Assistant Director

Summary

The Assistant Director (AD) is a senior leader in a Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) Regional Office and works alongside the Regional Office Director to ensure Veterans, their families, and other eligible beneficiaries receive timely, accurate, and high-quality benefits and services. The AD provides executive oversight of daily operations, aligns local activities with national priorities, and drives organizational performance and continuous improvement.

Duties

• The Assistant Director's responsibilities include, but are not limited to: Oversees Regional Office (RO) operations to ensure timely, accurate, and efficient delivery of veterans' benefits in alignment with national policies and VBA/Veterans Affairs (VA) leadership priorities. Develops, implements, and monitors RO policies, procedures, and performance standards, ensuring compliance with VBA directives and consistency in service delivery across business lines. Analyzes operational and program performance data, identifies gaps, directs corrective actions, and ensures follow-up to improve quality, timeliness, cost efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Leads strategic planning and resource management, including development of short- and long-term goals, assessment of resource needs, and effective allocation of personnel, budget, and equipment. Evaluates organizational structure and workload trends, recommending and implementing organizational changes to meet evolving program and business requirements. Provides executive oversight of human resources functions, including position management, staffing decisions, performance management, labor-management relations, and escalation of employee relations matters. Ensures the effective management of RO financial resources, including formulation, execution, and oversight of the budget while ensuring compliant and efficient use of funds. Represents the RO in internal and external engagements, maintaining strong stakeholder relationships and supporting initiatives that advance VA programs, organizational culture, equal employment opportunity (EEO) principles, and workforce inclusivity. Work Schedule: Full time, Monday through Friday Compressed/Flexible: Not Available Telework: This position is eligible for situational (ad hoc) telework only. The selectee is required to report to the official duty station each scheduled workday. Telework may be approved only on a case-by-case basis with supervisory approval. Routine or recurring telework is not authorized for this position. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Assistant Director/37863A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Relocation Expenses Only. (Temporary housing is authorized for this position within applicable regulations) Financial Disclosure Report: Required; This position requires completion of a Confidential Financial Disclosure Report (OGE-450) under 5 C.F.R. § 2634.904(a). The selectee must submit the form before entering on duty and annually thereafter. Bargaining Unit: No

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement: 09/08/2026. TIME-IN-GRADE REQUIREMENT: As a current Federal, GS employee you must meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-15 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-14 level. If you are a current VBA employee requesting a reassignment or change to lower grade via this vacancy announcement, you must currently hold the GS-15 (or higher) and the promotion potential of your current position must be at least GS-15. 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. MINIMUM QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENT: You may qualify based on your experience as described below: GS-15 Grade Level Specialized Experience: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-14 grade level in the normal line of progression. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the executive-level knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of an Assistant Director in a Veterans Benefits Administration Regional Office. To be creditable, the experience must demonstrate all of the following activities, performed in a Regional Office, VA business line, Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN), or similar large, complex Federal or private-sector organization: Managing or directing program operations that deliver benefits or services to Veterans or comparable populations. Establishing priorities, determining resource needs, and allocating staff and funds to meet program objectives. Directing or coordinating personnel management actions such as hiring, performance management, labor/employee relations, organizational changes, or workforce planning. Conducting or overseeing complex program reviews, operational assessments, compliance reviews, or performance evaluations. Monitoring and controlling program effectiveness, including analyzing policies, directives, procedures, and long- and short-range organizational goals to identify improvement needs. Representing organizational leadership with internal and external stakeholders, including participating on committees, workgroups, or interagency engagements. Leading cross-functional teams or subordinate supervisors/managers to resolve operational issues, improve performance, or implement new policies or processes. 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; religious; 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. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The position is primarily in an office setting. This work normally involves mental rather than physical exertion. Some travel may be necessary on occasion for training, meetings, or customer interactions. 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/.

Requirements

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year supervisory probationary period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: your performance and conduct; the needs and interests of the Agency; whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the Agency or the Government; and whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service. Upon completion of your 1-year supervisory probationary period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest. Additional Conditions of Employment are as follows: 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 supervisory probationary or trial period Designated and/or random drug testing may be required Subject to Public Trust-High Risk background investigation Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements I-9 Acceptable Documents. Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. Relocation Expenses are ONLY authorized for selectee/s choosing to physically relocate to the Official Duty location of Chicago, IL.

Education

Some federal jobs allow you to substitute your education for the required experience in order to qualify. For this job, you must meet the qualification requirement using experience alone--no substitution of education for experience is permitted.

How to apply

Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply and be considered for this position, you must complete all required questionnaires, assessments and submit all required documentation as specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on 09/08/2026 to receive consideration. It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. The application process is as follows: Click the Apply Online button. 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. 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 about one (1) hour to take the USA Hire Federal Supervisory Assessment; 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. 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: Visit https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/howto/application/status/. 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. 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: USA Jobs Help Center - Resume Page Limit Applicant Guidance on the Two-Page Resume Limit