Interpreter Sign Language Technical Expert (Sign Language Interpreter Expert Specialist)-Reservist
What you'd do
In this position, you will work as a member of the Civil Rights Cadre. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in providing interpreting and transliterating services as a reasonable accommodation for individuals who are Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, and Deaf-Blind in a variety of fast-paced settings. NEW! USERRA now protects the full-time employment of FEMA reservists when they are deployed to disasters, emergencies, and critical trainings on behalf of FEMA. Review the FEMA Crew Act FAQs.
Major duties
What will I do in this position if hired? In this Interpreter Sign Language Technical Expert (Sign Language Interpreter Expert Specialist)-Reservist position, you will be a member of the Civil Rights Cadre and will provide Sign Language Interpreting services to FEMA staff in order to achieve equal access and effective communication throughout all phases of emergency response, recovery, mitigation and preparedness. Typical assignments include: Interpreting a variety of situations and conditions during disaster response and recovery, including but not limited to, internal FEMA staff meetings, briefings, training sessions, conference calls, community meetings, and other events. Ensure communication between Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing/Deaf-Blind persons and hearing persons is conveyed successfully from the source language into the target language or communication form most clearly understood by the participants. Interact with various other Cadres within FEMA while maintaining collaborative professional relationships with colleagues, senior staff, community organizations, and disaster survivors. Perform additional programmatic duties in support of the cadre's mission. What else do I need to know? At FEMA, our mission to help people before, during and after disasters; so, every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management. Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee's official position description. Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions. As a Reservist Employee, your role is to support response or recovery efforts. Reservists are intermittent, on-call employees. Please note that this is not a full-time position, and you only are paid when deployed. Deployment frequency and length varies based on disaster response need. Due to the irregular nature of disasters, Reservist employees are not guaranteed regular recurring hours, deployments, or renewal of employment. The Civilian Reservist Emergency Workforce (CREW) Act protects the job rights of FEMA Reservists while they are deployed to disasters, emergencies, and critical trainings by including FEMA Reservists under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployments Rights Act (USERRA). This means that if you hold another job, you are able to deploy as a FEMA reservist and your job will be protected. It also protects you against penalization, discrimination, or loss of employee benefits as a result of your deployments to disasters, emergencies, and critical trainings. For more information, please visit FEMA.gov/careers or review the USERRA Resources from the Department of Labor.
What you need to qualify
To qualify for the Interpreter Sign Language Technical Expert (Sign Language Interpreter Expert Specialist)-Reservist, you must possess experience in each of the following areas: Assessing individual communication needs to determine interpreting services required; and Interpreting (spoken to sign/sign to spoken) for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing individuals in a variety of professional settings. In addition: Minimum age of eighteen years of age is required. All candidates must be a high school graduate or possess a GED. Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application: Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position. Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity. Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience. Documenting your experience: Qualifications are based on breadth/level of experience. In addition to describing duties performed, you must provide your job title (including series and grade if a federal position), start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY), and the number of hours worked per week if part time. Current or former FEMA Reservists/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE): To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of each deployment, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment. Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information. Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found "not qualified". Overstating your qualifications and/or experience in your application materials or application questionnaire may result in your removal from consideration. 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). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. For additional information on crediting experience and/or education, please reference the OPM General Schedule Qualification Standards
Before you apply
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