How to Get a Forest Service Seasonal Job: USAJOBS, Pay Grades and Timeline

A Forest Service seasonal job is a temporary federal appointment. You clean campgrounds, clear trails, cruise and mark timber, check grazing allotments or survey wildlife for one field season, then the job ends. Almost all of it is posted on USAJOBS, paid on the General Schedule, and filled in short application windows months before the work starts.

Fire is a separate track. Wildland firefighters are hired on their own announcements, in the 0456 Wildland Fire Management series, on the higher GW pay table; see wildland firefighter pay. Everything below covers the recreation, timber, range, trail and biology jobs.

How does Forest Service seasonal hiring work?

You apply on USAJOBS to a temporary announcement, and if you qualify, your application is shared with hiring managers across many forests at once. The February 2026 announcements were national. One of them, the GS-5 Forestry Technician (Recreation, Timber, Range) announcement 26-TEMPSRT-NAT-3FS042-5DH, listed duty stations from Juneau, Alaska to Escalante, Utah and Blacksburg, Virginia. Choosing “Location Negotiable” when you apply means you are willing to be considered for any duty station on the announcement and for some that are not listed (USAJOBS, accessed Sep 13, 2026).

The appointment is temporary: up to six months or not to exceed one year, possibly extended without competing again, and it can end early for lack of work or funds. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest described its 2026 jobs as not to exceed 1,039 hours. To be hired you must be a U.S. citizen or national and at least 18, men born after December 31, 1959 must be registered with Selective Service, and you must pass a background check and E-Verify. If you get a tentative selection notice, you have 72 hours to send the requested documents or the selection is canceled.

The 2026 seasonal announcements used Direct Hire Authority under the USDA Demonstration Project. There is no rating and ranking: every applicant who meets the minimum qualifications is referred to the selecting official. It also means veterans’ preference does not apply on those announcements, even though USAJOBS says preference normally applies to both temporary and permanent jobs in the competitive and excepted service. Veterans should still keep a DD-214 in their profile, because 10-point and 5-point preference and hiring paths such as VRA and VEOA apply on many other federal announcements (USAJOBS Help Center, accessed Sep 13, 2026).

What GS grade will I be hired at, and what does it pay?

Most first-season applicants land at GS-3 or GS-4, and your grade depends on what your resume proves. These were the Forestry Technician (0462) requirements on the 2026 national announcements:

• GS-3: six months of any work that shows you can do the job, such as farm or ranch labor, greenhouse or nursery work, or regular volunteer work; or one year of college with 6 semester hours in courses such as forestry, range, wildlife, biology or math.
• GS-4: six months of general experience plus six months of specialized experience, or two years of college with 12 semester hours in related courses.
• GS-5: one year of specialized experience equal to GS-4, or a bachelor’s degree with a related major or at least 24 semester hours in related courses.
• GS-6: one year of specialized experience equal to GS-5. Education does not substitute.

OPM’s qualification standard for the series also credits seasonal work: a season is at least three months, two seasons qualify you for GS-3 and four seasons for GS-4.

Grade	2026 hourly, Rest of U.S., step 1	2026 annual, Rest of U.S., step 1	Hourly posted on 2026 Forest Service seasonal announcements
GS-3	$15.54	$32,435	$17.30
GS-4	$17.45	$36,409	$17.64
GS-5	$19.52	$40,736	$19.52
GS-6	$21.76	$45,409	$21.76
GS-7	$24.18	$50,460	$24.18

Sources: OPM Salary Table 2026-RUS, annual and hourly; USAJOBS announcements 858177900, 858178900, 858180000, 858181300 and 858181800. Accessed Sep 13, 2026.

The 2026 General Schedule includes a 1 percent raise, and the Rest of U.S. locality payment is 17.06 percent; higher-cost areas get more (OPM, 2026). The announcements quote Rest of U.S. pay and note that rates vary by duty station. At GS-3 and GS-4 the Forest Service posted rates above OPM’s step 1, so read the salary line on the announcement you apply to. Seasonal jobs are full time while they last, so a six-month season earns roughly half the annual figure.

Which job series should I search for?

Search USAJOBS by series number, because job titles vary from forest to forest. Four cover most seasonal field work outside fire.

• 0462 Forestry Technician and Forestry Aid. The 2026 national announcements combined recreation, timber and range. GS-3 duties included running compass lines and taking simple measurements for timber cruising, cleaning up campsites and wilderness areas, maintaining trails with crosscut saws, adzes and axes, and packing out garbage. At GS-5 the range duties included mapping key use areas, checking grazing allotments for permit compliance and maintaining range fences.
• Trail crew. Trail jobs are usually posted as 0462 recreation technicians. Gifford Pinchot’s 2026 hiring included trail and wilderness jobs among its 11 positions at Trout Lake and 7 at Randle, Washington. See trail crew jobs for the conservation corps routes too.
• 0455 Range Technician. OPM’s standard uses the same education ladder as 0462: 6 semester hours for GS-3, 12 for GS-4, and a bachelor’s degree or 24 semester hours for GS-5.
• 0404 Biological Science Technician. Wildlife, fisheries, botany and insect crews. GS-3 takes one year of study with 6 semester hours in courses such as biology, chemistry, botany or statistics; GS-5 takes a bachelor’s degree with 24 semester hours, at least 6 of them directly related to the job. OPM’s standard says farming outside a controlled environment, or laborer work where you only did assigned tasks, does not count as specialized experience.

