles, and media advisories, and producing other products to inform the public about NASA activities; planning and conducting news events; and building and maintaining working relationships with media.
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Responsibilities

• Leads the team to plan, organize, direct, gather, coordinate, produce, write, and edit products, and disseminate news and public information regarding NASA activities that are released to the media and public.
• Coaches the team in the selection and application of appropriate problem solving methods and techniques, and serves as facilitator in coordinating team initiatives, policy implementation, and consensus building.
• Leads the team in identifying, distributing, and balancing workload among employees; and monitors and reports on the status and progress of work.
• Provides expert writing and copy editing for various news and informational products in a variety of digital/multimedia mediums.
• Identifies and develops strategies, tactics, products, messaging, and plans and conducts public and news events for agency strategic communications priorities and various high-profile activities.
• Serves as a lead spokesperson for the agency, and is authorized to speak on behalf of NASA to members of the media, public, and other groups.
• Using specialty expertise, performs work administering, supervising, or performing work involved in establishing and maintaining communication between NASA and various other pertinent publics, including internal and external, foreign audiences.
• Provides consultation and advice to senior NASA managers on developing and/or revising policies, communications activities, and materials for internal and external use.

Travel Required

Occasional travel - Travel may be required for training or other work-related duties

Supervisory status
No

Promotion Potential
15

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• Position subject to pre-employment background investigation

Qualifications

Applicant must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the next lower grade (GS-14), which has equipped the applicant with the particular competencies needed to successfully perform the duties of the position described above.

Specialized experience includes demonstrated success in the fields of government public affairs, or commercial public relations, or journalism, or ideally, a combination of some or all of these fields; developing communication products and conducting special events intended for the public, news media, social media and the web; providing full service public affairs support (products, services, advice, crisis communications, and counsel) to senior leaders, managers and employees; and writing and editing documents at a highly proficient and skilled level, meeting journalistic standards and ensuring technical accuracy.

Your resume must include a clear and detailed narrative description, in your own words, of how you meet the required specialized experience. Experience statements copied from a position description, vacancy announcement or other reference material constitutes plagiarism and may result in disqualification and losing consideration for the job.

Please spell out all acronyms.

Education

There are no education requirements for this position.

Additional information

Individuals who have special priority selection rights under the Agency Career Transition Assistance Program (CTAP) or the Interagency Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP) must be well qualified for the position to receive consideration for special priority selection. See 'How You Will Be Evaluated' for definition of well qualified. Federal employees seeking CTAP/ICTAP consideration must indicate their eligibility when applying for a position. The USAJOBS resume asks you to identify your ICTAP eligibility; the NASA Supplemental Information asks you to identify your CTAP eligibility. If you are selected for the position, you must be prepared to submit proof that you meet the requirements for CTAP/ICTAP. This includes a copy of the agency notice, a copy of their most recent Performance Rating and a copy of their most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location.

Qualified NASA term employees who have term conversion eligibility under the NASA Flexibility Act of 2004 will be referred and considered equally with other NASA permanent employees under internal competitive placement procedures.

Your USAJOBS account asks you to assign a name to each of your resumes. When you apply to a NASA position, we will show you the text of the resume you have submitted, but we do not maintain the name you have assigned to that resume. If you wish to keep track of that information, we recommend you make note of it at the time you apply.

Fair Employment Opportunities for Applicants
NASA Credit for National Service

You must meet time-in-grade requirements, three months after competitive appointment restrictions, and qualifications requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

As identical vacancies are identified, additional selections may be made.

How You Will Be Evaluated

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

Resumes will be rated by an automated system (Resumix) that matches the competencies extracted from the candidate's resume to the competencies identified by the selecting official for the position. Candidates will be evaluated on the competencies they possess that are directly related to the duties of the job, as described in the announcement. Candidates should refer to NASA's Applicant Guide for assistance in developing a complete resume, as NASA will not accept separate KSA statements.

Qualified candidates will be assigned to one of three quality levels based on the degree to which their competencies meet the duties required. A human resources specialist will validate the qualifications of those candidates eligible to be referred to the selecting official. For the purpose of the Career Transition Assistance Program (CTAP) and the Interagency Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP), candidates rated in the top quality level are considered well-qualified.

Background checks and security clearance

Security clearance
Not Required

Drug test required
No

Required Documents

NASA's application process has been specifically developed to ensure that we only ask you for the information we absolutely need to evaluate your qualifications and eligibility. In order to apply for this position, you only need to submit your resume and answer the screening questions and supplemental information. No additional documentation is accepted at the time of application. (For example you need not submit narrative 'KSA' statements; they are not required and will not be evaluated.) In this way we allow you to focus on preparing a resume that best describes your background and abilities. For assistance in preparing your resume, consult the Applicant Guide . Nothing further is required until requested by the Human Resources Office. At that point, we may ask you to submit documentation to support statements made in your resume. For example, we may ask you to provide academic transcripts or proof of Federal employment status. If you are claiming veterans' preference, we may ask you to submit proof of veterans preference (DD-214, and, if claiming 10-point preference, SF-15 plus proof required by that form). If you fail to provide the required documents within the stated time period, we may withdraw a job offer and/or remove you from further consideration.

To receive consideration, you must submit a resume and answer NASA-specific questions. The NASA questions appear after you submit your resume and are transferred to the NASA web site. If you successfully apply, USAJOBS will show your application status as 'Received'. If your status is 'Application Status Not Available', you have not successfully applied. Do not rely on a USAJOBS email to confirm successful application. Only an email from NASA confirms a successful application.

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.