Department of Veterans Affairs

Program Specialist

Washington, District of Columbia Full time

Program Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Washington, District of Columbia

Salary Range: $102415 - $133142 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located in the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of the Under Secretary for Health (USH) and serves as a Program Specialist and provides staff level assistance in the overall management of the office with the responsibility for planning and carrying out a variety of administrative and policy related activities.

Major Duties:

  • This is a Temporary Promotion/Detail not to exceed 120 days. The temporary promotion/detail may end prior to 120 days, be extended based on agency policy and operational needs, or made permanent without further competition. Major duties include but are not limited to: Coordinates critical and sensitive activities. Reviews incoming correspondence and conducts substantive review of correspondence for the signature of the USH. Coordinates special and confidential assignments as necessary to support the USH in executive the mission of the office. Develops information needed on short notice by the USH. Personally researches and extracts information from various sources and develops summaries as appropriate. Coordinates the preparation of trip taken by the USH. Works with key officials to ensure all aspects of the USH's travel meets all expectations. Plans and coordinates preparation for functions held by the USH. Coordinates with program offices and other key staff offices to ensure all needs of the USH are met and protocols are observed. Reviews appointments and events for the USH's schedule. Manages and resolves issues involving scheduling concerns. Prepares the USH's daily binder daily. Monitors and tracks milestones for various on-going projects and conducts follow-up as needed. Keeps informed of administrative and related problems and issues confronting the USH in order to advise him/her of priorities and ramifications or various actions being considered. Acts as a liaison with other offices to include the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Assistant Secretaries, Under Secretaries, program offices, field offices, etc. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 08:00-04:30pm Compressed/Flexible: Compressed Telework: This position may be authorized for ADHOC telework. Telework eligibility will be discussed during the interview process. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Program Specialist/PD02190A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not authorized 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, 05/15/2026. 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-12 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-11. 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 as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-11 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Experience applying analytical and evaluative methods and techniques to issues or functions related to office administration in order to review current procedures and to provide advice to management for improvements; quantitative and qualitative methods and principles to assess and improve on program effectiveness in order to provide advisory services. Coordinates critical sensitive activities and manages special and confidential assignments that are necessary to help support senior leadership. 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/12957409. 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, 05/15/2026. 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: 2026-05-15