Supervisory Public Affairs Specialist - Recruitment Incentive Authorized

Supervisory Public Affairs Specialist - Recruitment Incentive Authorized

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Dallas, Texas

Salary Range: $115711 - $150426 Per Year

Job Summary: The position is located at the VA North Texas Health Care System (VANTHCS) at the Office of Communications & Community Engagement. The incumbent is responsible for developing, managing, coordinating, maintaining, and integrating the media, public affairs, advertising, marketing, communications, special events, public relations, congressional relations, Veteran/Community engagement and social media programs for this extremely complex, category 1A medical facility.

Major Duties:

• Duties may include but are not limited to: The incumbent provides leadership and direction for the communications program at the VA North Texas Health Care System (a category high complexity, 1A medical facility) while displaying tact, common sense, diplomacy, initiative, and solid professional judgment. The goal of the position is to increase internal and external awareness of VA programs, services, special events and projects, technologies, personnel, and research accomplishments. The incumbent provides leadership and direction for the communications program at the VA North Texas Health Care System (a category high complexity, 1A medical facility) while displaying tact, common sense, diplomacy, initiative, and solid professional judgment. The goal of the position is to increase internal and external awareness of VA programs, services, special events and projects, technologies, personnel, and research accomplishments. Serves as agency spokesman for the facility including responding in writing and orally to questions about criticisms of the agency's activities or policies and explaining the VA point of view. Handles communication efforts when controversial, high-level issues impact the VA Medical Center, often during crisis, negative media, and emergency situations. Serves as Public Information Officer under Hospital Incident Command System. Plans and executes prominent special events and ceremonies, coordinates high profile visits, and supports Engagement to Veterans not enrolled in the VA health care system. Develops budgets, writes statements of work, and directs, coordinates, and supervises activities of 4 staff (2.0 GS-1035-11; 2.0 GS-0301-09) involved in social media, media relations, crisis communications, marketing, Veteran/community engagement, public affairs, special events, communications, graphics, photography and videography support via medical media. Manages media, public affairs, advertising, media relations, marketing, communications, public relations, congressional liaison, Veteran/Community engagement, special events, and social media activities for the Medical Center. For the reports, media responses, and official information announcements, the incumbent closely works with the Medical Center Director, Associate Medical Center Director, Assistant Director, Assistant Director for Outpatient Services, Chief of Staff, Associate Director for Patient Care Services and all Service Chiefs and program managers to review and define the issues; independently reviews the documentation of the reports to ensure adherence to VANTHCS guidelines; and ensures appropriate follow-up actions are taken to remedy and problems or deficiencies identified. Incumbent directs functions of the Office of Communications & Community Engagement including budget and fiscal management, human resource management, strategic planning and program management and evaluation, assuring that they are integrated in order to provide optimum usage of resources. Participates in top management discussions, decisions, policymaking, and provides program direction to other executives, managers, and assigned personnel. The incumbent is responsible for the formulation, execution and fiscal management of the budgetary plan for the Office of Communications & Community Engagement. Evaluates past expenditures, perceives immediate and long-term requirements and their budgetary impact, coordinates staff input and prepares budget requests accordingly. Establishes priorities which recognize and incorporate program, budget and manpower constraints. Monitors expenditures and proposes reallocation of funds based on shifting program needs. The incumbent estimates operational requirements, including staff/volunteers and is responsible for preparing justifications for major expenditures for equipment and supplies. The incumbent is responsible for proactively pursuing ideas for possible revenue generation in connection with strategic planning efforts. Work Schedule: 7:30am-4:00pm or 8:00am-4:30pm, Monday-Friday Telework: Ad-Hoc Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Supervisory Public Affairs Specialist - Recruitment Incentive Authorized/PD091770 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: 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, 03/04/2026. 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-13 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-12. 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 GS-12 level in the federal service, that equipped me with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to successfully perform the duties of this position and that is typically in and/or related to the position being filled. Specialized experience includes experience where you were responsible for applying advanced communication and analytical practices, methods and techniques to the solution of complex public affairs problems; planning, developing, and producing a variety of materials and publications (including print, visual, Web-based, multimedia, and video materials) to achieve understanding of various points of view or concepts; advising leadership on the development of communication plans and strategies; establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with local media representatives and community groups; and coordinating and implementing special events, ceremonies, outreach campaigns, tours, and other activities to generate public awareness of organization's mission. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: 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. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. 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. Physical Requirements: The work is mostly sedentary in nature, functioning in a business office environment and in meetings. However, assignments regularly involve extended periods of walking, standing, bending, and stooping to execute logistics for special events or to accompany media crews or other special groups. 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: 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 03/04/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12898180. 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/ The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. 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/. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

Application Deadline: 2026-03-04