Horticultural Science Jobs (NOW HIRING)

The Architect of the Capitol (AOC) has a leadership position as Director of Horticulture within Capitol Grounds and Arboretum (CGA); Horticulture Division. The Supervisory Horticulturist primary purpose of the position is to provide leadership and long-term planning for the Gardening Division, including planning and managing long term human capital, budget, customer experience, curatorial and other critical processes.

You must meet the United States Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) qualification requirements (including specialized experience and/or educational requirements) for the advertised position. You must meet all eligibility and qualifications requirements by the closing date of the job announcement. Additional information on the qualification requirements is outlined in the OPM Qualifications Standards Handbook of General Schedule Positions. It is available for your review on the OPM web site at http://www.opm.gov/qualifications.

Specialized Experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position and is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled. To be creditable, an applicant's one full year of specialized experience must have been equivalent to at least the next lower grade level.

To qualify at the GS-14 level, your resume must clearly demonstrate that you have one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience comparable in difficulty and responsibility to at least the GS-13 level in the federal service. Examples of qualifying experience include the following types of tasks performed on a regular and recurring basis:

• Performing administrative and technical supervision of subordinate staff in the performance of gardening and grounds maintenance and repair work to include staffing levels, performance management, training and development and organization and position management;
• Providing guidance and managing maintenance programs for a public gardens that include seasonal horticultural displays and landscape preservations;
• Performing gardening work, including estimating material and labor costs for a variety of landscape projects, directing actual work operations and maintaining contact with the organization funding the project; and
• Serving as a Contracting Officer's Technical Representative (COTR) or equivalent.

In addition to meeting the specialized experience requirements, applicants must have the following:

Degree: Horticulture; or a related discipline of basic plant science that included at least 30 semester hours in the basic plant sciences, of which at least 16 semester hours were in horticultural subjects such as those dealing with the breeding, care, management, production, and post-harvest handling of horticultural crops.
--OR--
Combination of education and experience: courses equivalent to a major in horticulture or a related discipline of basic plant science that included course work as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.
Courses in botany, plant physiology, plant taxonomy, plant pathology, genetics, agronomy, horticulture, and similar courses may be used to meet the 30-semester-hour requirement in basic plant sciences.
The 16-semester-hour requirement in horticulture includes course work in basic horticulture and course work related to any of the recognized subject-matter fields of horticulture, i.e., fruits, vegetables, ornamentals, nursery work, seed production, or course work in related areas of science, such as micro-biology, entomology, plant pathology, plant physiology, or genetics that is directly related to horticultural work.
Special Instructions for Foreign Education: 
Education completed outside of the United States must be deemed equivalent to that gained in conventional/accredited U.S. education programs to be acceptable for Federal employment.
Qualifying education from colleges and universities in foreign countries must be evaluated in terms of equivalency to that acquired in U.S. colleges and universities. Applicants educated in whole or in part of foreign countries must submit sufficient evidence, including transcripts, to an accredited private organization for an equivalency evaluation of course work and degree.
You must provide a copy of the letter containing the results of the equivalency evaluation with a course by course listing if selected.