Telephone Operator

Telephone Operator

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): West Palm Beach, Florida

Salary Range: $38392 - $49915 Per Year

Job Summary: This for position is for a Telephone Operator in the Medical Administration Service at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center in West Palm Beach, FL The individual performs work which encompasses a wide variety of different duties and responsibilities relating to provision of telephone and related telecommunications services.

Major Duties:

• ***THIS IS AN ON SITE POSITION, YOU MUST LIVE WITHIN OR BE WILLING TO RELOCATE WITHIN A COMMUTABLE DISTANCE OF THE DUTY LOCATION*** Major duties and responsibilities of this position include, but are not limited to, the following: Operating multi-line telephone system to receive and connect incoming and outgoing calls utilizing complex computerized equipment and telecommunication software. Timely and accurate routing of incoming calls, contacting on-call staff and providing accurate information to families have a positive effect on patient welfare and public relations. Work is performed independently according to established guidelines and procedures. Most Duties are accomplished on own initiative, especially during night, weekend and holiday shifts when supervisor is not present. Maintaining a record of all calls requiring emergency interrupts, toll calls, and long-distance calls showing the time the call was place, the staff person requesting the call, and the number that was requested. Telephone Operator serves as a focal point of activity during his or her tour of duty and is the sole Telephone Operator during non-administrative time. Operating equipment such as printers, code alarms, long range paging system, desk attendance telephone console, and other monitoring equipment as needed. Verifies patient appointments. Conducts testing of Code Blue pagers and submits reports to the Code Blue Committee quarterly. Perform other duties assigned. Work Schedule: Rotating shifts. Work schedule will be based on the needs of the service and will include various shifts: 6:00am-4:00pm with rotating Holidays & Weekends; 7:00am -3:30pm with rotating Holidays & Weekends; 8:00am-4:30pm with rotating Holidays & Weekends or 12:00pm-10:00pm with rotating Holidays & Weekends. Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 12/29/2025. 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-04 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-03. 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-03 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Deal with multiple phone calls or situation simultaneously and still have the ability to remain calm in stressful situations and display good common sense and quick decision making skills. Meets the needs of customer while supporting the Medical Center Missions. Appropriately handles calls from mentally incompetent, alcohol or drug addicted persons who require special attention, while locating correct personnel. Handles calls tactfully from confused, abusive or threatening individuals. Maintains call roster on on-call personnel during irregular shifts and provides employee information on all shifts. Note: Evidence of specialized experience must be supported by detailed documentation of duties performed in positions held on your resume. You must provide work experience information such as hours per week, salary, and starting/ending dates of employment (month and year format) to establish you have one (1) full year of Specialized Experience at or comparable to the required grade. . OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have two (2) years of education above the high school level in any field for which high school graduation or the equivalent is the normal prerequisite. 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 academic 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, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond high school education and experience to meet the total experience requirements. 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. (i.e. 6 months of general experience and 1 year of education above the high school level). . You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Communications Security Management Critical Thinking Customer Service (Clerical/Technical) Telecommunications 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 involves long periods of sitting, reaching, stretching and turning while operating equipment and obtaining access to necessary information. The mental strain from continuously answering incoming calls, some from unusually disturbed people, causes extreme fatigue. Although the work is primarily sedentary in nature in an office environment it requires a high degree of concentration and ability to work under pressure and stress. Incumbent must of a keen sense of hearing in responding to the numerous amounts of calls that are received. Additionally, there are times when the station experiences a high volume of telephone calls and callers may be irate because of long waits to receive telephone assistance. 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 12/29/2025 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12854930. 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. 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 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/ Special Employment Consideration: VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, Appointment of persons with disabilities [i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities], and/or Disabled veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. Contact the Agency Contact for information on how to apply under this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator. 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: 2025-12-29