Gardener

Summary

The closing date of this announcement has been extended. The employee will serve as a Gardener at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System, in Reno, NV. The primary purpose of the position is to provide ground keeping and gardening throughout the facility as assigned. The employee is expected to have skills in gardening and groundkeeper maintenance and upkeep.

Duties

• Duties include, but may not be limited to the following: Performs a full scale of ground keeping tasks to include seasonal planting, fertilizing, transplanting and pruning. Operates a variety of hand and power garden tools such as fertilizer, spreader, portable sparer, hedge trimmers, weed eaters, pruning and shears. Operates, stores and maintains equipment such as commercial pressure, power lawn mowers, edger trimmer, pruners and weed eaters. Provides corrective action for plant management, insect and disease control. Performs pressure washing driveways, building, exteriors, sidewalks, exterior railing and other miscellaneous landscape features. Operates highly spiraled carpet cleaning equipment, scrubs, strips, waxes and polishes floors using heavy powered scrubbers, buffers, pressure washers, etc. Drives forklifts as needed to transport heavy loads such as soil, plants, pallet and ice melts. Demonstrates knowledge of the deployment, mixing, application and current laws and guideline of restricted use pesticides. Maintains landscape in a healthy, disease-free and attractive condition. Performs trench digging, minor sprinkler head/risers repair work, raking and other duties associated with normal lawn and flower bed maintenance. Performs other related duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Wednesday - Sunday, 6:00 am - 2:30 pm Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, you must meet the following requirements: Selective Placement Factor (Screen-Out) - A Selective Placement Factor (SPF) has been identified for this position. Selective Placement Factors (SPF) are a prerequisite to appointment and represent minimum requirements for the position. Applicants who do not meet the SPF are ineligible for further consideration. The SPF for this position is: Requires a valid/current state Driver's License. (Please DO NOT provide a copy of your driver's license. We cannot accept pictures. This requirement will be verified during interview.) and Performing gardening tasks (e.g., fertilizing, seeding, transplanting, sodding, aerating, trimming/pruning, etc.); using a variety of hand and power-operated garden tools and equipment (seeders, spreaders, trimmers, shears, sprayers); driving forklifts as needed to transport heavy loads such as soil, plants, pallet and ice melts; and providing corrective action for plant management, insect and disease control. (This experience must be documented on your resume.) Physical Effort: The work requires frequent walking, standing, pushing of carts, bending, crawling and stooping. The employee must be able to lift heavy objects such as fertilizer, salt, plant material and maneuver loaded wheelbarrow. Often lift and handle materials weighing over 23 kilograms (50 pounds) and carry chemical solutions and equipment weighing up to 18 kilograms (40 pounds) for extended periods. Working Conditions: The majority of work is done outdoors. In working outside, the employee is subject to discomfort from long periods in the hot sun and sometimes to chilly or rainy weather. Being exposed to dirt, dust, mud and sometimes to chemical sprays and dusts, they may wear protective clothing such as gloves, safety shoes and boots. There is chance of minor injuries such as bruises, cuts and scrapes and occasional possibility of broken bones from falls. During periods of extreme weather, such as heavy rain or severe heat, the employee may be given assignments to assist other members of the section in moving materials and equipment, housekeeping and other tasks which may be outside the range of groundkeeper. Applicants will be rated in accordance with the OPM Federal Wage System Qualifications. For this position, the job element method is used to match what you, the applicant, can do against what the work calls for. Your knowledge, skills and abilities will be compared to the knowledge, skills and abilities (called job elements) needed for success. Your qualifications will first be evaluated against the prescribed screen out element (WG-2 and higher only; screen-outs are not applicable to WG-1). Applicants who appear to meet the screen out element are considered for further rating; those who do not are rated ineligible and are eliminated from consideration. The potential eligibles are rated against the remainder of the job elements. While a specific length of training and experience is not required, your responses to the questionnaire must be supported by detailed descriptions of your experience on your resume. You will be rated on the following Job Elements as part of the assessment questionnaire for this position: Dexterity and Safety Interpret Instructions, Specifications (other than blueprint reading) Materials Measuring Instruments Technical Practices Use and Maintain Tools and Equipment Without more than normal supervision IMPORTANT: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. All experience listed on your resume must include the month and year start/end dates. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. 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.

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 Pre-employment physical required 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 (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-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. Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP) 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.

How to apply

All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 09/14/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13049796. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. 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: 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/ Special Employment Consideration: VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, Appointment of persons with disabilities (i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities), and/or disabled veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. For more information on how to apply using this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator within the office, contact the facility Human Resources Department at (775) 786-7200. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation and be found well-qualified (have a final rating of 85 or more before any Veterans preference points) for this vacancy. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/.