Staff Assistant

Summary

This position serves as a member of the Director's staff and provides administrative, management, liaison, and coordination support as the Staff Assistant to the Director's Office. The position provides a wide variety of administrative tasks associated with the administration of VBA's various business line programs of benefits and services as well as the Regional Office responsibilities for internal controls and program administration.

Duties

• Specific duties include: Responsible for the suspense control action of all approved recurring reports and other scheduled reports. Maintains follow-ups with staff members to ensure timely conclusion. Coordinate and participate in a wide spectrum of projects within the Director's Office. Receives, schedules, refers, and contact members of the staff, agency, and persons outside the agency ranging from other government agencies to the general public. Involved in high-level contacts with visitors and callers from managers and other staff members. Establishes and/or maintains the office statistical reporting and records systems. Analyzes information contained in the data and writes reports/recommendations including significant trends or changes that have occurred. Compiles statistical data to support background information and prepares outlines for the Director's and Assistant Director's public speaking engagements, papers, and correspondence/reports. Exercises exclusive control over their calendars. Arranges for meeting spaces, speakers, and support arrangements for large conferences. Receives, replies, and routes all correspondence for the Director and Assistant Directors. Screens all correspondence for clarity, completeness of reply, and grammatical and procedural correctness. Maintains time keeping functions and keeps completion of time and attendance records. Promotion Potential: None Work Schedule: Full-time, Monday through Friday 8:00 am - 4:30 pm 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#: Staff Assistant; PD04059A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized. Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required 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-9 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-7 level. If you are a current VBA employee requesting reassignment or change to lower grade via this vacancy announcement, you must currently hold the GS- 9 or higher, and the promotion potential of your current position must be at least GS-9. 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 and/or educationas described below: GS-9 Grade Level: Specialized Experience: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-07 grade level. In addition to the experience required at the GS-7 grade level, Specialized experience for the GS-9 is defined as completing projects using automated data processing and information management programs and recommending changes in administrative policies/procedures to facilitate the flow of paperwork. OR Education Substitution: Applicants may substitute education for the experience required to qualify at the GS-9 grade level. Master's or equivalent graduate degree, if related (You must provide transcripts); OR Two (2) full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree; or LL.B. or J.D., if related (You must provide transcripts). OR Combination of Education and Experience: Combination of specialized experience as described in "1" and GRADUATE education as described in "2" which totals at least one year. [To compute, divide your total months of qualifying experience by 12. Then divide your semester hours of graduate education by 18. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100% 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: The work is primarily sedentary, although some slight physical effort may be required. 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/.

Requirements

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year 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 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 probationary or trial period Subject to background/security 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.

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: https://www.ed.gov/about/initiatives/international-affairs/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications. You may submit unofficial transcripts when applying. However, if you are selected for the position, you will be required to provide an official transcript or a statement from the institution (e.g., from the registrar, dean, or other appropriate official) or equivalent documentation prior to the start date.

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 two (2) 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. 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://help.usajobs.gov/how-to/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