Psychology Technician

Description:

This position is located in the Mental Health Service whose mission is to provide quality comprehensive mental health care to patients and quality training to interns, fellows, students and residents. The incumbent will assist Mental Health Service staff in the administration and scoring of psychological tests that serve to assess various aspects of personality, intelligence, and adaptive functions.

Requirements:

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 01/30/2026.

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-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. 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.

Basic Requirements: Individual Occupational Requirements (IOR): The education must be accredited by an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education at the time the degree was obtained. To qualify for the GS 0181 occupational series.

• Education : Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree with major study in Psychology or related subject or at least 24 semester hours in Psychology. (Transcripts required).

In addition to meeting the basic requirements one of the following minimum requirement criteria must be met to be qualified for this position.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below:

• Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: administering and scoring a wide variety of psychological and neuropsychological tests in a standardized manner, with sensitivity to individual patient characteristics; managing conflict and problems in dealing with the patients and family members constructively and appropriately; performing research and outcome studies using the clinical research database; interviewing patients or research subjects, obtaining relevant information in a standardized format. OR,
• Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have two full years of graduate education or a master's degree meets the requirements for GS-9. (Transcripts required) OR,
• Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond. o calculate, first identify the percentage of required education you have earned (when substituting, you cannot use the first 60 semester hours that you earned). Then identify the percentage of required experience you possess. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify at the GS-09. For example, an applicant who has 9 semester hours of graduate level education (i.e. 50% of graduate education required) and 6 months of creditable specialized experience (i.e. 50% of the required experience) would equal 100% of the required experience for the position. (Transcripts required).

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:

• Communication
• Interpersonal Effectiveness
• Psychology

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: Include walking, standing, bending, reaching, light lifting, assisting patients to and from testing room and section waiting area (Le., pushing wheelchairs) and carrying light items such as books and papers.

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/ .