Entry Level Private Land Management Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Salary: $31.54 Hourly
Location : Fairbanks, AK
Job Type: Full Time
Job Number: 54835
Department: Natural Resources
Division: Mining, Land & Water
Opening Date: 08/11/2026
Closing Date: 8/26/2026 5:00 PM Alaska
Position Open To: Alaska Residents Only
Bargaining Unit: General Government
Range: 16
Job Description
The Department of Natural Resources, Division of Mining, Land & Water, is recruiting for a Natural Resource Specialist 2 in Fairbanks.
This position is open to Alaska Residents only.
Please check our residency definition to determine if you qualify.
What You Will Be Doing:
The duties of this Natural Resource 2 position within the Division of Mining, Land and Water (DMLW), Land Conveyance Section (LCS) include:

• Collaborating with a team in a dynamic and diverse office setting;
• Identifying, preparing, and coordinating future land disposal projects;
• Conducting extensive land status, regulatory, and legal research;
• Generating innovative and creative solutions to land management problems; and
• Producing defensible decisions while also maintaining land management records.

If you would like to make a difference in our state by accepting these duties, our supportive and motivated team is looking for you!
Mission and Values/Culture:
The DMLW mission is "To provide for the appropriate use and management of Alaska's state-owned land and water, aiming toward maximum use consistent with the public interest." The LCS mission is "To provide opportunities for land entitlement, preference right, and competitive sale, directly or indirectly benefiting the residents and nonresidents of Alaska, encouraging private land ownership and settlement." LCS contributes to these missions by fulfilling constitutional and legislative mandates to encourage the settlement of State lands, by creating opportunities for land ownership for the benefit of the public. This position is on the Competitive Land Conveyance Unit, otherwise known as the Project Development Team, whose purpose is to provide the opportunity for private land ownership through various land sale programs. This position helps drive the economy of the State through a variety of unique land sale programs and creates opportunities to get Alaska's Lands into Alaskans' Hands. Our culture emphasizes collaboration, technical excellence, and public service, reflected in sound, transparent decision-making and efficient program processes.
Benefits of Joining Our Team:
This position is housed within the Land Conveyance Section, which offers an extremely supportive, positive, and collaborative work environment. The successful applicant will have access to training and travel opportunities, as well as advancement opportunities within the Division/Department. The work is both intellectually challenging and professionally rewarding, with frequent opportunities to solve complex, real-world problems. Employees work extensively with municipalities, the public, and other agencies to support the responsible development of Alaska's lands, contributing directly to the state's long-term economic health.
The Working Environment You Can Expect:
This position is located in Fairbanks at the Department of Natural Resources office. Fairbanks is a beautiful Interior Alaska city that serves as the economic and transportation hub of the region, with an international airport and the University of Alaska Fairbanks nearby. The office offers a charming, wooded setting with convenient access to shopping and restaurants, and Fairbanks provides extensive year-round outdoor recreation opportunities- including hiking, wildlife viewing, river trips, winter sports, and world-class aurora viewing - amid striking natural scenery. Core office hours are 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., with a 7.5-hour daily work schedule, Monday through Friday. Though this position is primarily office-based, we offer hybrid teleworking opportunities for all our staff. Work schedules are flexible as long as they fall within the State of Alaska core office hours. Occasional travel for fieldwork is required. Traveling to rural locations may require travel in small aircraft, boats, or off-road vehicles.
Weekly staff meetings are held to promote communication, collaboration, and camaraderie, as well as to coordinate staff activities and share vital information.
We are looking for a candidate who possesses the following position-specific competencies.

• Adaptability: Adjusts planned work by gathering relevant information and applying critical thinking to address multiple demands and competing priorities in a changing environment.
• Interpersonal Skills: Shows understanding, friendliness, courtesy, tact, empathy, concern, and politeness to others; develops and maintains effective relationships with others; may include effectively dealing with individuals who are difficult, hostile, or distressed; relates well to people from varied backgrounds and different situations; is sensitive to cultural diversity, race, gender, disabilities, and other individual differences.
• Influencing/Negotiating: Persuades others; builds consensus through give and take; gains cooperation from others to obtain information and accomplish goals.

Click here to learn more about working for the Division of Mining, Land & Water.
Minimum Qualifications
Competency-Based Minimum Qualifications Instructions
This job class uses competency-based minimum qualifications. Please ensure your application (through work history, volunteer experience (duties summary), training, education, licenses, certifications, etc.) supports how you have gained the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors (competencies) and that you possess the minimum required competencies for the job class.
Competency DescriptionThe competency description(s) listed below have been designed to promote a common understanding of the essential elements of the job class. They highlight the more general and customary knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs), tasks, and behaviors used to describe the competency. They typically list expectations instead of specific tasks and are only used as parameters and guidelines. A competency's description is not intended to exclusively define every KSA, task, and behavior needed to meet the competency successfully, but rather to provide the manager/agency with a broad reference of options for how an applicant can meet the job expectation.
Minimum Qualifications
Any combination of education and/or experience that provides the applicant with competencies in:

