Clarification from the agency

United States Citizens. This position may be filled through the Direct Hire Authority. All applicants who meet the qualification requirements will be forwarded to the selecting official for further consideration. Category Rating, Veterans Preference, Schedule A and traditional rating and ranking of applicants does not apply to this vacancy.

APPLICATION LIMIT: This vacancy announcement is limited to the first 200 applications received and will close at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the day that we receive the 200th application, or at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the listed closing date, whichever occurs first.  

We encourage you to read this entire vacancy announcement prior to submitting your application.

As an IT Specialist (Policy & Planning), GS-2210-13, you will be responsible for:
•    Leveraging a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze FSA's technology portfolio and supporting legal framework and governance structure and provides expert advice and recommendations for innovations and improvements that maximize efficiency and minimize costs to the government.
•    Serving as the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) to manage FSA's equities in one or more technology acquisitions, holding responsibility for a full array of contract administration duties, across the full acquisition lifecycle, and in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, directives, policies, and publications.
•    Contributing to Agency goals for cost efficiency and proper payments by monitoring contract and contractor performance and, prior to invoice authorization/payment, ensuring customer requirements are met in agreement with contract terms and that invoices are accurate and otherwise acceptable, per applicable statute/regulations.
•    Exhibiting responsibility for proactively evaluating technology contracts and related financial information against FSA technology and business/stakeholder needs and rendering expert analyses and recommendations for contract or program action(s) intended to increase efficiency, improve operations, or otherwise facilitate FSA in         meeting its strategic goals/objectives.

Conditions of employment

• Relocation will not be paid.
• You may be subject to serve a 1-year trial period.
• Males 18 and over must be registered with the Selective Service.
• Must be a US Citizen
• Must complete a background investigation and fingerprint check.

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you may be required to serve a probationary period or 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.

You must meet all qualification requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this vacancy announcement.

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

Selective Placement Factor
You must meet the following selective placement factor:
This position requires the incumbent to hold a specific certifications at the time of hiring

1.  Federal Acquisition Certification for Contracting Officer's Representatives (FAC-COR), Level III from the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI).  

Minimum Qualification Requirements
You may meet the minimum qualifications for the GS-13, if you possess the specialized experience.

Specialized Experience for the GS-13
One year of experience in either federal or non-federal service that is equivalent to at least a GS-12 performing two (2) out of three (3) of the following duties or work assignments:

1. Experience working independently to manage large and complex technology procurement for a federal agency, handling the entire procurement life cycle from planning to completion to help the agency meet its goals.

2. Experience serving as a technology acquisition program manager for national or enterprise-level federal technology programs, analyzing financial and operational data and procedures, and recommending improvements to technology management, acquisition programs, and implementation of new technologies or procedures.

3. Experience monitoring and analyzing complex federal technology program financial data and preparing budgetary and financial documentation, Capitol Planning and Investment Control reports (CPIC), life cycle cost estimates, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB)/Congressional justifications to support program planning and evaluation.

Basic Experience Requirements
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.

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).

1.    Skill in leading and directing people, teams and programs / projects associated with IT application development; the development of mission-critical enterprise class applications, and enterprise-wide IT projects.
2.    Ability to develop and assess complex security, design and architecture artifacts to determine system compliance and to provide recommendations for alternate courses of action, when required.
3.    Ability to review and distill large amounts of complex information into executive level presentations to be consumed by various levels of leadership for decision making.
4.    Skill in applying information systems security principles, methods and network operations and protocols, requirements analysis principles and methods, and IT security products and services.

How you will be evaluated

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

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 reviewing your submitted resume and documents. 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 experience is 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.

Under category rating procedures you are placed into one of three categories based on the evaluation results:

Best Qualified -Candidates who possess the type and quality of experience that substantially exceeds the position’s minimum qualifications, including appropriate quality ranking factors.

Highly Qualified- Candidates who possess the type and quality of experience that exceeds the position’s minimum qualifications.

Qualified-Candidates who meet the minimum qualifications and are proficient in some but not all of the position’s requirements.

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.