Acquisition Utilization Specialist

Summary

Serves as a Medical Center liaison and advisor at the Des Moines VA Medical Center on contract related services focusing on critical facility maintenance and healthcare services, product acquisition and support services required by project managers, program managers, upper management, and stakeholders on all aspects of procurement for a wide variety of items to include specialized facility operation services.

Duties

• ***THIS IS NOT A VIRTUAL POSITION, YOU MUST LIVE WITHIN OR BE WILLING TO RELOCATE WITHIN A COMMUTABLE DISTANCE OF THE DUTY LOCATION*** Conducts analyses and recommends courses of actions to ensure that various clinical and administrative service requirements have addressed considerations such as construction, budgeting, supporting manpower and other factors. Establishes, expedites, and reviews consolidation of all procurement packages assigned, including unique, emergent, and complex requirements to meet timely and technical needs of assigned acquisitions. Reviews procurement documents for accuracy, adequacy, and completeness, and assists subject matter experts as needed to ensure the final documents are acceptable. Develops sole source justifications in relation to cost, limited availability, or unusual nature, when the health care resource need is either unique in the community or is subject to maximum utilization only through specialized resources contracting. Advises on all phases of negotiation with the contract specialist/contracting officer for contract modifications, change orders, supplemental agreements, and delivery order processes including requirements, definition, justification, and approval for service contract extension, method of contracting, evaluation of proposals, and all phases of contract administration. Reviews contracts, work directives, and other ordering instruments to extract schedules of deliverable items and services and maintains records of performance and delivery against those schedules. Initiates review of contracts whenever there is overall concern by customers, evaluates for impact and validity, identifies alternatives for remediation/systemic change, ensures corrective actions are taken and adequate response is provided. Recommends contract termination and need to exercise option years of the contract based on contract performance monitors, funds availability, and the need for the continuation of the services being rendered. Uses comprehensive knowledge of contract termination functions to review and analyze settlement proposals, audit reports, technical evaluations, and subcontractor claims to determine allowable costs, proper profit to be allowed, and similar issues and to negotiate settlements. Performs other duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 7:00am to 3:30pm Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized Telework: This position may be authorized for telework. Telework eligibility will be discussed during the interview process.

Qualifications

For GS-11: Possess at least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-9 level in the Federal service that equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of an Acquisition Utilization Specialist, and that is typically in or related to the work of this position. Specialized experience includes: handling contract related services, product acquisition, and procurement of items in a healthcare environment; overseeing contracts including pre-award and post-award; preparing procurement packages with unique, emergent and complex requirements including development of requirement documents (e.g. performance work statements and objectives, cost benefit analysis, gap analysis, sole source justifications, past performance, market research, etc.); developing sole source justifications; developing and analyzing reports to make recommendations on acquisition and contracting issues; participating in negotiations with other officials throughout all phases of contract administration; and monitoring expenditures and reporting on deviations from contract terms. Note: 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. OR Possess at least a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or three (3) full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.M., if related, that provided the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. (One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent one (1) year of full-time study. If that information cannot be obtained from the school, 18 semester hours will be considered as satisfying the one (1) year of full-time study requirement). Note: If you select this option, a copy of your transcripts is required. Education cannot be credited without documentation. (Upload Transcripts to receive consideration) OR Possess an equivalent combination of successfully completed graduate education and specialized experience, as described above, which meets the total qualification requirement for the GS-11 grade level. Note: If you select this option, a copy of your transcripts is required. Education cannot be credited without documentation. Your resume must indicate clearly the nature of your duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. (Upload Transcripts to receive consideration) 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

You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job To be considered for this position, you must complete all required steps in the process. In addition to the application and questionnaire, this position requires an online assessment. The online assessment measures critical general competencies required to perform the job. Valid Driver License is required. Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 Physical Requirements: Work is primarily sedentary in nature. 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) - See "Required Documents" below for details. 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, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Education

IMPORTANT: 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://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.

How to apply

Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online assessment and submission of the required documentation specified in the Required Documents section above. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13061177. The application process is as follows: 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. 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, 09/18/2026. After submitting the online application, you will be notified whether or not you are required to take additional online assessments through the USA Hire Competency Based Assessment system. This message will be delivered to you via email notification. The email may be routed to your "Spam" or "Junk" folder. IMPORTANT: If you are asked to take the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be presented with a unique URL to access the USA Hire system. Access to USA Hire is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Be sure to review all instructions prior to beginning your USA Hire Assessments. Click here for Computer System Requirements. Set aside at least 3 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 at a later time, you can re-use the URL sent to you via email and also found in your USAJOBS account under the "Track my application" link for the corresponding application. 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 view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. 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: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit.