The incumbent serves as the Staff Assistant on the Office of Survivors Assistance team for the Pension and Fiduciary Service (P&F) (21PF), of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). As the internal administrative advisor, incumbent is responsible for performing responsibilities of all Survivors Assistance Operations.

Duties

Specific duties include: Provides administrative support for program related activities for the Office of Survivor's Assistance. Recommends changes in administrative policies. Handles many administrative duties and performs various actions that require initiative, flexibility, and sound judgement. Maintains workflow by working to ensure efficiency and timeliness of administrative functions. Serves as purchase card holder. Safeguards card data and ensures the card is used for appropriate purposes, in conformance with all regulations, rules, and requirements. Procures and controls supplies and other purchases. Maintains and manages office database on Survivors' cases and other work measurement items. Maintains VIEWS and assures that management is aware of all documents pending. Inputs data into VIEWS and time and attendance into GovTa as required. Reviews all incoming publications, regulations, and directives, which may be important to staff. Refers those of importance or interest to the appropriate party. Prepares PowerPoint and similar material and gives oral presentations to various audiences within P&F Service, VBA senior management, department level executives, and outside agencies. Provides administrative support on a variety of confidential material. Exercises tact, and sound judgment in recognizing and giving priority to material requiring the most urgent attention. Coordinates and prepares correspondence and other work within the office using state-of-the-art office automation using a variety of software, including Microsoft Word, databases, and spreadsheets. Proofreads correspondence for completeness, accuracy, tone, clarity, grammar, spelling and compliance with established policy. Conducts initial review of correspondence and documents prepared for signature or requiring concurrence. Gives advice and instructions to correspondence originators and ensures compliance with appropriate policies and correspondence regulations. Track completion of controlled correspondence within the office using the VA Integrated Enterprise Workflow Solution (VIEWS) and other programs. Engages with beneficiaries via phone and e-mail to establish a line of communication with potential beneficiaries. Provides information regarding VA benefits for survivors at the request of beneficiaries, internal partners, and outside organizations interested in survivor issues. Participates in inter- and intra-Departmental working groups, task forces, etc., to consider proposed policy and benefit issues and makes recommendations regarding such issues as required. Assists with in-house efforts and participates actively as a team member or sub-group leader on project teams involving participants outside of VBA. Performs other duties as assigned. Promotion Potential: The selectee may be promoted to the full performance level without further competition when all regulatory, qualification, and performance requirements are met. Selection at a lower grade level does not guarantee promotion to the full performance level. The grade progression for this position is GS-09.. Work Schedule: Full time, Monday through Friday, 8 am - 4:30 pm Compressed/Flexible: Available Telework: Available Virtual: Employee is expected to report to the nearest VBA Facility based on telework agreement. Washington DC duty station required to report 5 days per pay period. All other duty stations report 2 days per pay period Position Description/PD#: Staff Assistant; GS-0301-09 PD#41175-0 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

Requirements

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• You may be required to serve a probationary period
• Subject to background/security investigation
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement:08/09/2024. TIME-IN-GRADE REQUIREMENT: Applicants who are current Federal employees, former Federal employees applying for reinstatement, or a current federal employee applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment must meet time in grade requirements. 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. NOTE: This does not apply to Non-Federal Applicants, or applicants applying for consideration under Non-Competitive Authority (i.e.... "30% or more Disability", VRA, and/or Schedule A). To verify your eligibility, you must submit a copy of your most recent Notification of Personnel Action, Standard Form 50 (SF-50). You must provide a copy of your most recent SF-50 that indicates proof of status, and shows Time in Grade (for example, you were a career or career-conditional employee) and identifies your position title, series, grade, step, salary, tenure, and type of service (Competitive or Excepted). 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 also submit your most recent promotion or within-grade increase in addition to your recent SF-50. If you previously held a higher grade, you must also submit any SF-50 showing that grade. DO NOT submit Award SF-50's and/or General Adjustment SF-50's as they cannot be used to prove time-in-grade. For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07 level. MINIMUM QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENT: You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below, from one of the three options below: GS-09 Grade Level Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience for this position is defined as demonstrated experience: Leading administrative processes and identifying ways to resolve issues. Coordination of planning, designing, implementation, and other program management functions Education Substitution: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have either: a master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. To compute the percentage, divide your total months of qualifying experience by 12. Then divide your semester hours of graduate education beyond two years by 18. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify. Combining Education & Experience: If you do not fully meet the length of experience and education described for a specific grade level (e.g. have six months of experience and some coursework but not a degree), the two can be combined to total 100% of the requirement. Click here for more information. Volunteer Experience: 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. Full vs. Part-Time Employment: Full-time employment is considered to be at least 35 hours per week. Part-time experience will be credited on a pro-rated basis; when including part-time employment in your resume you must specify the average hours worked per week. Physical Requirements: Position is sedentary. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at http://://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Education

A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html.

Contacts

• Address VBA Human Resources Center - Central Office 810 Vermont Ave NW Washington, DC 20420 US
• Name: Matthew Lyons
• Phone: 410-230-4400
• Email: [email protected]