Clarification from the agency

This vacancy is open ONLY to current, permanent employees of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and Veterans Affairs (VA) CTAP eligibles.

• Oversees procurement operations and ensures supervisory staff are managing productivity, compliance and excellent customer service across their designated teams; provides direction on strategies for major procurements when critical technical and schedule difficulties are encountered;
• Full range of supervisory duties to include development of performance standards appropriate to the grade and series, mid-year and final performance evaluations, and other supervisory human capital actions required at the leadership level;
• Oversees procurement supervisors who are diverse in technical depth and drives solutions in situations where disparate knowledge and perspectives exist; functions with mastery in federal procurement as practiced within the Department of Veterans Affairs such that accurate technical direction is provided to subordinate supervisory contract specialists; contracts managed by the supervisory contract specialists range in type, complexity and span functional areas such as commodities, services, unique professional services in the automation/digitization areas, construction, architect/engineering and leasing and requires the Deputy to have technical breadth in those areas to drive consistency and positive outcomes;
• Develops long and short range organizational plans and goals through subordinate staff; ensures supervisors actively participate in Directorate's strategic goals and initiatives and carries out related projects that tie to advancing VBA's procurement efforts and the quality and compliance of procurement products;
• Responsible for developing strategies to ensure leadership at all levels are provided data and are properly briefed in meaningful cadences; explains complicated procurement challenges to senior leadership within VBA or with key stakeholders within VA;
• Serves as a subject matter expert for procurement matters and facilitates decision making representing the HCA's position in VBA and/or Department level meetings or with other stakeholders (GAO, Congress, OIT, OGC or OGC);
• Ensures supervisory staff have methodologies to affirm proper workload distribution and ensures plans are developed to reassign work to achieve balance across procurement operations while meeting procurement action lead times;
• Oversees the Directorate's compliance program to include acquisition systems; ensures data extracted from various means, to include contract reviews, are managed by the supervisory staff and gaps and trends analysis conducted and corrective action plans implemented, where necessary; ensures procurement supervisors have the necessary knowledge to complete data calls and that the resulting products are sound;
• Independently communicates a myriad of statuses and improvement plans to leadership addressing productivity, quality and compliance and determines methods for the Directorate's achievement of HCA imposed measures and VA imposed metrics and measures. Ensures HCA/Director has reports and access to data and that data and improvement plans are captured in meaningful means.

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.
• You may be required to serve a Supervisory probationary period.
• Subject to background/security investigation.
• Required to have at least a FAC-C Level III Certification at time of assuming the position.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 01/18/2023.

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-14 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-14. 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. You must provide a copy of your most recent SF-50 that indicates proof of status, and shows Time in Grade (for example, you were a career or career-conditional employee) and identifies your position title, series, grade, step, salary, tenure, and type of service (Competitive or Excepted).

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 also submit your most recent promotion or within-grade increase in addition to your recent SF-50. This may also require you to submit more than one SF-50 to support your eligibility. If you previously held a higher grade, you must also submit any SF-50 showing that grade. DO NOT submit Award SF-50's and/or General Adjustment SF-50's as they cannot be used to prove 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. If you are a current VBA seeking a reassignment or change to lower grade via this vacancy announcement, you must currently hold the GS-14 (or higher) and the promotion potential of your current position must be at least GS-14.

The Office of Personnel Management's (OPM's)Individual Occupational requirements and/or group qualification standards covering white collar occupations in the Federal competitive service can be found: Here

Note: Applicants for this position will be required to meet both the Basic Requirements of the Individual Occupation requirements and the Specialized Experience as stated below.

Basic Requirements for GS-13 and Above

1. Completion of all mandatory training prescribed by the head of the agency for progression to GS-13 or higher level contracting positions, including at least 4-years experience in contracting or related positions. At least 1 year of that experience must have been specialized experience at or equivalent to work at the next lower level of the position, and must have provided the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the work of the position. For this VBA position, mandatory training consists of demonstrated completion of FAC-C Level III training; FAC-C Level III or equivalent DAWIA Level of certification must be submitted with your application package to verify this requirement.

1. A 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree, that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours in any combination of the following fields: accounting, business, finance, law, contracts, purchasing, economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative methods, or organization and management.
2. Exceptions: Employees in GS-1102 positions will be considered to have met the standard for positions they occupy on January 1, 2000. This also applies to positions at the same grade in the same agency or other agencies if the specialized experience requirements are met. However, they will have to meet the basic requirements and specialized experience requirements in order to qualify for promotion to a higher grade, unless granted a waiver under Paragraph D.
3. Waiver: When filling a specific vacant position, the senior procurement executive of the selecting agency, at his or her discretion, may waive any or all of the requirements of Paragraphs A and B above if the senior procurement executive certifies that the applicant possesses significant potential for advancement to levels of greater responsibility and authority, based on demonstrated analytical and decision making capabilities, job performance, and qualifying experience. With respect to each waiver granted under this Paragraph D, the senior procurement executive must document for the record the basis of the waiver. If an individual is placed in a position in an agency on the basis of a waiver, the agency may later reassign that individual to another position at the same grade within that agency without additional waiver action.

Specialized Experience: To qualify for the grade level GS-14: Applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade (GS-13) or a comparable pay band in federal or other service that demonstrates the particular competencies necessary to perform the work of this position, and that is typically in or related to the position to be filled.

Specialized experience for this position is defined as: A supervisor at the GS-13 or GS-14 level in Federal service specific to federal procurement. Specialized experience includes:

(1) Experience in or directly related to acquisition pre and post-award functions including price/cost analysis, negotiation and administration for services, materials and equipment associated with research and development.
(2) Candidate must have experience in announcing and soliciting bids and proposals and administering contracts to assure terms of contract are met.
(3) Applying Federal, departmental or agency, and local contract laws, regulations and procedures applicable to the acquisition and contract administration of extensive or unique equipment, services, construction.


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.

How you will be evaluated

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

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.

Problem Solving - Analyzes problems; weighs relevance and accuracy of information; evaluates alternatives and implements solutions.

Customer Service - Anticipates and meets the needs of customers. Delivers quality products and services; committed to improvement.

Oral Communication - Oral communication is clear/convincing and organized for audience. Listens effectively; clarifies info as needed.

Managing Human Resources - Plans, distributes, coordinates and monitors work assignments for others. Evaluates work performance and ensures equity.

Interpersonal Skills - Treats others with respect. Considers and responds appropriately to the needs of complex situations.

Technical Competence - Applies principles, procedures, regulations, and policies related to acquisition expertise.

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.