Veterinary Medical Unit Manager

Veterinary Medical Unit Manager

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Buffalo, New York

Salary Range: $63904 - $83074 Per Year

Job Summary: The official title of this position is a Biological Science Laboratory Technician (Animal). This position is located within the Veterinary Medical Unit at the VA Western New York Healthcare System in Buffalo, NY.

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*** Duties may include, but are not limited to the following: Plans, organizes, supervises, and evaluates the day-to-day operations. Assigning priority of work of subordinate employees, ensuring that assignments are properly performed. Monitors the employee health program including surveillance and prevention of diseases passed between laboratory personnel and animal subjects. Ensures the maintenance of a sound program of animal husbandry. Designs, coordinates, and executes animal husbandry and caging plans tailored to the needs of individual investigators and projects. Assesses regulatory guidance and develops, writes, recommends and implements procedures and policies to comply with current regulations and accepted standards regarding animal welfare. Maintains essential records, such as animal and equipment inventories and procurement records. Coordinates purchases for all animal subjects, equipment, supplies and services based on Principal Investigators' research priority needs and availability of space. Carries out routine support functions such as autoclaving, radioactive waste disposal, shipping, receiving, sample storage, ordering, inventory, or other comparable tasks. Feeds, cleans, and cares for all laboratory animals in assigned rooms as described in animal room protocol. Performs other related duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved

Qualifications: TO QUALIFY FOR THIS POSITION AT THE GS-9 LEVEL YOU MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Have at least one (1) year of specialized experience that equipped you 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-8 grade level in the Federal Service. Qualifying specialized experience include research activity or control program work; nursery work that required the growing and maintenance of plants in a controlled environment; work comparable to that with a large dairy farm where production records, animal environment, and sanitary conditions were kept in accordance with modern dairy practice; Farming experience that was not performed in a controlled environment, or experience as a laborer who was not responsible for planning and scheduling his/her own work, but only performed assigned tasks, would not qualify as specialized experience. Additional specialized experience includes: planning and organizing daily operations; providing the optimum husbandry and healthcare to the research animals; and providing essential operational and technical support in a wide variety of animals studies for all biomedical programs involving animal subjects. NOTE: Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must clearly indicate the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. -OR- EDUCATION: Have successfully completed a master's degree or two (2) full years of graduate education leading to such a degree in a field of study directly related to the work of this position. Education must have been obtained from an accredited college or university. NOTE: If you select this option, you must submit a copy of your transcript (unofficial or official) with your application. Education cannot be credited without documentation. -OR- COMBINATION: Have successfully completed graduate education (beyond the first year) and specialized experience as described above to meet the total qualification requirements for this grade level. NOTE: If you select this option, you must submit a copy of your transcript with your application. Education cannot be credited without documentation. 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/. PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS: Work is a mixture of sitting as well as strenuous activity such as standing, walking, bending, stooping, and lifting. The position may be required to stand long periods of time and may be required to lift weights up to 50 pounds for short periods of time. Knows how to implement techniques for lifting and manipulating heavy cages and racks so that back injuries and other injuries related to lifting are prevented. Carries out duties that require regular and recurring walking, bending, and carrying of moderately heavy equipment (<50 pounds). Assists other personnel with the unloading of heavy feed and bedding bags, and the pushing/pulling of very heavy stainless mobile caging units.

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/12855570. 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, 12/26/2025. 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. 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.

Application Deadline: 2025-12-26