Cook

Cook

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Indianapolis, Indiana

Salary Range: $23.79 - $27.72 Per Hour

Job Summary: This position is located in the Nutrition and Food Service at the Richard L Roudebush Veteran Affairs Medical Center. Nutrition and Food Services is responsible for providing meals and nutritional care to Veteran patients at the Medical Center. The primary purpose of the Cook, WG-4, is to prepare nutritious, high quality meals for service to the Veterans.

Major Duties:

• Duties include but not limited to: Food Preparation Performs a full range of simple cooking which entails the preparation and cooking of meals that require little or no processing. Follows menus, production sheets and recipes to prepare items in the quantity needed. Performs full range of simple cooking by preparing and cooking items requiring little or no processing such as hot cereals, concentrated or dehydrated soups, sauces, and gravies. Grills eggs, hamburgers, meat patties, pancakes, French toast; broils meats; makes cold sandwich fillings and assembles a variety of sandwiches. Prepares fresh, canned, and frozen vegetables; bakes frozen potatoes, pre-made cookie dough, muffin batters. Prepares and heats convenience items such as frozen hash browns, fish fillets, and chicken nuggets; prepares pureed foods and adjusts consistency with thickeners. Washes, peels and cuts fruits and vegetables by hand or machine. Assembles and mixes salad ingredients and dessert items including gelatin molds and fruit crisps. Washes, peels, chops, grinds, pares, cuts, slices, dices, purees, dredges, flours, breads items. Food Safety/Sanitation Follows sanitary food handling procedures; covers, labels and dates food items; utilize or discard ingredients by expiration date. Disassembles and assembles component parts and accessories for cleaning. Cleans, stores and maintains all kitchen utensils, equipment and work areas practicing a "clean as you go" concept. Cleans and sanitizes assigned work areas: worktables, sinks, blast chillers, racks, carts. Achieves certification in ServSafe and can apply knowledge of food safety, food temperatures, etc. Operates dish machine; checks detergent level and water temperature before washing and sanitizing cook's equipment. Checks equipment to make sure it is free of food residue and soap. Food Storage Rotates and stores perishable and non-perishable items according to service policies. Removes outdated or damaged goods from stock. Labels all food items with contents and dates per labeling guidelines. Weighs, measures, and assembles ingredients accurately and according to standardized recipes or requisitions. Monitor and maintain proper spacing of food products from floor, ceiling and shelving to ensure adequate air flow and spacing of products for optimal food safety. Monitor for signs of pest notifying the appropriate individual as determined by your local policy. Maintain accurate food inventories. Maintains strict security of all areas. Work Schedule: 5 am - 1:30 pm, rotating weekends & holidays Pay: Competitive salary and regular salary increases. Paid Time Off: 37-50 days of annual paid time offer per year (13-26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year) Parental Leave: After 12 months of employment, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave in connection with the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child. Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment, full time employees with a total family income below $144,000 may be eligible for a childcare subsidy up to 25% of total eligible childcare costs for eligible children up to the monthly maximum of $416.66. Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement) Position Description Title/PD#: Cook/PD99819S Physical Requirements: Is subject to continuous standing, walking, frequent bending, reaching, pushing, and pulling. Lifts or moves objects weighing up to 40 lbs. unassisted and occasionally lifts or moves objects weighing more than 40 lbs. with assistance of a lifting device or other workers. Manipulates cumbersome, heavy objects, such as washing stainless steel mixing bowls, pushing heavy carts on casters or operating heavy equipment. Possesses manual dexterity to operate equipment and to handle sharp knives and blades safely. Utilizes eye-hand coordination and the ability to concentrate and react quickly to serve food and operate equipment.

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement. EXPERIENCE: A specific length of training and experience is not required, but you must show evidence of training or experience of sufficient scope and quality of your ability to do the work of this position. Evidence which demonstrates you possess the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform the duties of this position must be supported by detailed descriptions of such on your resume. Applicants will be rated in accordance with the OPM Federal Wage System Qualification Standards. SCREEN-OUT ELEMENT: Your qualifications will first be evaluated against the prescribed screen out element, which usually appears as question 1 in the on-line questionnaire. Those applicants who appear to possess at least the minimal acceptable qualification requirement are considered for further rating; those who do not are rated ineligible and are eliminated. The potential eligibles are then rated against the remainder of the Job Elements: Possess the ability to perform as a Cook without more than normal supervision. 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.

How to Apply: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the occupational questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (EST) on 05/04/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12917856. 1. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire. 2. 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. You may check the status of your application at any time by logging into your USA Jobs account and clicking on Applications. Information regarding your application status can be found in the USAJobs Help Center. 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. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume, only the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration. 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/ To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete.

Application Deadline: 2026-05-04