Clarification from the agency

This announcement is open to U.S. Citizens.

This position is located in the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), Finance Office, Financial Management Systems Group. It is established to perform specific activities directed at requirements gathering, design, development, and testing of a major Federal financial commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) product (e.g. Oracle, Momentum, Peoplesoft, SAP, etc.) operating with an 11, 12, or 19  Oracle database.

As an Information Technology Specialist, you will be responsible for the following duties: 

• Support all aspects of FMSG's IT systems (e.g. FMS, etc.) operations, maintenance, and security activities in support of FSA's business model while strengthening internal controls and ensuring compliance with federal government standards
• Support FMSG operational task order activity through the acquisition process (e.g. independent government cost estimate creations, statement of objectives or work formulation, responses to vendor questions, proposal review, negotiation, award, monitoring, closeout)
• Monitor help desk and change request activity for stakeholders impacts, provides technical assistance and management guidance to assist in the resolution of help desk tickets 
• Identify possible training needs, and assists in the formulation and/or delivery of functional and/or technical training material
• Analyze documents and defines business problem{s), associated requirements, as-is and to-be state/model using critical thinking and problem solving techniques, facilitation skills, and IT expertise

Conditions of employment

• U.S. Citizenship
• Background Investigation and Fingerprint Check.
• You may be required to successful complete a one-year probationary period.

You must meet all time-in-grade and time-after competitive appointment qualifications within 30 days of the closing date of this vacancy announcement. To verify that you meet these requirements, we will review your responses to the core eligibility questions on the occupational questionnaire, as well as your submitted resume and required documents.  To make an accurate determination, you will need to include on your resume your federal position title, pay plan, occupational series, grade level, agency, dates for which you held the grade level (stated as MM/YYYY to MM/YYYY, OR MM/YYYY to PRESENT), and total hours worked per week.  

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. We will consider all qualifying experience, including any volunteer experience.

Qualifications

Basic Experience Requirements: IT Specialist, GS-2210-13/14

You must possess IT related experience (paid or unpaid experience and/or completion of specific, intensive training (e.g., IT certification), as appropriate) demonstrating each of the four competencies listed below.
1.    Attention to Detail - Is thorough when performing work and conscientious about attending to detail.
2.    Customer Service - Works with clients and customers (i.e., any individuals who use or receive the services or products that your work unit produces, including the general public, individuals who work in the agency, other agencies, or organizations outside the Government) to assess their needs, provide information or assistance, resolve their problems, or satisfy their expectations; knows about available products and services; is committed to providing quality products and services.
3.    Oral Communication - Expresses information (e.g., ideas or facts) to individuals or groups effectively, taking into account the audience and nature of the information (e.g., technical, sensitive, controversial); makes clear and convincing oral presentations; listens to others, attends to nonverbal cues, and responds appropriately.
4.    Problem Solving - Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations.

Specialized Experience: For the GS-13 level, you must have one year of specialized experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-12 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as experience that is in or directly related to the line of work of this position and has equipped you with the knowledge and competencies to successfully perform the duties of this position. More specifically, specialized experience must include performing at least two (2) of the following three (3) duties or work assignments:

1.  Specialized experience performing business, user, and system requirements gathering from technical and non-technical stakeholders for a major, enterprise-wide or a similar scale project 

2. Specialized experience leading and utilizing repeatable, full lifecycle testing methodologies in support of a major business or systems integration project.

3. Specialized experience identifying, promoting, and implementing business process improvements as a part of a system development or operations & maintenance environment.

Specialized Experience: For the GS-14 level, you must have one year of specialized experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-13 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as experience that is in or directly related to the line of work of this position and has equipped you with the knowledge and competencies to successfully perform the duties of this position. More specifically, specialized experience must include performing at least two (2) of the following three (3) duties or work assignments:

1. Lead role experience coordinating requirements gathering, design, development, and testing of a major Federal financial commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) product (e.g., Oracle, Momentum, PeopleSoft, SAP, etc.) operating with an 11, 12 or 19 Oracle database. 

2. Lead role experience coordinating and utilizing project management principles, methods, and practices including developing plans and schedules, estimating resource requirements, defining milestones and deliverables, monitoring project activities, and evaluating and reporting accomplishments.

3. Lead role experience coordinating  business transformation to achieve improvements in organizational efficiencies, effectiveness and increased stakeholder satisfaction.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs)
The quality of your experience will be measured by the extent to which you possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs). You do not need to provide separate narrative responses to these KSAs, as they will be measured by your responses to the occupational questionnaire (you may preview the occupational questionnaire by clicking the link at the end of the Evaluations section of this vacancy announcement).

• Knowledge and experience with managing the change management process and validating accuracy through compliance processes
• Knowledge of project management principles, developing and testing methodologies, and methods 
• Skill and experience in full system development life cycle (SDLC) with a federal financial product in a federal systems environment. 

How you will be evaluated

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

Current or Former Political Appointees: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must authorize employment offers made to current or former political appointees. If you are currently, or have been within the last 5 years, a political Schedule A, Schedule C, Non-career SES or Presidential Appointee employee in the Executive Branch, you must disclose this information to the Human Resources Office.

Selections: Agencies have broad authority under law to hire from any appropriate source of eligibles, and we may fill a vacancy in the competitive service by any method authorized, including competitive appointment from a list of eligibles, noncompetitive appointment under special authority, reinstatement, transfer, reassignment, change to lower grade, or promotion. We may make additional selections from this vacancy announcement within 90 days from the date the selection certificates are issued, should vacancies occur. We may share selection certificates amongst program offices across the agency.

We use a multi-step process to review and evaluate applicants:

1. Eligibility and Minimum Qualifications
Once the vacancy announcement closes, we will review your submitted resume and documents to determine if you meet the eligibility and minimum qualification requirements, including any required education, experience, and/or selective placement factors. You will be rated as ineligible if you are outside of the area of consideration (i.e., who may apply) or your application is missing any required documents. You will be rated as not qualified if you do not possess the minimum qualification requirements.

2. Rating and Ranking
If you are found to meet both the eligibility and minimum qualification requirements, we will assess the quality of your experience and the extent to which you possess the required KSAs by comparing your submitted resume and documents against your responses to the occupational questionnaire. Your application may be referred to a subject matter expert or panel of subject matter experts for further evaluation.

Based on the outcome of this evaluation, you will be placed into one of three categories: Best Qualified, Well Qualified, or Qualified.

If your responses to the occupational questionnaire are not substantiated by your submitted resume, you may be eliminated from receiving further consideration.

Veterans’ Preference: Qualified veterans’ preference eligibles will be ranked ahead of qualified non-preference eligibles within each category for which they are qualified. Qualified veterans’ preference eligibles with a compensable service-connected disability of 10 percent or more (CPS and CP) will be placed at the top of the Best Qualified category, except in the case of scientific or professional positions at the GS-9 grade level or higher.

3. Referral and Selection
If you are found to be amongst the most highly qualified applicants, you will be referred to the selecting official. As part of the assessment and selection process, the selecting official may invite you to participate in a structured interview, check your references, and/or request that you submit a writing sample or complete a written assessment or exercise to further evaluate your qualifications for this position.  

If you require reasonable accommodation for any part of the interview process or written assessment or exercise, please inform the selecting official at the time of scheduling.