So you want to be a Park Ranger with the National Park Service?

Have you ever wanted to work as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service (NPS)? This post is for you!

I analyzed all 4,457 NPS Park Ranger job announcements between 2017 and 2022 to give you more insight into the NPS Park Ranger hiring process. Here's what I learned.

Question: Do the total number of job announcements fluctuate much year to year? Did you see any increasing or decreasing trends in the data?

Answer: 2017 had the fewest announcements (601), whereas 2018 had the most (836). Without running any statistics, the annual number of NPS Park Ranger advertisements appears steady.

Question: How many NPS Park Ranger announcements were cancelled between 2017 and 2022?

Answer: I found that 361 or 8% of all NPS Park Ranger vacancy announcements were cancelled during this timeframe. Assuming that each of the 33,644 applicants who started an application for one of these announcements spent 15 minutes on it, that adds up to a whopping 8,411 hours wasted, nearly a full year's worth of time!

Question: What is the best month to search for NPS Park Ranger announcements on USAJobs?

Answer: The best month to search and apply for these jobs is, believe it or not, December. Historically, December has the greatest number of application deadlines for NPS Park Ranger announcements.

This trend becomes even more apparent when considering seasonal and temporary hiring (37% of all NPS Park Ranger vacancy announcements from 2017-2022).

Question: I'd love to work part-time as a NPS Park Ranger. How rare are part-time opportunities?

Answer: I found only 19 instances from 2017 to 2022. In other words, fewer than 1% of all NPS Park Ranger vacancy announcements were advertised for a part-time work schedule.

Federal Ferret Fans: There's a good chance you'll experience the frustration of receiving notice that a NPS Park Ranger job you applied to was cancelled. But don't let that discourage you! Remember: historically there are more NPS Park Ranger job advertisements on USAJobs in December, so plan your search accordingly!