Supervisory Contract Specialist (Branch Chief)

Summary

This position is located in U.S. Department of Agriculture's Departmental Administration, Office of Contracting and Procurement, Procurement Operations, within a contracting division. Divisions may include but are not limited to Service and Supply, Construction and Architecture, Information Technology, or Land Management and Stewardship. This announcement may also be used to fill vacancies in the Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Commodity Procurement Program (more info in Education section).

Duties

• As the subject matter expert in contracting and in the Branch’s assigned program of work, the employee is responsible for exercising independent judgment to accomplish a myriad of contracting responsibilities in support of the USDA mission.
• Serves as a contracting officer with signatory authority for lower-grade subordinates, which may include awarding contracts for critical acquisition programs.
• Oversees all aspects of contracting including requirements development, evaluation and award, pre and post award, administration, and closeout.
• Conducts internal reviews of pre- and post-award contract files within the Branch, in accordance with the guidance provided by the procurement compliance team in OCP.
• Maintains responsibility for ensuring the quality and accuracy of all contract file reviews for the Branch.
• Reviews Branch data from automated systems for accuracy, timeliness, and completeness and takes appropriate corrective action, when necessary.
• Applies a wide range of qualitative and/or quantitative methods to assess and improve operational effectiveness and/or complex management processes, projects, and systems.
• Regularly communicates with Branch customers regarding the quality of their procurement packages, providing them opportunities for feedback on the Branch’s procurement operations and level of service.
• Works with other Branch Chiefs to identify process improvements and operational challenges and develops solutions for a more efficient organization.
• Supervises a group of contracting professionals performing all aspects of the contracting process for a variety of types of acquisitions.
• Provides administrative and technical supervision and training necessary for accomplishing procurement operations.
• Ensures subordinates are trained and fully comply with the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation and acquisition policies and initiatives.
• Job duties may vary slightly depending on assigned mission area. For additional information regarding mission areas participating in this recruitment effort, please review the Education section.

Qualifications

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including time-in-grade restrictions, 1102 Occupational Series individual occupational requirement, AND specialized experience, as defined below. Time in grade: Current federal employees applying for a promotion opportunity must meet time-in-grade (TIG) requirement of 52 weeks of service at the next lower grade level in the normal line of progression for the position being filled. 1102 Contracting Series Individual Occupational Requirements: Completion of all mandatory training prescribed by the head of the agency for progression to GS-13 or higher level contracting positions, including at least 4-years experience in contracting or related positions. At least 1 year of that experience must have been specialized experience at or equivalent to work at the next lower level of the position, and must have provided the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the work of the position. and A 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree, that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours in any combination of the following fields: accounting, business, finance, law, contracts, purchasing, economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative methods, or organization and management. Exceptions: Employees in GS-1102 positions will be considered to have met the standard for positions they occupy on January 1, 2000. This also applies to positions at the same grade in the same agency or other agencies if the specialized experience requirements are met. However, they will have to meet the basic requirements and specialized experience requirements in order to qualify for promotion to a higher grade, unless granted a waiver under Paragraph D. Waiver: When filling a specific vacant position, the senior procurement executive of the selecting agency, at his or her discretion, may waive any or all of the requirements of Paragraphs A and B above if the senior procurement executive certifies that the applicant possesses significant potential for advancement to levels of greater responsibility and authority, based on demonstrated analytical and decision making capabilities, job performance, and qualifying experience. With respect to each waiver granted under this Paragraph D, the senior procurement executive must document for the record the basis of the waiver. If an individual is placed in a position in an agency on the basis of a waiver, the agency may later reassign that individual to another position at the same grade within that agency without additional waiver action. Minimum Qualifications: Applicants must meet the Specialized Experience and/or Education requirements as shown below. If qualifying based on experience, your application or resume must clearly show that you possess the specialized experience requirements. Specialized experience is defined as experience that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled and has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. For the GS-14 level Specialized Experience: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience (equivalent to the GS-13 level) which is directly related to the work of this position and which has equipped the applicant with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position. For this position, specialized experience is experience performing all of the following: providing technical and policy advisory support to direct reports and clients; coordination of the full range of operational procurement and contracting activities for a large organization, including serving as a warranted Contracting Officer; evaluating complex contracting and procurement actions to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, executive orders and agency policy; and, performing the full range of technical and administrative supervisory duties. 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 and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Requirements

You must be a US Citizen or US National. Males born after 12/31/1959 must be Selective Service registered or exempt. Subject to satisfactory adjudication of background investigation and/or fingerprint check. Direct Deposit - Per Public Law 104-134 all Federal employees are required to have federal payments made by direct deposit to their financial institution. Successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/. If selected, you may be required to serve a probationary or trial period as applicable to appointment type. Refer to Next Steps section for additional information. Subject to one year supervisory/managerial probationary period unless prior service is creditable. New USDA supervisors must successfully complete all components of the required training program before the end of their probationary period. Incumbent must obtain a Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting (FAC-C) within six months of entry to the position and must maintain this certification throughout their tenure. If assigned to Information Technology (IT) contracting, the incumbent will also be required to obtain a FAC-C Digital Services specialization within 12 months and maintain this certification throughout their tenure. Depending on the nature of the work and forthcoming Federal Acquisition Institute credentials, the position may also be required to obtain and maintain other Contract Specialist credentials as needed.

Education

All applicants must meet the educational requirement for the Contracting Series, 1102 as outlined in the above Qualifications section. Transcripts must be supplied with application materials. The following mission areas will be participating in this Shared Recruitment effort, mission area descriptions are as follows - Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP) is responsible for providing a full range of cradle-to-grave contracting support to all USDA agencies, with contracts ranging from simple to complex, high dollar contracts for services, supplies, construction, architecture and engineering, IT, and stewardship. MRP Commodity Procurement Program (CPP) contracts for various agricultural products and related services that support nutrition assistance, humanitarian food aid, market support, and disaster assistance programs. CPP acquisition activities support nutrition and food aid programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

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 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. Resumes cannot exceed two pages. 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 1-2 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://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. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.