Program Support Assistant

This position is located in the Center for Veterinary Medicine which has regulatory authority over food, food additives, drugs, and devices for animals.

Overview

• Accepting applications

• Open & closing dates

  07/10/2023 to 07/14/2023

  This job will close when we have received 100 applications which may be sooner than the closing date.

• Salary

  $42,870 – $62,122 per year

• Pay scale & grade

  GS 5 – 6

• Location

  2 vacancies in the following location:

• Remote job

  No

• Telework eligible

  Yes-as determined by the agency policy.

• Travel Required

  25% or less – You may be expected to travel up to 25% for this position.

• Relocation expenses reimbursed

  No

• Appointment type

  Permanent –

• Work schedule

  Full-time –

• Service

  Competitive

• Promotion potential

  7

• Job family (Series)
• Supervisory status

  No

• Security clearance
• Drug test

  No

• Position sensitivity and risk
• Trust determination process
• Announcement number

  FDA-CVM-23-DE-12028153-MP

• Control number

  735534900

This job is open to

Duties

• Enters information into a variety of established databases and similar systems which track various administrative activities of the organization.
• Performs office automation duties to prepare documents such as correspondence, forms, and reports which may include technical material, graphs, and charts.
• Performs a wide variety of administrative tasks associated with maintaining and supporting the work of the organization.

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• Citizenship Requirement: You must be a U.S. Citizen to be considered for this advertisement unless explicitly stated otherwise.
• Selective Service Registration: All applicants born male, on (or after) 12/31/1959, must be registered with the Selective Service System OR have an approved exemption. Visit www.SSS.gov for more info.
• FDA participates in e-Verify: All new hires must complete the I-9 form; this information will be processed through e-Verify to determine your employment eligibility. If a discrepancy arises, you must take affirmative steps to resolve the matter.
• Background Investigation Requirement: All employees must pass a security investigation. Failing to pass the background check may be grounds for removal or legal action. If hired, you may be subject to additional investigations at a later time.
• You must meet ALL requirements by the closing date of this announcement to be considered. Only education, experience, and qualifications attained by this date will be considered. You must continue to meet all requirements through the hiring process.
• Certification of Accuracy: All information concerning eligibility and qualification is subject to investigation and verification. False representation may be grounds for non-consideration, non-selection, or appropriate legal action.
• Direct Deposit: You will be required to have all federal salary payments electronically deposited into a bank account with a financial institution of your choice.
• Additional selections may be made from this vacancy, within the same geographical area, by other organizational elements from within FDA, through shared corporate recruiting activities.
• A one year probationary period may be required.

Qualifications

The position of Program Support Assistant falls under the 0303 occupational series. To qualify for this position at grade GS-5/6, you must meet all requirements by 11:59 pm EST on 07/14/2023.

Minimum Qualifications:
Specialized experience is experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled. The specialized experience must demonstrate one year of full-time work experience , or the equivalent if part-time (for example, an employee working 20 hours per week for a 12-month period should be credited with 6 months of experience.) Experience may have been obtained in either the federal service or its equivalent with state or local government, the private sector, or nongovernmental organizations.

GS-05: You must have 1 year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-04, in the Federal service, which includes: experience assisting with administrative tasks associated with an organization or service; performing office automation duties using software applications such as word processing, graphics, spreadsheets, or project management; assisting with coordinating meetings and conferences; maintaining appointments, schedules, and calendars.
-OR-
4 years above high school
-OR-
A combination of specialized experience and education as described above that, when combined, equal 100% of the total requirement.

GS-06: You must have 1 year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-05, in the Federal service, which includes: experience reviewing documents and compiling information using automated tracking systems and/or computer programs; entering timecards into an organization’s time and attendance system and reconciling leave balances.

There is no education substitution for this position at the GS-06 grade level.

NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. To verify your application is complete, log into your USAJOBS account, , select the Application Status link and then select the More Information link for this position. The Details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application. Be sure that any uploaded documents you provide in your application are free of document security or compression which might render the document unreadable by our system.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Qualifications are based on breadth/level of experience. In addition to describing duties performed, applicants must provide the exact dates of each period of employment (from MM/YY to MM/YY) and the number of hours worked per week if part time. As qualification determinations cannot be made when resumes do not include the required information, failure to provide this information may result in disqualification. Applicants are encouraged to use the USAJOBS Resume Builder to develop their federal resume.

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; religious; 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.

Education

EDUCATION:

TRANSCRIPTS:
Positions which are scientific or technical in nature often have very specific educational requirements. You must submit an official transcript, unofficial transcript, or a list including courses, grades earned, completion dates, and quarter and semester hours earned. If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities, see the Foreign Education section below for additional requirements.

Pay careful attention to the Qualifications and Education sections to identify vacancies where a transcript is required. Even if you hold a similar position or are a current employee, you are not exempt from transcript requirements.

Electronic Transcript Caution : If you have obtained your transcripts electronically, the file might contain security measures that could prevent our application system from reading the file. Therefore, you should consider asking the institution to provide the file in a non-secured electronic format. Alternatively, you could scan or take a photo of the printed copy of the transcript. If your uploaded transcript cannot be read by our system, you may receive consideration and credit for the information we can access.

See the for tips on submitting your paper-based documents.

FOREIGN EDUCATION
Applicants using part, or all of their education completed outside of the U.S. to meet the qualification requirements, must have their foreign education evaluated by an accredited organization to ensure that the foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the U.S. We will only accept the completed foreign credential evaluation.

To be acceptable, the foreign credential evaluation must include/describe at a minimum, the following information: (1) The type of education received by the applicant; (2) The level of education in relation to the U.S. education system, and state that its comparability recommendations follow the general guidelines of the International Evaluation Standards Council; (3) The content of the applicant’s educational program earned abroad, and the standard obtained; (4) The status of the awarding foreign school’s recognition and legitimacy in its home country’s education system; and (5) Any other information of interest such as what the evaluation service did to obtain this information, the qualifications of the evaluator, and any indications as to other problems such as forgery. Note: Some positions require the completion of specific courses or a specified number of credit hours. Therefore, the foreign credential evaluation should provide information similar to that of an official transcript, to include a list of the courses taken, quarter and/or semester hours awarded, the cumulative grade point average (GPA), honors received, if any, date degree awarded.
Applicants can request an evaluation from a member organization of one of the two national associations of credential evaluation services listed below:

1. (NACES)
2. (AICE)

Credential evaluations are not free, and applicants are responsible for the cost of the selected service.
For more information about this requirement, please visit the

Additional information

For some advertisements, the Food & Drug Administration receives hundreds, even thousands, of applications from job-seekers. Because of this high level of interest in positions with the FDA, the agency reserves the option of setting an application number limit.

When an application limit is set, USAJOBS will close the vacancy at 11:59 pm Eastern Time on either :
(A) the day the limit is reached,
-OR-
(B) the pre-defined closing date of 07/14/2023, whichever comes first.

If the limit is reached before 11:59 pm ET, all applications in excess of the limit will continue to be accepted until 11:59 pm ET.

The application limit, if applicable, for this advertisement is: 100

For more information about announcement closing, see:

If you are serving, or have served in the last 5 years (from 07/14/2023) as an Executive Branch political, Schedule C, or Non-career SES appointee, HHS/FDA may be required to obtain approval by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) prior to beginning employment. You can find out if you have held one of these appointment types by looking at your Standard Form 50s in your Electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF), in Section 5 where the legal authorities are listed. If you have served or are currently serving, you must provide a copy of your SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, documenting this appointment. In addition, you will be required to respond to the question in the assessment and certify your responses to the questionnaire.

• Incentives: Incentives may be authorized; however, this is contingent upon funds availability. If authorized, certain incentives will require you to sign a service agreement to remain in the Federal government for a period of up to 3 years. Note: This statement does not imply nor guarantee an incentive will be offered and paid. Incentives include the following: moving expenses, recruitment or relocation incentive; student loan repayment, superior qualifications appointment, creditable service for annual leave for prior non-federal work experience or prior uniformed military service, etc.
• Special Appointing Authorities: If you are applying for eligibility based on a disability, veteran status, or under a career transition program, please pay careful attention to the Required Documents section for a detailed explanation of eligibility requirements to include supporting documentation.
• Pre-Employment Physical: No
• Drug Testing Requirement: No
• License Requirement: No
• Immunization Requirement: No
• Mobility Agreement Required: No
• Bargaining Unit: Yes, National Treasury Employees Union
• Ethics: This position may require financial disclosure reporting and will be subject to FDA’s prohibited financial interest regulation. If you are hired, you may be required to divest of certain financial interests. You are advised to seek additional information on this requirement from the hiring official before accepting any job offers. For more information please visit the FDA Ethics web page: .

All requirements must be met by the closing date of this announcement (07/14/2023); only education and experience gained by this date will be considered. You must continue to meet all requirements throughout the entire hiring process.

