Department: Department of Veterans Affairs
Location(s): Anchorage, Alaska
Salary Range: $56490 - $108678 Per Year
Job Summary: This position serves the Alaska VA Healthcare System within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) reporting directly to the Public Affairs Officer. This office provides comprehensive employee communication and public affairs services for the organization, along with marketing communication, branding and product distribution services in support of the VA and VHA Mission.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement, 12/22/2025. 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-7 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-5. For a GS-9 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-7. 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. Preferred Experience: Strong writing experience/background; Some media knowledge; proficient in Microsoft Office Product and Adobe Products; Knowledge of grammar, writing, and editing practices, and the style requirements of the media and the publications used. Selective Placement Factor: Skill in interviewing a variety of people and gathering information from many different sources; Knowledge of the practices and techniques in planning and developing new stories and feature articles in laying out a publication. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: GS-7 Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-5 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: establish and maintain effective working relationships with local media, with particular emphasis on congressional responses on Veterans and Alaska VA Health Care System (AVAHS); coordinate and implement campaigns to inform or educate the public or enhance their understanding of the mission, functions and activities of AVAHS; coordinate and make arrangements for special events in the local area by making advance preparations and making direct contact with participants and media representatives; assist with editing, preparing and developing written and oral materials for dissemination through print and broadcast media on information concerning missions, programs and accomplishments of the Center; write feature stories, articles and news releases for publication in magazines and newspapers; gathers information to formulate speeches and special presentations; manage publishing projects from conception to printing and distribution and integrate and troubleshoot the work of other specialists in the publishing process. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have 1 full year of graduate level education or superior academic achievement. 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 education and specialized experience, as described above, which meet the total experience requirements for the GS-7 level. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. (Transcripts required) GS-9 Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-7 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: responding to inquiries from print, broadcast, and digital media representatives regarding VHA activities, programs and policies; drafting news releases, fact sheets, and feature articles for local, regional and national media; coordinating media interviews and providing support and information to VHA leadership preparing for these engagements. 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 degree or equivalent graduate degree or two (2) full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.B or J.D., if related. This education was obtained in an accredited business, secretarial or technical school, junior college, college or university. If you are qualifying on education, transcripts are required. 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 education and specialized experience, as described above, which meet the total experience requirements for the GS-9 level. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. (Transcripts required) GS-11 Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-9 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Utilizes guidelines to developing written communication material concerning a range of organization's public affairs program; Analyzing information program materials and making recommendations for improving the delivery of information; Performs planning and execution of program assignment for an efficient and effective public affairs program; develop and execute media relations and community engagement strategies; produce high quality informational materials for various audiences. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or three (3) full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.M., if related, that provided the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. (One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent one (1) year of full-time study. If that information cannot be obtained from the school, 18 semester hours will be considered as satisfying the one (1) year of full-time study requirement). 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 education and specialized experience, as described above, which meet the total experience requirements for the GS-11 level. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. (Transcripts required) 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/. This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.
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/12848576. 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, 12/22/2025. 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 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. 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
Application Deadline: 2025-12-22