Department: Department of Veterans Affairs
Location(s): Walla Walla, Washington
Salary Range: $74678 - $97087 Per Year
Job Summary: You will serve as a Communications Specialist with the Associate Chief of Staff Primary Care services located in Walla Walla, Washington. Qualified applicants will begin to be referred to the hiring manager on Friday, May 15th, 2026. After that applicants will only be referred to the hiring manager upon request from the hiring manager. This position will remain open to the closing date unless the position is filled, in which case the announcement will be closed.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement, 05/29/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS-09 grade at any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement. 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 GS-09 level or pay band in the Federal service that includes performing the following duties: oversee an online patient Healthcare portal's presence and web content and lead innovations to keep facilities portal on the cutting-edge; develop multimedia campaign materials (e.g., printed articles, brochures, videos) to inform a targeted population; create and deliver presentations to inform the public about Health Programs, products, capabilities, and health care issues; act as technical expert and lead the facility's efforts to integrate their online patient portal and Secure Messaging (SM) among healthcare providers and patients and trouble shoot and resolve user issues; possess interpersonal communication skills to deal with patients who are difficult, hostile, or distressed, to be able to negotiate, and to interact with co-workers, supervisors, and high-level management; establish and manage communications plans throughout all levels of the organization that identify target audiences, appropriate messages, activities, and resources needed for effective communication, plan change management that incorporate multiple channels to manage expectations and disseminate project progress; work with senior functional subject matter experts, committees, workgroups, improvement projects, and process development teams to identify and manage significant changes in the way employees will integrate the online patient portal in the fabric of care and the Patient-Centered Medical Home; maintain liaisons with management and national online health portal coordinators in conference calls and discussion groups to ensure correct, current, and accurate portrayal of information is provided to meet objectives; generate and evaluate a variety of reports on a daily, monthly, or quarterly basis, including but not limited to the areas such as panel sizes, team assignments, enrollment capacity, and current capacity; and establish, design, and manage the training plans and perform needs assessments within the project relative to functional and training needs and project effectiveness. OR, Education (TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED): I have completed Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree OR 3 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree OR LL.M., if related that directly relates to the position. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Communications and Media Customer Service Organizational Awareness Organizational Performance Analysis Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: Work is primarily sedentary, but may require periods of standing during presentations, briefings, speeches, health fair activities, etc., although some slight physical effort may be required. Work Conditions: Work is performed in an office setting with adequate lighted and climate-controlled office. May require occasional travel. 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: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 05/29/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12947005. 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 and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. 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 https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/ Special Employment Consideration: VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, Appointment of persons with disabilities [i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities], and/or Disabled veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. Contact the Agency Contact for information on how to apply under this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.
Application Deadline: 2026-05-29