Set one USAJOBS job alert per series. Alerts can email you daily, weekly or monthly, you can keep up to 10, and each one expires after a year unless you renew it (USAJOBS Help Center, accessed Sep 13, 2026). Open jobs outside USAJOBS, including partner crews, are on our Forest Service jobs page.

When does the Forest Service hire seasonal workers?

Watch from October through March, because the windows are short and they move. Gifford Pinchot says it normally fills seasonal jobs each fall for the following summer, but its 2026 jobs were advertised February 20 to March 3. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area told applicants in August 2026 to check back in October for 2027 jobs, and the Humboldt-Toiyabe says temporary recreation jobs usually open in late winter.

Announcement	Open	Start dates
Forestry Aid and Technician (Recreation, Timber, Range), GS-3 to GS-7, national	Feb 20 to Mar 3, 2026	Apr 19 to Jun 14, 2026
Animal Packer WG-5, Oregon and Washington	Oct 15 to 30, 2025	Apr 19 to Jun 14, 2026
Wildland Firefighter GW-5, temporary	Dec 31, 2025 to Jan 14, 2026	Jun 28 to Oct 4, 2026
Permanent Fire Hire for the 2027 fire year	Aug 24 to Sep 22, 2026	2027 season

Sources: USAJOBS announcements 858180000, 848030700 and 853304900; San Juan National Forest careers page. Accessed Sep 13, 2026.

Before a job is posted, check the Forest Service Outreach Database at fsoutreach.gdcii.com. The San Juan National Forest explains that outreach notices are not the job ads themselves; hiring managers use them to gauge interest and decide how to fill a vacancy, and the agency’s Public Lands Corps page says responses in the database affect who the job is opened to on USAJOBS. Respond to every notice for a place you want to work, and join a forest’s mailing list if it keeps one, as the San Juan does. The month-by-month view is in our outdoor job hiring calendar.

How do I write a federal resume that gets me qualified?

Keep it to two pages and make every qualification easy to find. Federal agencies accept resumes of two pages or less under OPM’s 2025 Merit Hiring Plan, and USAJOBS will not let you upload or build a longer one (USAJOBS Help Center, accessed Sep 13, 2026). The 2026 Forest Service announcements required your contact information, education, and for each job the work schedule, hours per week, dates of employment, and title, series and grade if it was a federal job.

After the resume you answer an occupational questionnaire, a self-assessment. The Merit Hiring Plan phased out self-assessments for ranking candidates, but it kept an exception for seasonal work and positions graded GS-1 through GS-4. Either way, HR checks your answers against your resume. Gifford Pinchot tells applicants the resume must support the questionnaire responses, and the announcements warn that inflating your experience can make you ineligible.

• Use the announcement’s own words. If it asks for trail maintenance or timber cruising, write those words next to the job where you did it.
• Count volunteer work. The 2026 announcements credit paid and unpaid experience, including AmeriCorps and other national service.
• Upload transcripts if you qualify on education, with course descriptions if the titles are unclear.
• Apply to every grade and location you would accept, which is the advice Gifford Pinchot gives in bold.
• Use USAJOBS formatting: a PDF under 5 MB, half-inch margins, and about 10-point body text.

Does the Forest Service provide housing for seasonal workers?

Sometimes, and you usually pay rent for it. The 2026 announcements say only that availability of government housing varies by location. Gifford Pinchot was specific: bunkhouse-style housing at every 2026 duty station except Vancouver, Washington, for about $10 to $15 a day.

Rent in government quarters follows OMB Circular A-45R, which was revised on December 17, 2024. The Forest Service said the revision sets rent at the regional average or the nearest established community, whichever is lower, allows reductions of up to 20 percent for housing in less than good condition, and gives agencies more room to use shared units as dormitories. A temporary rent refund the agency started in July 2024 ended on April 5, 2025 (Inside the Forest Service, accessed Sep 13, 2026). Ask the hiring manager about quarters before you accept, and compare with our jobs with housing.

Are there student and early-career routes into the Forest Service?

Yes, four worth knowing, and two of them can lead to a permanent job without competing on the open market.

• Pathways Internship. For students enrolled at least part time in high school, college, trade school or another qualifying program. Interns are hired for up to one year or indefinitely, full or part time, and may be converted to a permanent job within 120 days of finishing the program after at least 640 hours of work.
• Pathways Recent Graduates. For people who finished a qualifying degree or certificate in the last two years, or will within nine months. Veterans delayed by service get up to six years. Conversion requires at least one year of continuous service.
• Public Lands Corps. Conservation corps crews working on national forests, mostly through partner organizations. Terms run at least four months, and 640 hours earns a two-year noncompetitive hiring authority for permanent jobs with the Forest Service, Park Service, BLM, Fish and Wildlife Service and BIA.
• AmeriCorps NCCC Forest Corps. Ages 18 to 24 for corps members, 10 to 11 months of full-time service with travel, communal housing and meals, working on fuels reduction, reforestation and timber projects.

Sources: Forest Service Pathways, Public Lands Corps and Forest Corps pages; USAJOBS students page. Accessed Sep 13, 2026. For more first-season options, see seasonal jobs.