• Analytical Thinking/Problem Solving: uses a logical, systematic, sequential approach to address problems or opportunities or manage a situation by drawing on one's knowledge and experience base and calling on other references and resources as necessary.
• Decision-Making: Makes sound, well-informed, and objective decisions; perceives the impact and implications of decisions; commits to action, even in uncertain situations, to accomplish organizational goals; causes change.
• Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence: Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, legal practices and documents, Government regulations, Executive orders, agency rules, Government organization and functions, and the democratic political process.
• Oral Communication: Expresses information (for example, ideas or facts) to individuals or groups effectively, taking into account the audience and nature of the information (for example, technical, sensitive, controversial); makes clear and convincing oral presentations; listens to others, attends to nonverbal cues, and responds appropriately.
• Writing: Recognizes or uses correct English grammar, punctuation, and spelling; communicates information (for example, facts, ideas, or messages) in a succinct and organized manner; produces written information, which may include technical material, that is appropriate for the intended audience.

equivalent to those typically gained by:
Education in a natural resource field (such as forestry, geology, agronomy, and hydrology), public administration, planning, economics, cartography, or a closely related field and/or professional level experience in natural resource management.
Definitions:
"Competencies" means a combination of interrelated knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors that enable a person to act effectively in a job or situation.
"Professional experience" means work that is creative, analytical, evaluative, and interpretive; requires a range and depth of specialized knowledge of the profession's principles, concepts, theories, and practices; and is performed with the power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment.
"Qualified" means is assessed to credibly possess the competencies needed to learn the job in a reasonable period.
"Training" and "education" in this guidance are synonyms for the process of acquiring knowledge and skills through instruction. It includes instruction through formal and informal methods (such as classroom, on-line, self-study, and on-the-job), from accredited and unaccredited sources, and long duration (such as a post-secondary degree) and short-duration (such as a seminar) programs.
"Typically gained by" means the prevalent, usual method of gaining the competencies expected for entry into the job.
Special Note:
For purposes of the minimum qualifications, natural resource management is defined as the management of the land, water, mineral, forest, oil, gas, agricultural, archaeological, natural and cultural history, park, and related surface and subsurface resources. Experience or education in natural resource management means involvement in the above resources exclusively. Those with experience or education in managing these resources may specialize in different management functions (for example, planning, regulation, research or title). All of this experience is applicable to the natural resource management definition. Some positions may require education in a particular area of natural resource management or specific technical knowledge and training gained through specialized education or progressively greater responsibilities at the lower levels of the series.
Additional Required Information
** Please read the information below carefully. **
At the time of the interview, please ensure that you provide the following materials. Failure to do so may result in loss of consideration. Required documents include:

• A copy of your last two performance evaluations or two letters of reference if performance evaluations are not available.
• Three professional references with current contact information, one (1) of which must be a former or current supervisor.
• Valid Driver's License

SPECIAL NOTICES

• A Public Notary Commission is preferred but not required in advance (this may be obtained after hire).
• Requires occasional travel within the State (typically 1 - 3 trips of up to 4 days in length per year), occasionally to remote locations via small aircraft, boats or off-road vehicles.

Application Notice
You can ONLY apply for this position through the Workplace Alaska website or by submitting a paper application. Instructions for applying are available on the Workplace Alaska webpage. Your application must be received by 5:00 p.m. Alaska Standard Time on the closing date.
Supplemental Questions
For your application to be evaluated, you must answer the Supplemental Questions. The State of Alaska (SOA) uses four proficiency levels to measure and describe an applicant's competence in applying specific behaviors, knowledge, skills, and abilities to accomplish a specific task. The four proficiency levels are Mastery, Fluency, Literacy, and Discovery. You must rate your proficiency level for each competency listed in the supplemental questions.
Education
If post-secondary education is required to meet the minimum qualifications, you must fill out the Education section of the application. If you have not yet obtained a degree, please indicate the units you have completed. Copies of transcripts are required to verify educational credentials if used to meet the minimum qualifications for a position.
Special Instructions for Foreign Education
Education completed at foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet the minimum qualifications listed above. If using this education to meet minimum qualification requirements, you must demonstrate that the credentials have been submitted to a private organization specializing in interpreting foreign educational credentials and that such education has been deemed at least equivalent to that gained in standard U.S. education programs. Alternatively, an accredited U.S. post-secondary institution must report that the other institution's transcript is given full value or that full value is recognized in relevant subject areas aligned with the post-secondary institution's curricula. It is your responsibility to provide this evidence when applying.
Work Experience
If using work experience not already documented in your application, also provide the employer's name, job title, employment dates, and whether full or part-time. Applications will be reviewed to determine whether the responses are supported and whether the minimum qualifications are met. If they are not, the applicant may not advance to the recruitment interview and selection phase.
Note: Attaching a resume does not substitute for completing the application in full. Noting, "see resume" or any similar response on any portion of your application may lead to a determination that your application is incomplete and removal from consideration for this job posting.
Bargaining Unit<