Department of Veterans Affairs

Secretary (OA)

East Orange, New Jersey Full time

Secretary (OA)

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): East Orange, New Jersey

Salary Range: $48005 - $62407 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located in Patient Care Services of the VA Medical Center in East Orange, NJ.

Major Duties:

  • ***THIS IS NOT A VIRTUAL POSITION, YOU MUST LIVE WITHIN OR BE WILLING TO RELOCATE WITHIN A COMMUTABLE DISTANCE OF THE DUTY LOCATION*** Schedules and reviews the work performed and activities of the office, including reporting and recordkeeping; Receives visitors and telephone calls to the office; Maintains calendar for appropriate staff and schedules appointments; Reviews and directs to appropriate staff incoming correspondence, publications, regulations, etc.; Responds to inquiries or directs accordingly and follows up on action items to ensure timely response; Performs office automation work, prepares meeting minutes, and utilizes various hardware and software in the performance of duties; Prepares forms, memorandums, reports, and other correspondence, ensuring proper grammar, spelling, and format; Prepares and maintains current guidelines and manuals pertinent to the department; Prepares travel arrangements for select staff and coordinates conferences and meetings, including preparing agendas; Serves as the backup transcriptionist and maintains files, reports, etc.; Enters data/reports into the computer; Maintains an adequate stock of office supplies and serves as a government purchase card holder; Maintains employee records; Performs related duties as required. Work Schedule: Monday through Friday, 7:30am - 4:00pm. Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized.

Qualifications: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants must possess at least one (1) year of specialized experience that equipped them with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of this position, and that is typically in or related to the work of this position. To be creditable, this experience must have been equivalent to at least the GS-4 level in the Federal service. Specialized experience includes: receiving visitors and telephone calls to the office; scheduling appointments; coordinating meetings and conferences; preparing correspondence, reports, memoranda, and other forms of written communication; preparing travel arrangements; and maintaining files. ~OR~ SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION FOR EXPERIENCE (Transcript Required): Successful completion of (4) years of education above the high school level. This education must have been obtained in an accredited business, secretarial or technical school, junior college, college or university for which high school graduation or the equivalent is the normal prerequisite. One year of full-time undergraduate study is defined as 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours, or the equivalent in a college or university or at least 20 hours of classroom instruction per week for approximately 36 weeks in a business, secretarial or technical school. ~OR~ COMBINING EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE (Transcript Required): Combination of successfully completed post high school education and experience may be used to meet total qualification requirements. Only education in excess of the first 60 semester hours (i.e., beyond the second year) is creditable toward meeting the specialized experience requirement. TYPING PROFICIENCY: This position requires the skills of a qualified typist. In addition to meeting the experience and/or education requirements, you must be able to type at least 40 words per minute. 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/. 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.

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 assessment and submission of the required documentation specified in the Required Documents section above. 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 questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12904908. 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, 03/17/2026. After submitting the online application, you will be notified whether or not you are required to take additional online assessments through the USA Hire Competency Based Assessment system. This message will be delivered to you via email notification. The email may be routed to your "Spam" or "Junk" folder. IMPORTANT: If you are asked to take the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be presented with a unique URL to access the USA Hire system. Access to USA Hire is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Be sure to review all instructions prior to beginning your USA Hire Assessments. Click here for Computer System Requirements. 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 at a later time, you can re-use the URL sent to you via email and also found in your USAJOBS account under the "Track my application" link for the corresponding application. 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. 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: 2026-03-17