Federal officials hope a newly redesigned Web site will translate into new federal employees.

The Office of Personnel Management unveiled its new Web site, www.usajobs.opm.gov, last week. It lists more than 16,000 federal jobs available to the public.

Among the 579 jobs in New England are 12 in Maine. The jobs posted as of Tuesday were primarily in health services with the Veterans Administration.

The jobs ranged from medical technicians with a salary of $20,459 to a health program specialist at $56,463 a year.

The best-paying federal job openings in Maine right now are for two supervisory loan specialists with the Rural Development Support Services Bureau in Bangor.

The two openings there carry salaries that range from $67,123 to $87,289.

There were more than a million hits on the site the first week of the redesign. The former site had 804,000 hits for the entire month of July by comparison, according to an OPM release.

The site allows a visitor to select jobs by location or occupation, or by using a key word. Clicking on a job posting will bring you to a page that gives a detailed description of the job, its requirements, conditions of employment and the application process, which can be done online.

There’s a link to forms, many of which are required when applying for federal jobs. One link provides a civilian job kit, which contains all the necessary forms for applying for a job with the Department of Defense. It contains sample resumes and runs 4,647 words long.

The site also allows a visitor to create and store a resume on the site to use when applying for federal jobs. More than 22,000 new resumes have been posted to the site since its redesign.

– Carol Coultas, staff writer