(Not Affiliated with the U.S. Postal Service)

Before we discuss where the jobs are, it would be best to take a look at the organization of the U.S. Postal Service.

Headed by the Postmaster General, the USPS has its general headquarters at 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Washington DC 20260. USPS is divided into four regions: Western, Southern, Northeastern, and Central. The regions are divided into divisions and the divisions are divided into Management Sectional Centers (MSCs) and General Mail Facilities (GMFs) that manage associate offices.

The Detroit division, for instance, includes the Detroit General Mail Facilities (GMF) and the Royal Oak Post Office whose management sectional center (MSC) is situated in Troy, Michigan.

In the Royal Oak sectional center, mail from all cities whose zip codes begin with 480 or 483 is taken for processing and forwarding. In the sectional centers such as this, mail is processed through letter sorting machines (LSMs) and optical character reader machines (OCRs). Here, the mail is postmarked, sorted and sent back to different local offices for distribution. Mail for out-of-state post offices is forwarded from sectional centers directly to its destination.)

Openings for most Postal Service jobs are not restricted to particular states or divisional or regional areas; rather, they are distributed in direction proportion to the volume of mail processed, or the size of a particular area or city. You can expect to find more letter carriers and clerks in thickly populated states like California, New York, Texas, or Florida. You can also expect large numbers of distribution clerks (machine), mail handlers, mark-up clerks (automated), and mail processors to be concentrated in GMFs and MSCs.

Technical Positions

For technical positions such as computer programmer, computer analyst, engineer, or architect, you’ll have a better chance of being employed in the Postal Service Headquarters in Washington, D.C. These technical jobs are offered first to current career employees through vacancy announcement sheets, which are distributed throughout the post offices, particularly GMFs and MSCs. If the positions can’t be filled up by qualified “insiders,” they are advertised in newspapers, particularly in the Washington Post, which may be available in your local library. Technical jobs in your area are advertised in the local newspapers.

If you want to live and work in any of these states but can’t get a postal job there, take postal exams and get a job in the state where you live. Then, after one or two years, request a transfer to the city where you want to live and work. To increase your chances of getting a postal job anywhere, you must take as many exams as possible. But before you do so, you must be prepared to score high on these exams and beat the competition. You must remember that thousands of people take a single exam, but only a small number will be called for immediate employment. The rest will be placed on the waiting lists.

To know about scheduled postal exams, call several or many MSCs and GMFs (see the Directory of U.S. Postal Service Examination Centers in The Book of U.S. Postal Exams:How to Score 95-100% on 470 Battery/460 RCA Tests and Other Exams by Veltisezar Bautista. You can also subscribe to a biweekly newspaper that publishes postal exam announcements. Write: Federal Jobs Digest, 325 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20003.

You can also get a technical job, not only in the headquarters in Washington, D.C, but also in field regions and divisions. For instance, computer programmers are hired at the Software Branch Systems, Data Operations, Divisions, in San Mateo, California, and in St. Louis, Missouri. Computer system analysts are hired in the Rates and Classification Center in the Eastern Region in Philadelphia. Telecommunications hardware technicians are hired at network operations branches such as that in Network Communication Division, National Information Systems Development Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The best plan is to be hired by the Postal Service, as a clerk, a carrier, or whatever. Once you’re in, you’ll get a better view of the service, and through vacancy announcements you’ll know where the jobs are. Other jobs in the postal service are offered first to “insiders” before they’re offered to “outsiders.” So whether you’re a mechanic, a plumber, or a computer expert, get a postal job first. As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them!”