You need to go to the FAA website and apply for the postion via their ASAP program. Once you fill out the user info that can be used for any applications you want to send to the FAA in the future. After that, apply for the FAA position. You need to make sure you apply to one that's available to the general public, not qualified controllers or CTI grads. The FAA is currently accepting applicants off the street.

After that, you will be contacted to take the AT-SAT if your application is accepted. It's an 8 hour test spanning 8 different cognitive subjects (Math, Angles, Dials, Letter Factory, Traffic Control etc.) There's an ASA book with a cd available to practice. You're looking for a score of at least 85% (that's considered "Well Qualified"). After that, you'll interview, fill out a geographical preference, take some medical and psychological tests, plus go through a small security clearance/background investigation so make sure your credit is in order. Pending successful completion of all that you will be offered a class date in OKC.

Pay at OKC is approx. $33,100.00. You make that until you get to your training facility, which is the facility you accepted the position for. Once there, you are given pay raises based on how far along in the training you go. You get incremental pay raises for completing 25%, 50%, and 75% then receive full pay once you are completely qualified for the facility. It takes about 2 years to go from zero to fully qualified. This is around the 90K area but depends on the level of the facility you are working at. You are also given a "locality pay" on top of your salary. The base locality pay is an extra 13.5% of your annual salary. The highest locality pay right now is for controllers in the Houston area at roughly 27%. So, a Houston controller (Level 12 facility) would make between 90K-120K plus an extra 27% of that.

The pay rates for new controllers are significantly lower than that of older controllers. All controllers are on year 3 of a 7 year "pay freeze". Basically, there's no real significant pay increases except at the discretion of your supervisor. This can be a pretty "political" event. Also, controllers had their "Non-tract" imposed on them with a limited amount of room to maneuver to better their postion (as demonstrated by Regan in the 80's). The moral of the story is ATC has it's pro's and con's. As a certificated pilot, you'll have a leg up on hiring beyond some guy that doesn't know what an airplane looks like. Hope this helps, PM me if you have any additional questions.