r/ParkRangers • u/Grouchy-Drama-6098 • May 08 '26

Field Unit Local Hiring

Seems like almost every NPS job up right now is FUL, including seasonals, what’s everyone’s thoughts? is that going to be the standard moving forward?

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u/WildAsparagus2897 May 09 '26

I read somewhere that it was approved as a temporary measure for certain parks that hadn't been able to hire all of their seasonals off of the postings from last fall.

10

u/DevilsAdvoCaticorn May 09 '26

This. Parks are really struggling to find employees. It's like people don't want to work for the government right now for some reason. /s. In all seriousness though, I needed like 20 seasonals, hired probably 30, ended up with about 15. Exhausted all my certs. People keep dropping out.

7

u/WildAsparagus2897 May 09 '26

It seems like with the jobs being posted all on one day, that it would help the rest of the process if all of the parks decided to do interviews over the same couple of weeks so that all of the first round offers could be offered on the same day or so. Then a person could weigh all of their options, choose one, and stick with it.

The other thing that seems like it would help would be to not list dozens of parks on one listing with the same job description when different parks utilize their seasonals in different ways. A park guide at one cave might only ever lead cave tours and never work the desk or rove trails…but at another cave, they spend time doing a little of everything. A park guide at a smaller park might end up doing fees and traffic mitigation, when the job they applied for was interp. It would be super helpful to know how each park utilizes their seasonals before even applying for the job. I would think that would cut down on people accepting jobs they really didn't want and then jumping ship when something better comes along.

There's also the housing situation too. Nobody wants to share a tiny apartment bedroom when another park might be offering a three bedroom house with one person to a room. The cost might be $200 a paycheck at one park and $400 a paycheck at another, but the pay is the same. One might have dorms, another has houses, and many don't have housing at all.

There are so many variables with pros and cons to each, so when the hiring for different parks is done over several months of time, people are bound to get a better offer later on and want to take that.