Instructional Systems Specialist

Instructional Systems Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Anywhere in the U.S. (remote job), United States

Salary Range: $73939 - $120157 Per Year

Job Summary: The employee will serve as the Instructional Systems Specialist in the Quality, Training, and Risk Management Department, Veterans Crisis Line (VCL), Veterans Affair (VA). The VCL is a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year service aimed at connecting callers worldwide to a caring, qualified Veterans Administration employee. The VCL's mission is to provide 24/7, world-class suicide prevention and crisis intervention services to Veterans, Service Members and their family members.

Major Duties:

• Major duties include but are not limited to: Serves as subject matter authority in the methodologies of adult learning, Interactive Multimedia instruction, Instructional Systems Design, Criterion-References Instruction, Competency Based Instruction, and/or Experiential Learning Model instruction in the area of providing specialized training such as curriculum development, instructional media, multimedia delivery systems, and audiovisual training aids, training devices, programmed instruction, testing and outcomes measurement, etc. Assists in developing training and educational strategies and products for the VCL program. Conducts comprehensive literature reviews and performs professional research in order to identify innovative techniques and tools that will facilitate the tailoring of training content to meet the needs of the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL), Peer Support Outreach Center (PSOC), and external stakeholders. Provides ongoing pedagogical training, guidance, and assistance to other subject-matter authorities who are analyzing, designing, and developing training programs and products. Conducts validation testing of the final product(s) on the selected delivery system to ensure compliance with the respective specifications. Accomplishes broad and complex assignments associated with developing, implementing, and evaluating VCL/PSOC training programs and curriculum for external stakeholders. Analyzes organizational performance problems, new requirements, and taskings to employees that are, or may become, training issues, and recommends appropriate actions. Develops and delivers presentations to executive leadership and department leads to introduce and seek approval of new or enhance external training initiatives. Reviews job and task analyses; task inventories; job and target population data; course participant's feedback and recommendations; existing course materials to identify training shortfalls and redundancies. Determines appropriate strategies to correct problems identified and makes recommendations to senior leadership. Applies principles of organizational development to help build the capacity to design and develop training programs and curriculum focused on improving employee knowledge and understanding of evidence-based and best practice crisis intervention skills and agency processes and protocols. Provides independent, critical reviews of entire courses focusing especially on the inherent logic, completeness, and efficiency of teaching strategies and methodologies, finalizes changes with the course developer and submits for final quality review. Constructs/develops practical exercises and examinations to meet and measure specified training objectives. Recommends course structural changes to provide the proper sequencing of objectives, adequate spacing of practice and reinforcement exercises, and an overall instructional design whose learning outcomes are logically consistent with the teaching purposes. Work Schedule: Tour of Duty is typically Administrative Hours. Tour is subject to change based on program needs. Compressed/Flexible Work Schedule: May be authorized upon supervisor approval after training per Agency policy. Remote: This is remote position. Selectees will work 100% of the time in a non-VA-owned space outside of the local commuting area of a parent station. The employee's workspace must be suitable for conducting business and as such, remote employees are expected to provide a secure, distraction-free home-based worksite with reliable high speed internet connectivity. The employee will be required to travel to the closest VA Medical Center or VA Outpatient Clinic for issuance of equipment, and as needed for technical support. Selectees will be required to self-certify that their remote workplace meets all safety, privacy, and internet speed requirements. Position Description/PD#: Instructional Systems Specialist/PD29297A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not required Financial Disclosure Report: Not required This is not a bargaining unit position.

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 12/16/2025. 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-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9. 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. INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT (IOR): An IOR is a basic requirement that must be met in order to qualify for entry into this job series, and it is something that cannot be waived. The education must be accredited by an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education at the time the degree was obtained. To qualify for the GS-1750 occupational series, all applicants must possess the following: Education: Degree which included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours appropriate to the work of the position to be filled. The course work must have included study in at least four (4) of the following five (5) areas: Learning theory, psychology of learning, educational psychology: Study of learning theories as they relate to the systematic design, development, and validation of instructional material. Instructional design practices: Study of the principles and techniques used in designing training programs, developing design strategy and models, and applying design methods to the improvement of instructional effectiveness. Educational evaluation: Study of the techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of instructional/educational programs, including developing written and performance tests and survey instruments, and determining reliability and validity of evaluation instruments. Instructional product development: Study of the techniques appropriate for developing training materials, including identifying learner characteristics, specifying objectives, applying training strategy, validating training materials, and evaluating training. Computers in education and training: Study of the application of computers in education and training, including selecting appropriate computer software. GS-11 QUALIFICATION: In addition to meeting time in grade and the Individual Occupational Requirement (IOR), all applicants must also meet the following specialized experience and/or education in order to qualify for this position at the GS-11 grade. Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade (GS-09) in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. In order to meet the minimum qualifications for this position, you must meet 3/5 of the following examples of specialized experience: Providing independent, critical reviews of entire courses or specific lessons; Recommending course structural changes to provide the proper sequencing of objectives; Analyzing organizational performance problems related to training issues and making appropriate recommendations; Determining appropriate strategies to correct training course problems; Developing and delivering presentations to executive leadership and department leads. OR Education: 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. OR Combination: Equivalent combination of successfully completed graduate education and specialized experience may be used to meet the total experience requirements. Only graduate level education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be combined with experience. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Requirements Analysis Planning and Evaluating Communications and Media 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: The work is typically sedentary and is performed while sitting at a desk, in conferences, briefings, meetings, etc. There may be occasional visits to other staff offices to observe employees at work. Incumbent may occasionally be required to operate a motor vehicle. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the OPM website at this link.

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/12847196. 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, 12/16/2025. 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 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. 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

Application Deadline: 2025-12-16