Food Service Worker

Summary

This Food Service Worker position is located within the Nutrition & Food Service at the VA Boston Healthcare System within VISN 1. This position is Full-time at 40 hours per week at the Brockton, MA location.

Duties

• Major duties and responsibilities include (but are not limited to): Set up cafeteria lines, steam tables, dining room tables, and side service stands with hot and cold food items. Serve food cafeteria style by placing uniform portions of food on customers'/patients' plates. Break down and clean assigned area when the meal is finished and return food to the kitchen. Set up dining room tables for service, place food and beverages on tables, and replenish items as necessary. Return soiled trays and dishes to the dish room after meals. Deliver meal trays to the patients' bedsides. Brew coffee according to the number of servings required. Assemble and toss fresh fruit or green salads in quantity using prepared dressings and portions into standard serving sizes. Apportion other food items into standard serving sizes using the proper utensils and containers. Make cold sandwiches using prepared ingredients and pack box lunches. Work in one or more functional areas of the kitchen such as food preparation, dish and pot washing, dry and refrigerated storage and receiving, and the serving line. Sort, wash, peel and cut fresh fruits and vegetables. Operate and break down equipment. Perform heavy-duty cleaning tasks throughout the food service and related areas. Separate food waste and trash from dishes, glasses and silverware in the dish washing area. Remove inspection doors, strainer pans, screens and spray arms for preventive maintenance of the dish machine. Unload delivery trucks. Store sanitized dishes, glasses and silverware. Scrape, soak, scour, and scrub the heavier cooking utensils. Move heavy garbage cans when collecting and transferring trash from the work area to the disposal area. Performing other duties as assigned. Work Schedule: 40 hours a week, Friday-Tuesday, 11:30am - 8:00pm, off Wednesday/Thursday. Position Description Title/PD#: Food Service Worker/PD99921S Retention Incentive: May Be Authorized. Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved. Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized. PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not Authorized. Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required. Notifications: This position is in the Competitive Service. This position is not a Bargaining Unit position. This is an OPEN CONTINUOUS ANNOUNCEMENT and will remain open until 11-16-2026. The initial cut-off date for referral of eligible applications will be 8-28-2026, with subsequent cut-off dates bi-weekly. Eligible applications received after that date will be referred at regular intervals or as additional vacancies occur on an as-needed basis until positions are filled.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement. EXPERIENCE: A specific length of training and experience is not required, but you must show evidence of training or experience of sufficient scope and quality of your ability to do the work of this position. Evidence which demonstrates you possess the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform the duties of this position must be supported by detailed descriptions of such on your resume. Applicants will be rated in accordance with the OPM Federal Wage System Qualification Standards. SCREEN-OUT ELEMENT: Your qualifications will first be evaluated against the prescribed screen out element, which usually appears as question 1 in the on-line questionnaire. Those applicants who appear to possess at least the minimal acceptable qualification requirement are considered for further rating; those who do not are rated ineligible and are eliminated. The potential eligibles are then rated against the remainder of the Job Elements: Dexterity and Safety Follow Directions Handle Weights and Loads Reliability And Dependability Special Aptitude - Food Service Work Work Practices 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. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. 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. Physical Requirements/Working Conditions: Food Service Workers perform work requiring light to moderate physical effort. They may be required to perform heavy work, such as scouring and scrubbing large size cooking utensils and pushing heavy carts and trucks in unloading, storing, and delivering supplies. They are subject to continuous standing and walking, and frequent stooping, reaching, pushing, pulling, and bending. They frequently lift or move objects weighing up to 20 pounds unassisted and occasionally lift or move objects weighing more than 40 pounds with the assistance of others. The work is performed in kitchen areas where the steam and heat from cooking and dishwashing equipment often cause uncomfortably high temperatures and humidity. The work area is well-lighted but usually noisy from food service activities, and there is danger of slipping on floors where food or beverages have been dropped. Food service workers are regularly exposed to hot liquids, sharp cutting blades, hot working surfaces, and extreme temperature changes when entering walk-in refrigeration or freezing units.

Requirements

U.S. Citizenship; non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy. Suitable for Federal employment, determined by a background investigation. Selective Services Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959. 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 dentification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. Complete all application requirements detailed in the "Required Documents" section of this announcement. 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 occupational questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (EST) on 09/30/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13035838. 1. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire. 2. 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. You may check the status of your application at any time by logging into your USA Jobs account and clicking on Applications. Information regarding your application status can be found in the USAJobs Help Center. 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. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume, only the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration. 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/ To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete.