Program Specialist

Description:

The employee will serve as the Program Specialist, located in the Employee Experience Team of the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL), Veterans Affair (VA). The VCL is a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year service aimed at connecting callers worldwide to a caring, qualified Veterans Administration employee. The VCL's mission is to provide 24/7, world-class suicide prevention and crisis intervention services to Veterans, Service Members, and their family members.

Requirements:

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 02/09/2026.

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-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-09 grade level. 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.

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

• Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade (GS-09) in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. In order to meet the minimum qualifications for this position, you must meet 3/5 of the following examples of specialized experience:
  • Applying analytical and evaluative methods and techniques to plan and conduct studies and analyses concerning the efficiency and effectiveness of crisis call center operations.
  • Determining impact of pertinent laws, regulations, policies, and precedents on the customer service program and related support resources.
  • Evaluating program goals and objectives, work processes, and administrative operations to determine ways to improve customer satisfaction.
  • Analyzing, studying, interpreting, and making recommendations regarding workload distribution, staffing, and organizational recommendations.
  • Presenting staffing recommendations where proposals involve substantial organizational resources, require extensive changes in established procedures.

OR,

• Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.M. if related, in a field that is directly related to the work of this position that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work.

OR,

• Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have a combination of specialized experience and graduate level education (beyond the first 2 years) in a field that is directly related to the work of this position that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work equivalent to the total requirement of this position (e.g., 6 months of specialized experience and 1 year of post masters degree graduate education).

Eligible and qualified applicants on a certificate provided to the hiring manager will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:

• Organizational Awareness
• Attention to Detail
• Communication
• Technical Competence

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.

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/ .