Research Assistant

Position description

This position is located at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of Research. The purpose of this position is to collect and analyze data from primary sources, develop reliable reports, and prepare economic, statistical, or financial analyses on well-defined questions.

As a Research Assistant, you will:

• Develop and maintain shared databases; manage the timeliness and integrity of data; maintain documentation of database contents and data flows to ensure that future verification and reproduction of results can take place, coordinating activities of others as needed; produce reports and provide information on database contents to support the requirements of management, data maintainers, and data user.
• Apply a variety of economic and statistical analysis and modeling techniques that are used by economists, psychologists, and statisticians for research. Perform straightforward mathematical and statistical calculations to support research and monitoring of policy developments.
• Develop expertise in straightforward statistical sampling and modeling to provide technical assistance to researchers and policy analysts. Monitor and report on current developments in assigned consumer financial area.
• Make modifications in existing data gathering and statistical reporting procedures and assists in review and adoption of new procedures, applying in-depth knowledge of the source data and data manipulation techniques. Seek out innovative, new sources of data to improve quality of analysis and incorporate them into analysis.
• Keep abreast of and write segments of reports on economic or financial developments, and perform systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of economic data to support findings.

Qualifications

Conditions of Employment

 

Key Requirements:

• Must be U.S. Citizen or U.S. National
• This position is being filled under the Bureau’s excepted service authority.
• A two-year trial period may be required.
• A trial period that will cover the full period of the appointment may be required.
• Complete a Declaration for Federal Employment to determine your suitability for Federal employment, at the time requested by the agency.
• Appointments under this authority will be made in the excepted service and do not convey competitive status.
• This appointment may be extended an additional 2 years.
• Have your salary sent to a financial institution of your choice by Direct Deposit/Electronic Funds Transfer.
• If you are a male applicant born after December 31, 1959, certify that you have registered with the Selective Service System or are exempt from having to do so.
• Go through a Personal Identity Verification (PIV) process that requires two forms of identification from the Form i-9. Federal law requires verification of the identity and employment eligibility of all new hires in the U.S.
• This position requires that the successful candidate undergo personnel vetting, which includes a background investigation and enrollment upon onboarding into “Continuous Vetting.” Enrollment in Continuous Vetting will result in automated record checks being conducted throughout one’s employment with CFPB. The successful candidate will also be enrolled into FBI’s Rap Back service, which will allow CFPB to receive notification from the FBI of criminal matters (e.g., arrests, charges, convictions) involving enrolled individuals in near real-time.

 

Qualifications

* For the CN-30: You must meet the following requirements within 9 months of the announcement’s closing date.

To qualify at the CN-30 level: You must have completion of all requirements for a bachelor’s degree in one of the following fields – Economics, Mathematics, Mathematical Statistics, Statistics, or Computer Science.

OR A combination of education and experience for one of these fields as listed in the Basic Requirements for each series.

The experience may have been gained in either the public, private sector or volunteer service. One year of experience refers to full-time work; part-time work is considered on a prorated basis. To ensure full credit for your work experience, please indicate dates of employment by month/day/year, and indicate number of hours worked per week on your résumé.

Education

You must meet the basic education requirements for at least one of the occupational series listed below plus the qualifying/specialized experience required for the position at the CN-30 level. For the CN-30: Candidates who are in the process of completing the requirements for education will be considered as long as the requirements are completed within 9 months from the closing date of this vacancy.

You MUST submit a copy of your transcripts or equivalent.

Basic Requirements (Individual Occupational Requirements) Economist, 0110:

• Degree: economics, that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus.

OR

• Combination of education and experience: courses equivalent to a major in economics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Mathematics, 1520:

• Degree: mathematics; or the equivalent of a major that included at least 24 semester hours in mathematics.

OR

• Combination of education and experience — courses equivalent to a major in mathematics (including at least 24 semester hours in mathematics), as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

The total course work in either A or B above must have included differential and integral calculus and, in addition, four advanced mathematics courses requiring calculus or equivalent mathematics courses as a prerequisite.

Mathematical Statistics, 1529

• Degree: that included 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, of which at least 12 semester hours were in mathematics and 6 semester hours were in statistics.

OR

• Combination of education and experience — at least 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, including at least 12 hours in mathematics and 6 hours in statistics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

Courses acceptable toward meeting the mathematics course requirement of paragraphs A or B above must have included at least four of the following: differential calculus, integral calculus, advanced calculus, theory of equations, vector analysis, advanced algebra, linear algebra, mathematical logic, differential equations, or any other advanced course in mathematics for which one of these was a prerequisite. Courses in mathematical statistics or probability theory with a prerequisite of elementary calculus or more advanced courses will be accepted toward meeting the mathematics requirements, with the provision that the same course cannot be counted toward both the mathematics and the statistics requirement.

Statistics, 1530:

• Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing.

OR

• Combination of education and experience — courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.

Computer Science, 1550:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or bachelor’s degree with 30 semester hours in a combination of mathematics, statistics, and computer science. At least 15 of the 30 semester hours must have included any combination of statistics and mathematics that included differential and integral calculus. All academic degrees and course work must be from accredited or pre-accredited institutions.

The education generally must be from an accredited (or pre-accredited) college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. If you are qualifying based on foreign education, you must submit proof of creditability of education as evaluated by a credentialing agency. Refer to the OPM instructions.

You MUST submit a copy of your transcripts or equivalent.

Application instructions

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