Department of Veterans Affairs

Administrative Support Assistant

Asheville, North Carolina Full time

Administrative Support Assistant

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Asheville, North Carolina

Salary Range: $40736 - $52957 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Mid-Atlantic Health Care Network (VISN 6), Asheville VA Medical Center (VAMC), Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Service (P&LMS), in Asheville, NC. The primary purpose of the position is to provide program support as administrative support staff to the Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Service.

Major Duties:

  • Duties include, but are not limited too: Operates effectively fax machine, copier, and document scanner. Maintains and troubleshoots the equipment when required. Communicates professionally and effectively with providers, nurses, medical technologists, and with patients. Responds to routine technical and non-technical phone requests for information (ie: status of reports, duty status of pathologists, etc). Receives, prepares and routes all mail and phone calls to the appropriate personnel and/or section of the service based on knowledge of service programs. Answers telephones courteously, directs calls to the appropriate personnel and takes accurate and complete messages as needed. Prepares and routes mail within the Medical Center. Navigates VistA and CPRS to ascertain lab orders to determine ordered laboratory tests, accession tests, and print labels for collected specimens. Serves as unit timekeeper, ensuring that various work schedules and leave uses are posted properly and timely. Resolves discrepancies and errors. Informs employees of timekeeping procedures and regulations regarding tours, leave, travel requests, etc. Enters data into VISTA with correct coding information, including ICD-10, SNOMED, CPT, Tumor Board and Quality Control. Scans records into electronic patient charts and databases for outside review. Prepares the autopsy report required in VHA Directive 2011- 019. Utilizes CPRS in order to review deceased patient records for assembling the supplemental information that assesses the adherence and compliance by providers as VHA mandates. Performs work involving the collection, compilation, and/or tracking of data, reports and statistical information in support of P&LMS operations. Work Schedule: 7:30am-4:00pm Monday-Friday Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Administrative Support Assistant/PD042780 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/30/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-5 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-4. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-4 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: knowledge and proficiency of complex medical terminology specifically related to anatomic pathology and clinical diagnoses. Knowledge and skill in the use of computer equipment with a wide variety of software such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, VHA, and VA databases to extract and organize data, produce reports, and to prepare a variety of specific working documents and forms. Ability to perform complex medical transcription that involves specialized terminology dictated by several individuals and/or skill in transcribing material involving non-specialized terminology such as live conferences, teleconferences, or similar proceedings when an accurate recording is required. Note: Experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates AND hours worked per week. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have successfully completed four years of education above the high school level obtained in an accredited business, secretarial or technical school, junior college, college or university. (Note: You must attach a copy of your transcripts). OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond the first 60 semester hours (beyond the second year). To calculate, first identify the percentage of required education you have earned. Then identify the percentage of required experience you possess. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent. One year of full-time academic study is defined as 30 semester hours or 45 quarter hours. Preferred Experience: 3 years of Administrative experience in a position that requires patient facing, timekeeping, administrative support, and supply ordering. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online questionnaire and submission of the required documentation specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the application questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12908423. The application process is as follows: To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 03/30/2026. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire Assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. NOTE: Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit

Application Deadline: 2026-03-30