Department of Veterans Affairs

Program Specialist

Prescott, Arizona Full time

Program Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Prescott, Arizona

Salary Range: $61722 - $80243 Per Year

Job Summary: The Program Specialist position is located within the Northern Arizona VA Healthcare System (NAVACHS) in the Environmental Management Service (EMS). The incumbent performs all required and mandated training and quality management activities that are designed to improve Environmental Management Service (EMS) performance in maintaining a clean and safe environment and customer service.

Major Duties:

  • The duties include but are not limited to: Develop both long and short-range policies and plans for EMS by coordinating the administrative needs of the organizational units for which accountable. Provide formalized planning direction and is responsible for submission of EMS Business Plans and support the submission of various reports. Responsible for the development and implementation of policies and procedures for the Service, as well as recognizing the need for new policies and brings such policies to the attention of the Chief. Develop plans and programs for achieving and maintaining total quality performance and customer service in EMS. Responsible for providing current and accurate statistics for the annual Waste Minimization Survey report, as well as additional requests received from Executive Management, Central Office, etc. Develop reporting procedures, sampling techniques, and measurements at various points in EMS's Programs (Sanitation, Pest, Recycling, Hazardous Waste and Textile Care) to identify problem areas or inherent weaknesses in work processes, procedures, information systems and content. Develop indicators to provide objective evidence of the effectiveness of quality procedures and controls. Monitor EMS's quality program implementations and indicators designed to prevent erroneous processes and ineffective work practices and to verify adherence to quality plans and requirements. Provide quality management presentations and information packages for the staff as well as for the facility's quality management program. Coordinate, develop and/or does research for additional and pertinent EMS training resources and materials through within house counterparts or outside vendors. Schedule and provide biweekly or monthly required training and presentations to all staff. Oversee and incorporate required updates to the overall compliance of the Service's yearly training plan Work Schedule: Monday thru Friday, 7:30am to 4:00pm Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Program Specialist/PD149080 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, 04/29/2026. 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-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. 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-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Performing quality management activities to improve quality of processing, customer service activities and/or other business procedures. Developing plans and programs for achieving and maintaining total quality performance and customer service. Coordinating, developing and/or conducting research for additional and pertinent training resources and materials through within house counterparts or outside vendors. Planning and supporting the submission of various reports. Development and implementation of policies and procedures. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a Master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate level education leading to such a degree or LL.B or J.D., if related. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work. 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 graduate level education.. 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/12941316. 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, 04/29/2026. 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: 2026-04-29