Clarification from the agency

United States Citizens Veterans Individuals with Disabilities

The Special Assistant performs the following major duties:

• Schedules and prioritizes appointments and meetings as requested, accepting or declining invitations on own initiative and in accordance with protocol requirements. May exercise exclusive control over Region Senior Leadership's calendars, with complete authority for time commitments. Schedules Region Senior Leadership travel, including itineraries, supporting documents, and reimbursements.
• Screens all telephone calls and personal visitors, who frequently represent the highest levels of international, national, state, and local governments or major businesses. Personally, handles routine inquiries and those requiring knowledge of the organization's activities or its internal administrative procedures. Refers inquiries requiring technical program knowledge to an appropriate staff member for follow up.
• Provides guidance on processes and procedures related to administrative matters. Establishes, implements, and enhances systems and procedures to improve efficiency of administrative operations.
• Serves as timekeeper for the regional headquarters team and resolves pay and time issues, in coordination with Agency timekeeper. Responds to queries related to recording time and attendance through review of policies and instructions.
• Prepares select travel authorizations and ensures compliance with federal regulations regarding travel and reimbursable expenses. Analyzes organizational requirements and provides advice of a factual nature on well-established issues and non-complex matters to support the travel process, such as disseminating guidelines to Region's staff on the documentation and justification required for requisitions.
• Supports Region Senior Leadership in problematic and highly sensitive matters by gathering and providing information, coordinating as appropriate with various Peace Corps offices, organizations, and individuals to promote and ensure their understanding and support of Peace Corps and Region Operations programs and policies.
• Assists in consolidating information and related work associated with identifying and recommending alternative solutions and corrective action(s). Work with staff to coordinate efforts, provide proper direction and ensure logical progression of the work to arrive at a workable solution.
• Prepares and reviews memoranda, policy papers, correspondence, and other documents and determines follow-up actions required while ensuring appropriate coordination between Region staff and other offices. Prepares reports, graphs, and briefing charts for a variety of presentations. Consolidates information, conducts analysis and documents finding and recommendations in both narrative and graphic forms.

Conditions of employment

• Applicants must be U.S. citizens.
• Applicants must successfully complete a background security investigation with favorable adjudication. Failure to successfully meet this requirement will be grounds for employment termination.
• All Federal employees are required to have federal salary payments made by direct deposit to a financial institution of their choosing.
• A one-year trial period is required.
• This job has been identified as a testing designated position under our Drug-Free Workplace Program. Therefore, you must satisfactorily complete a drug test prior to being hired. As an employee, you will be subject to random drug testing.
• This is a bargaining unit position.
• This position requires a Secret clearance.

Peace Corps Information

• This is a Federal civilian job in the Excepted Service. Peace Corps employees are paid on the Foreign Personnel (FP) pay scale.
• Initial appointment of employment cannot exceed five years.
• All new employees are required to certify and submit a state of understanding acknowledging adherence to the Peace Corps condition of employment prior to day 1 of employment with the Peace Corps.
• Additional hiring needs may be filled through this vacancy.
• The Peace Corps is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factors.
• The Peace Corps is a drug-free workplace and promotes a drug-free environment.
• The Peace Corps is committed to maintaining a diverse and inclusive culture. Our goal is to attract and develop the best and brightest from all lifestyles and backgrounds. The Peace Corps strives to create a culture of inclusion where individuals feel respected and are treated fairly in all aspects of differences. Our commitment is to make a difference in the lives of people around the world.

The Peace Corps provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the hiring process, please notify the Office of Human Resources by calling 202-692-1200 or the Office of Civil Rights and Diversity on 202-692-2139. Decisions on granting reasonable accommodation are made on a case-by-case basis.

Qualifications

Specialized Experience:

You must meet the specialized experience at the grade level(s) in which you choose to be considered by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on 03/16/2023 (the closing date of the announcement). You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. To ensure full credit for your experience, please indicate dates of employment by month, day, and year and the number of hours worked per week in your resume.

This vacancy is being announced at two grade levels:

FP-4 (Education cannot be substituted)

Qualifying experience for the FP-4 level includes one year of specialized experience at least equivalent to the FP-5 or GS-9 level which is in or directly related to the line of work of the position to be filled and which has equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience includes: Experience researching and analyzing data affecting organizational programs to recommend new procedures; Experience drafting reports, memoranda, procedures, correspondence, and other documents; Experience applying analytical and evaluative techniques to identify and interpret information records to resolve problems of a factual and procedural nature associated with administrative processes, data management, and document management; Experience communicating oral and written policies, procedures, and directives to various internal and external groups (including senior-level organizational leadership) to convey key program initiatives and major concerns of department leadership.

FP-5

Qualifying experience for the FP-5 level includes one year of specialized experience at least equivalent to the FP-7 or GS-07 level which is in or directly related to the line of work of the position to be filled and which has equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience includes: Experience researching and analyzing routine data; Experience drafting reports, memoranda, procedures, correspondence, and other documents; Experience applying analytical and evaluative techniques to identify and interpret information records; Experience communicating oral and written policies, procedures, and directives to various internal and external groups to convey key program initiatives and major concerns of department leadership.

OR

Master's or equivalent graduate degree; or 2 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree; or L.L.B. or J.D., if related.

Additional information on qualification requirements is outlined in the OPM Qualifications Standards Handbook of General Schedule Positions. It is available for your review on the OPM web site at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/

All qualification requirements must be met by 03/16/2023 (the closing date of this announcement). Qualification claims will be subject to verification.

Please note: Peace Corps employees are employed using the Foreign Personnel (FP) pay scale. The FP pay plan does not follow the same structure as the GS pay plan. In the FP pay plan, as the grade-level numbers decrease the level/pay for the position increases (e.g., the FP-09 is the lowest entry-level pay and the FP-01 is the highest senior-level pay).

How you will be evaluated

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

Your application will be evaluated based on your resume, attached supporting documentation, and your responses to the self-assessment questionnaire. Your materials will be evaluated to validate your possession of any required knowledge, skills, abilities, and/or competencies. The following competencies will be evaluated in the self-assessment questionnaire:

• Administration and Management
• Information Management
• Reasoning

Please note that a complete application is required for consideration, including any documentation that is being used for qualifications. A Human Resources Specialist will review your resume and supporting documentation, which must support the answers you provided. Falsifying your background, education, and/or experience is cause for disqualification.

National service refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through national service programs such as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, as well as other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, community, student).