Clarification from the agency

Open to current, permanent employees of the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) including Title 38 and Hybrid Title 38 employees covered by VA/OPM Interchange Agreements and those eligible under CTAP. This does not include temporary, term, or intermittent appointments. All others will be disqualified and not receive consideration.

The major duties of this position include but are not limited to:

• Supervises a team of Social Science Program Specialists.
• Meets regularly with direct reports and program staff to understand and meet changing customer requirements and to establish proprieties.
• Exercises the full range of supervisory responsibilities including planning and assigning work, approving training requests, setting priorities and deadlines, evaluating progress and outcomes, developing performance standards and evaluating work performance of employees.
• Provide advice and instructions on technical and administrative issues, making or approving selections and other personnel actions, hearing and resolving formal and informal complaints and grievances.
• Assesses the daily schedule of staff(inbound call center, text/chat and email) and identifies any potential gaps or overstaffing.
• Ensures regulatory compliance and service level agreements are met and/or exceeded.
• Handles unique staff/case issues that my arise in a crisis call center environment and initiates and carries out contingency and emergency procedures as needed.
• Collaborates with other program areas such as timekeeping, workforce management , analytics, knowledge management, quality management as need and as assigned.

Work Schedule: To Be Determined, will work evenings or overnights as well as weekends.
Compressed/Flexible: Available
Remote: This is a remote position.
Position Description/PD#: Supervisory Social Science Program Specialist (Workflow Coordinator)/PD61280A
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not authorized
Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not authorized
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not authorized
PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not authorized

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• 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 dentification 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 or trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/24/2026.

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-12 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-11. 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.

Selective Placement Factor:
This position includes a Selective Placement Factor (SPF) (skill, knowledge, ability or other worker characteristic basic to, and essential for, satisfactory performance of the job). Selective Placement Factors are a prerequisite to appointment and represent minimum requirements for a position. Applicants who do not meet the SPF are ineligible for further consideration.

The Selective Placement Factor for this position is: Advanced mastery of crisis risk assessment skills to ensure the provision of emergency crisis interventions to a complex and high-risk population.

Individual Occupational Requirement:

In order to meet the basic requirement of the Supervisory Social Science Program Specialist (Workflow Coordinator), 0101 series, you must possess one of the following:

1. Degree in behavioral or social science; or related disciplines appropriate to the position. (TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED)
or
2. Combination of education and experience that provided the applicant with knowledge of one or more of the behavioral or social sciences equivalent to a major in the field. (TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED)
or
3. Four years of appropriate experience that demonstrated that the applicant has acquired knowledge of one or more of the behavioral or social sciences equivalent to a major in the field.

If you meet the IOR above, you may qualify based on your experience as described below:

GS-12 Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-11 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 5/7 of the following examples of specialized experience:

• Planned and assigned work, approved training requests, set priorities and deadlines, evaluated progress and outcomes, developed performance standards and evaluated work performance of employees.
• Provided advice and instructions on technical and administrative issues, made or approved selections and other personnel actions, heard and resolved formal and informal complaints and grievances.
• Assessed the daily schedule of staff and identified any potential gaps or overstaffing.
• Ensured regulatory compliance and service level agreements are met and/or exceeded.
• Handled unique staff/case issues that my arise in a crisis call center environment and initiated and carried out contingency and emergency procedures as needed.
• Provided crisis risk assessment skills to ensure the provision of emergency crisis interventions to a complex and high-risk population.
• Collaborated with internal and external partners to carry out evaluations of program operations to identify areas for improvement, development and implementing and evaluating efficacy of improvement efforts.

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

1. Technical Competence: Understands and appropriately applies procedures, requirements, regulations, and policies related to specialized expertise (for example, engineering, physical science, law, or accounting); maintains credibility with others on technical matters.
2. Planning and Evaluating: Determines objectives and strategies; coordinates with other parts of the organization to accomplish goals; monitors and evaluates the progress and outcomes of operational plans; anticipates potential threats or opportunities.
3. Problem Solving: Identifies and analyzes problems; uses sound reasoning to arrive at conclusions; finds alternative solutions to complex problems; distinguishes between relevant and irrelevant information to make logical judgements.
4. Attention To Detail: Identifies and analyzes problems; uses sound reasoning to arrive at conclusions; finds alternative solutions to complex problems; distinguishes between relevant and irrelevant information to make logical judgements.
5. Communication: Expresses information (for example, ideas or facts) to individuals or groups effectively, taking into account the audience and nature of the information (for example, technical, sensitive, controversial); makes clear and convincing presentations; listens to others, attends to nonverbal cues, and responds appropriately.

Supervisory Probationary Period: One-year period - Your appointment is subject to completion of a one-year supervisory probationary period. Failure to complete the probationary period successfully can result in your placement into a position of no lower grade and pay than the one that you left to accept this supervisory position.

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: The work is sedentary. There may be some walking, standing, bending, or carrying of light items, but no unusual physical demands. Travel away from the work site may be required to attend meetings or conferences.

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/.

How you will be evaluated

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

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

Narrative responses are not required at this time. If you are referred for consideration, you may be asked to submit additional job related information, which may include, but not limited to; responses to the knowledge, skills and abilities; completion of a work sample, and/or contact for an interview. Your resume and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating or consideration for employment.

The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.

For more information on the "Who may apply" eligibility requirements, please refer to the OHRM Status Candidates and Other Candidate Definitions document.

Placement Policy: The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position.

It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.

To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package which includes:

• Resume
  • Federal positions must include series and grade. All positions must include starting and ending dates of employment (month and year) and full-time or part-time status (include hours worked per week). Duties you performed must be listed under each individual job title to match your experiences with the positions held.
• Most recent SF-50 (Current Federal Employees must provide an SF50 dated 1-11-2026 or later; WG employees must provide one dated within 1 year of the closing date)
  • ATTENTION: You may need to submit more than one SF-50 if we cannot verify you meet time-in-grade (TIG) by your most recent SF-50. For example, if your most recent SF-50 is a General Adjustment, we need your most recent SF-50 dated 1/11/26 and another SF-50 to verify TIG. Examples of SF-50s for TIG verification include your last within-grade increase or promotion to highest grade held. Promotion shows when you started the grade level and a within-grade increase verifies you were at that grade level for at least one year. Failure to provide your most recent SF-50 dated 1/11/2026 or later and other SF-50s to verify TIG will result in you being disqualified. We cannot verify time-in-grade based only on the grade and step you are currently on. Award 50's do not provide sufficient information and will not be accepted for the purpose of verifying time-in-grade.

• Most recent SF-50 if you are a current or former Federal employee
• An SF-50 showing 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
• Award 50's do not provide sufficient information and will not be accepted for the purpose of verifying time-in-grade.
• Examples of appropriate SF-50's include:
  • Within grade increases at the highest grade held; or
  • Promotions with an effective date more than one year old; or
  • SF-50's at the highest grade held with an effective date more than one year old.
• Transcript(s) if applicable. Review 'Education Section' for transcript requirements.
• CTAP/ICTAP documentation if applicable

Next steps