• Benefits

  A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. .

  Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your eligibility.

About Category Rating (DEU) Procedures (Basis for Rating):

• The answers you provide to the applicant self-assessment questions will be used, in conjunction with the supporting documents you include, and your resume, to determine your specifically.
• Your application score is used to place you into one of three quality categories: “Best Qualified”, “Well Qualified”, and “Qualified”. (The category assignment is a measure of the degree in which your background matches the competencies required for this position.)
• The cut-off score for each quality category may vary from announcement to announcement, and is determined by each agency, in advance of the advertisement going live.
• Category Rating does not add points but protects the rights of veterans by placing them ahead of non-preference eligibles within each category. Preference eligible Vets who meet the minimum qualification requirements and who have a compensable service-connected disability of at least 10% or higher must be listed in the highest quality category (except in the case of scientific or professional positions at the GS-9 level or higher).
• Interagency / Career Transition Assistance Program (I/CTAP):Well-Qualified is defined as an applicant who meets the qualification standards and eligibility requirements for the position, including minimum educational and experience requirements; any qualifications and suitability; is able to perform the essential duties of the position, with or without reasonable accommodation; meets any applicable selective placement factors for the position (such as the ability to speak a specific language or any other factor required immediately upon hire); and is able to satisfactorily perform the duties of the position upon entry. To be well-qualified and exercise selection priority for this vacancy, surplus or displaced Federal employees must be rated at 85.0 or above on the rating criteria for this position. Learn more on the .

Your qualifications will be evaluated on the following competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics). You do not need to respond to the KSA’s directly, but your resume should contain sufficient information to demonstrate possession of the Competencies.

1. Computer skills
2. Written communication
3. Administrative support

To preview the application assessment questions, click the link below:

• Benefits

  A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. .

  Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

• Required Documents

  As a new or existing federal employee, you and your family may have access to a range of benefits. Your benefits depend on the type of position you have – whether you’re a permanent, part-time, temporary or an intermittent employee. You may be eligible for the following benefits, however, check with your agency to make sure you’re eligible under their policies.

  Resume: At a minimum, your resume should list the position title, employer name, start and end dates (including month and year), salary (or grade and step), hours worked per week, and a list of duties performed or accomplishments, for EACH position listed. A CV (curriculum vitae) may not contain enough information to meet these resume requirements.
  Transcripts and Professional Licensure: If the position has an education requirement or licensure requirement or you are qualifying based on education, unofficial transcripts or a list of courses and a copy of your professional license must be provided. See the Qualifications and Education Requirements section of this announcement.

  I/CTAP:
  If you are a current/former Federal employee who is surplus or displaced, please submit supporting documentation (e.g., a Certification of Expected Separation, separation notice, RIF separation notice, notice of proposed removal, SF-50 for RIF separation, etc.) and your most recent performance appraisal. To be selected under I/CTAP, you must be found well-qualified for this position and have a current performance appraisal rating of at least “Fully Successful”. See the How You Will Be Evaluated section for the agency’s definition of well-qualified. Learn more on the .

  Veterans’ Preference: Veterans must submit a DD-214 form (Certificate of Release or Discharge) that has the dates of service and discharge status and VA disability letter (if applicable).

  • Active Duty Members: To claim status under the VOW (Veterans Opportunity to Work) to Hire Heroes Act of 2011, submit written documentation from the armed forces that certifies the service member is expected to be discharged or released from active duty service in the armed forces under honorable conditions not later than 120 days after the date the certification is submitted with your application package.
  • Parents of Deceased or Disabled Veterans: To claim preference, you must submit a copy of the deceased or disabled veterans’ DD Form 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from the armed forces that has the dates of service and discharge status AND the SF-15, Application for 10-point Veterans’ Preference. Please follow the instructions in the SF-15 on required documentation to be submitted.
  • Widow or Widower: To claim preference, you must submit a copy of the deceased or disabled veterans’ DD Form 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from the armed forces that has the dates of service and discharge status AND the SF-15, Application for 10-point Veterans’ Preference. Please follow the instructions in the SF-15 on required documentation to be submitted.
  • Spouse of a Living Veteran: To claim preference, you must submit a copy of the veterans’ DD Form 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from the armed forces that has the dates of service and discharge status AND the SF-15, Application for 10-point Veterans’ Preference, and Documentation of Veteran’s Inability to Work Because of a Service-Connected Disability. Please follow the instructions in the SF-15 on required documentation to be submitted.

  If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:

  Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from .

  Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.

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