Department: Department of Veterans Affairs
Location(s): Madison, Wisconsin
Salary Range: $50460 - $80243 Per Year
Job Summary: This position is located at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital - a level 1b complexity VHA facility, within the Employee Educational Department. This position functions as educator/staff development specialist and is responsible for provision and coordination of customer focused, performance-based educational services.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 01/16/2026. 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-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. 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. The GS-1712, Training Specialist requires the below Individual Occupational Requirement (IOR) be met. Experience that demonstrated a practical knowledge of the subject area of the position and of the methods and techniques of instruction. Examples of qualifying specialized experience include: Teaching or instructing in an adult education program, secondary school, college, military installation, or industrial establishment in the appropriate field(s). Development or review of training/course materials, aids, devices, etc., and evaluation of training results. Work in the occupation or subject-matter field of the position to be filled that required training or instructing others on a regular basis. In Addition to the above IOR you must also meet one of the following: GS-7 SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants 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: Specialized experience includes: Teaching or instructing in an adult education program, secondary school, college, military installation, or industrial establishment in a similar field; knowledge of the educational process and the principles of adult learning; supervising or administering a training program; developing or reviewing training/course materials, aids, devices, etc., and evaluation of training results; experience in an occupation or in the health care environment that required training or instructing others on a regular basis; and plan and design educational activities using computers, audiovisual, teleconferencing and videoconferencing equipment. OR EDUCATION: You will need to possess at least 1 full year of graduate level education; --or-- have completed a superior have superior academic achievement (S.A.A)? S.A.A. is based on (a) graduated in the top third of class. Class is defined as the college, university, or major subdivision, such as the College of Liberal Arts or the School of Business Administration. (MUST PROVIDE TRANSCRIPTS). OR Combination of Experience and Education: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at the GS-7 level. To calculate, first identify the percentage of required education you have earned (when substituting, you cannot use the first 60 semester hours that you earned). Then identify the percentage of required experience you possess. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify at the GS-7. For example, an applicant who has 9 semester hours of graduate level education (i.e. 50% of graduate education required) and 6 months of creditable specialized experience (i.e. 50% of the required experience) would equal 100% of the required experience for the position. GS-9 SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants must have one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-7) in Federal service that equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the position to be filled. Specialized experience includes: Plans, develops and implements New Employee Orientation(NEO) activities based on assess needs in a cost effective manner; contributes to teaching core mandated topics and medical-center wide training; Ensures NEO topics/training meets requirements for Joint Commission, OSHA, VISN and other regulatory requirements; instructs effectively and creatively according to Adult Learning and Accelerated Learning principles, addressing all domains of education, including the affective level. OR Education: Must possess masters or equivalent graduate degree or successful completion of two (2) full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree or a LL.B. or J.D., if related to the Training Specialist position, obtained in an accredited college or university. The education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. (TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED). OR Combination of Experience and Education: Must have successfully completed an equivalent combination of experience and education as described above. Such education and experience must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work. (TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED). You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Communication Customer Service (Clerical/Technical) Education and Training Learning 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. 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/12861318. 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, 01/16/2026. 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. 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.
Application Deadline: 2026-01-16