Department: Department of Veterans Affairs
Location(s): Los Angeles, California, Oakland, California, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, Wichita, Kansas, Boston, Massachusetts, Columbia, South Carolina
Salary Range: $61722 - $100315 Per Year
Job Summary: Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors (VRCs) provide and coordinate a wide range of rehabilitation, counseling, and case management services to disabled veterans and other eligible individuals. The primary emphasis of the Chapter 31 Vocational Rehabilitation Program is to assist Veterans with service-connected disabilities to prepare for, find, and sustain employment.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the cut-off date and/or closing date of this job opportunity announcement, 06/30/2026. This position is covered by a single agency qualification standard, VA Handbook 5005/157, part II, appendix F2, dated July 28, 2023. 1. INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT (IOR) / BASIC REQUIREMENT: A. Education. Successful completion of a master's degree (or higher) in rehabilitation counseling, rehabilitation services, clinical rehabilitation counseling, counseling psychology, mental health counseling, career counseling or social work from an accredited college or university. AND B. Internship or Experience Requirement. The required (1) supervised internship or (2) post-master's degree experience is described as follows: Supervised Internship: The education in paragraph 1a must have included a supervised internship in rehabilitation counselling or case management specialization. The internship must have been supervised by a professional in vocational rehabilitation or a closely related professional field that typically has oversight for vocational rehabilitation programs. OR Experience: One-year post-master's degree experience in direct delivery of professional vocational rehabilitation services to individuals with disabilities. C. Grandfathering Provision. VRCs employed in the VBA on the effective date July 28, 2023, of this qualification standard are considered to have met all qualification requirements for the title, series and grade held, including certifications that are part of the basic requirements of the occupation. For employees who do not meet all the basic requirements in this standard but met the qualifications applicable to the position at the time they were appointed, the following provisions apply: VRCs who are grandfathered into the GS-0101 occupational series may be reassigned, promoted up to and including the full performance level of a career ladder, changed to a lower grade within the occupation or placed in a supervisory or managerial position. VRCs who are appointed on a temporary basis prior to the effective date of this qualification standard may not be extended or reappointed on a temporary or permanent basis until they fully meet the basic requirements of this standard. If VRCs who are grandfathered under this provision leave the occupation, they lose protected status and must meet the full qualification standard requirements in effect at the time of re-entry to the occupation. 2. CREDITING EXPERIENCE: A. Creditable Experience. Creditable experience must have required the use of the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) associated with current professional vocational rehabilitation counseling practice. Creditable experience can be obtained through employment as a VRC. This may be demonstrated by providing direct rehabilitation counseling services to individuals with disabilities in the context of a professional counseling relationship, which may include vocational rehabilitation and personal adjustment counseling, case management, assessment, or rehabilitation, training, and employment services coordination. B. Quality of Experience. Creditable experience must have been obtained post-graduate and be directly related to the duties to be performed to qualify to work as a professional VRC. Qualifying experience must also be equivalent to professional vocational rehabilitation counseling experience at the next lower level. 3. MODIFICATIONS OR WAIVERS: Management officials who are delegated the authority may modify or waive the specific requirements of this standard in accordance with chapter 2, section D, paragraphs 8-12 of this part. To qualify under the grandfathering provision, you may be required to submit multiple SF-50s to verify that you were permanently employed prior to July 28, 2023, and that you continue to serve as a permanent employee of the VBA as a VRC.
How to Apply: To apply for this position, you must complete the Application Preview and submit the documentation specified in the required documents section above. https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12950908 The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (EST) on the cut-off date and/or closing date 06/30/2026 to receive consideration. 1. To begin, click apply online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and to complete the occupational questionnaire. 2. Click submit my answers to submit your application package. 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 (2) 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 KSAs 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 opportunity 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/ Note: It is your responsibility to ensure that your response and any appropriate documentation is submitted by the cut-off date and/or closing date of the announcement. To verify that your application is complete, log into your USAJOBS account, select the application status link, and then select the more information link for this position. The details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to your application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process. To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click update application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete. Additional Information Notice to Applicants: It is the policy of the Government not to deny employment simply because an individual has been unemployed or has had financial difficulties that have arisen through no fault of the individual. Information about an individual's employment experience will be used only to determine the person's qualifications and to assess his or her relative level of knowledge, skills, and abilities. Although an individual's personal conduct may be relevant in any employment decision, including conduct during periods of unemployment or evidence of dishonesty in handling financial matters, financial difficulty that has arisen through no fault of the individual will generally not itself be the basis of an unfavorable suitability or fitness determination. If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in the job opportunity announcement.
Application Deadline: 2026-06-30