Purchasing Agent

Summary

The Purchasing Agent position is located in the Prosthetic & Sensory Aids Service (PSAS) in the VA Medical Center in Salt Lake City, UT. The primary purpose of this position is to perform direct medical supply Purchasing and Inventory Management support to the administrative and clinical services of the VA, to initiate the obligation for all related requirements necessary to provide prosthetic and sensory aids services, to include durable medical equipment and supplies directly to Veterans.

Duties

• Major duties and responsibilities include: Perform direct purchasing of durable medical equipment and providing administrative support to clinical services within the VA. Initiate procurement of all outpatient medical requirements to include: direct individual purchases to the Veteran, stock purchases for immediate availability, all medical surgical implants used during surgery, and/or rental requirements. Inbound customer service calls and providing resolutions to veterans, vendors, and clinicians. Reading, understanding, and adhering to provider prescriptions/consults to determine eligibility and entitlement of a Veteran's status for prescribed equipment. Accounting for all expenditures and inventory working between the purchasing card and prosthetics program. Balance expenditures against obligations. Document all inventory and purchasing actions in the Veteran's medical record. Develop request for quotation, soliciting competitive offers, evaluating responds to bids and requests for proposal. Performing other duties as assigned. Promotion Potential: The selectee may be promoted to the full performance level without further competition when all regulatory, qualification, and performance requirements are met. Selection at a lower grade level does not guarantee promotion to the full performance level. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm, Telework: Ad-hoc telework. Telework eligibility will be discussed during the interview process. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. YOU MUST LIVE WITHIN OR BE WILLING TO RELOCATE WITHIN A COMMUTABLE DISTANCE OF THE DUTY LOCATION

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 09/25/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-05 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-04. For a GS-06 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-05. 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. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE GS-5 LEVEL: You must have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience, equivalent to at least the next lower grade level in the Federal Service (GS-4), that equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of a Purchasing Agent. Specialized experience for this position includes performing administrative duties in a healthcare setting; completing training or assisting in routine and complex specialized purchases for clinics including medical equipment and medical appliances; communicating with internal and external customers via various methods. OR, EDUCATION FOR EXPERIENCE GS-5 LEVEL: You must have successfully completed four (4) years above the high school level in any field for which high school graduation or the equivalent is the normal prerequisite. This education must have been obtained in an accredited business, secretarial or technical school, junior college, college or university. One year of full-time academic study is defined as 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours, or the equivalent in a college or university, or at least 20 hours of classroom instruction per week for approximately 36 weeks in a business, secretarial, or technical school. (COPY OF TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED AT TIME OF APPLICATION) OR, COMBINATION OF EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION: You must possess equivalent combinations of successfully completed post-high school education beyond two (2) years and specialized experience as described above that demonstrates the ability to perform the duties of this Purchasing Agent position. Only education in excess of the first 60 semester hours (i.e., beyond the second year) is creditable toward meeting the specialized experience requirement. One full academic year of study (30 semester hours) beyond the second year is equivalent to 6 months of specialized experience. (COPY OF TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED AT TIME OF APPLICATION) SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE GS-6 LEVEL: You must have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience, equivalent to at least the next lower grade level in the Federal Service (GS-5), that equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of a Purchasing Agent. Specialized experience for this position includes interpreting prescriptions and requests for medical equipment and services; maintaining regular contact with vendors, contractors, medical center professionals and staff; purchasing equipment, supplies and services using an agency/organization purchase card; and reconciling charges and preparing and submitting reports. (THIS EXPERIENCE MUST BE SUPPORTED BY YOUR RESUME TO BE CREDITABLE.) 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. Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 Physical Requirements: The work is sedentary; however, there may be some walking, standing, bending, and carrying of light items such as papers and books. The work is normally performed in an office setting utilizing a computer terminal. Employee performs job site visits when necessary. 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 or 2-year trial 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.

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://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 questionnaire and submission of the required documentation 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. To preview the application questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13064192. 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, 09/25/2026. 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 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 later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. NOTE: 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: 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