Department: Department of Veterans Affairs
Location(s): Saint Cloud, Minnesota
Salary Range: $24.45 - $28.5 Per Hour
Job Summary: This position is located within the Textile Care Plant of the Environmental Management Service at the St. Cloud VA Health Care System in St. Cloud, MN. The Laundry Machine Operator processes a variety of soiled linens and textiles into clean and sanitary items for reuse by customers and is also responsible for repairing torn and tattered apparel. This also includes altering and repairing linens.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: PHYSICAL EFFORT: The employee needs strength and stamina for performing heavy tasks for long periods of time. Must pull wet, compact laundry from washers/extractors and push heavily loaded carts, etc. Continually handles bundles that may weigh in excess of 50 pounds. Continually walks and stands on hard surfaced floors. Operators sit or stand for long periods of time with continual movement of arms and hands while performing sewing tasks, mending, hemming, and patching of a wide variety of linen items. They may also have to lift boxes of new items up to 20-30 pounds and pushes small carts on a daily basis filled with linen. The employee will be required to reach overhead when hanging uniforms, scrubs, and lab coats on the conveyer systems. They will also assist in the hanging of scrubs, folding of dry fold and various other duties if needed in the Laundry Department. They will be responsible for the sorting of the mending bins and then will repair or discard the linen that cannot be mended. WORK CONDITIONS: The employee is exposed to disagreeable odors and possibly infectious organisms from soiled linens, patient clothing, and employee uniforms. These conditions are separated from the clean processing and production of the textile care work force by a staph barrier wall. The employee is exposed to noise and hot and humid conditions. The employee is exposed to the possibility of cuts and bruises from carts and machinery as well as minor burns from the presence of steam pipes and the flatwork-ironer. The employee may be subjected to inclement weather while performing the duties of the position. Often the areas are subject to drafts and cool air from open doors and noise from the generator room when the monthly testing is done. The employee is interrupted on a constant basis by hospital staff in need of their assistance with uniforms, scrubs, lab coats, jackets, etc. Operators are subject to possible needle punctures, minor thread cuts, and sharp cutting instruments i.e. scissors and rotary cutters. There is also the possibility of getting minor burns from thermo patch machine or iron. Applicants will be rated in accordance with the OPM Federal Wage System Qualifications. For this position, the job element method is used to match what you, the applicant, can do against what the work calls for. Your knowledge, skills and abilities will be compared to the knowledge, skills and abilities (called job elements) needed for success. Your qualifications will first be evaluated against the prescribed screen out element (WG-2 and higher only; screen-outs are not applicable to WG-1). Applicants who appear to meet the screen out element are considered for further rating; those who do not are rated ineligible and are eliminated from consideration. The potential eligibles are rated against the remainder of the job elements. While a specific length of training and experience is not required, your responses to the questionnaire must be supported by detailed descriptions of your experience on your resume. You will be rated on the following Job Elements as part of the assessment questionnaire for this position: Equipment Assembly, Installation, Repair Interpret Instructions, Specifications (other than blueprint reading) Materials Measurement and Layout Technical Practices Use and Maintain Tools and Equipment Without more than normal supervision Work Practices IMPORTANT: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. All experience listed on your resume must include the month and year start/end dates. 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. 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; religious; 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.
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 03/26/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12914365. 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. For more information on how to apply using this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator within the office, contact the facility Human Resources Department at (320) 252-1670. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation and be found well-qualified (have a final rating of 85 or more before any Veterans preference points) for this vacancy. 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/.
Application Deadline: 2026-03-26