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Posted: March 10, 2026 (3 days ago)

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HR Specialist (Recruitment and Placement)

Department of Energy - Agency Wide

Department of Energy

Fresh

Location

Salary

$99,800 - $154,280

per year

Closes

March 20, 2026More DOE jobs →

GS-12 Pay Grade

Base salary range: $74,441 - $96,770

Typical requirements: 1 year specialized experience at GS-11. Advanced degree + significant experience.

Note: Actual salary includes locality pay (15-40%+ depending on location).

Job Description

Summary

This job involves helping the Department of Energy hire and place employees by advising on recruitment strategies, processing applications, and ensuring everything follows federal rules.

You'll work on tasks like creating job postings, reviewing resumes, and handling special hiring programs for veterans or priority candidates.

It's a great fit for someone with federal HR experience who enjoys solving people-related problems and guiding managers through the hiring process.

Key Requirements

  • One year of specialized experience equivalent to GS-11 (for GS-12) or GS-12 (for GS-13) in federal HR, focusing on recruitment and placement
  • Expertise in advising on hiring authorities like Delegated Examining (DE), Merit Promotion (MP), and special government-wide authorities
  • Proficiency in full staffing cycle: job analysis, assessment questionnaires, job announcements, eligibility reviews, veterans' preference, and certificate creation
  • Experience preparing, reviewing, and processing personnel actions with compliance to regulations
  • Providing consultative services on staffing to managers, employees, and applicants, plus responding to HR inquiries
  • Conducting quality control reviews for recruitment actions and ensuring federal compliance
  • For GS-13: Subject-matter expertise in complex HR issues, automated systems like USA Staffing, strategic recruitment plans, OPM/DOE regulations, and leading HR projects

Full Job Description

This position is part of the Power Marketing Administration HR Shared Service Center. As an HR Specialist, you will be an expert advisor and technical service provider.

This position interprets Federal and DOE-wide policy, legislative and regulatory guidance, or equivalent issues (e.g., reengineering and improving HR processes); develops and prepares management recommendations, interventions for significant HR issues and concerns; works with teams or independently to execute special projects.

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS: A qualified candidate's online application and resume must demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience equivalent to the next lower grade level in the Federal service.

Specialized experience for this position is defined as: At the GS-12 grade level, you must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-11 grade level in the Federal service in the following: Advising management on recruitment strategies and hiring authorities including Delegated Examining (DE), Merit Promotion (MP), and government-wide special hiring authorities for excepted service and competitive service positions; and Experience in all the following staffing functions: identifying competencies and conducting job analyses, creating assessment questionnaires, creating job opportunity announcements using automated HR systems, reviewing application materials for eligibility and qualifications determinations, adjudication of veterans' preference, determining appointment eligibilities, creating ranking and certificate of eligible applicant lists; and Preparing, reviewing and processing a wide variety of personnel actions and ensure accuracy of information and compliance with all applicable regulations and guidelines; and Providing full range of staffing/recruitment and placement consultative services to managers, employees, and applicants; and Responding to human resource inquiries from internal and external stakeholders and applicants; and Conducting quality control and assurance reviews to ensure recruitment and placement actions, case files, and processed personnel actions are accurate, complete, and compliant with federal requirements and agency guidelines.

At the GS-13 grade level, you must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-12 grade level in the Federal service in the following: Experience serving as a subject-matter expert to management on a wide variety of complex, sensitive, and difficult HR issues, including providing authoritative interpretations of policy, regulations, and law; and Proficiency in using automated personnel systems relevant to federal HR (e.g., USA Staffing, HR systems within federal agencies) to process actions, as well as the ability to independently extract, troubleshoot, and resolve difficult issues/problems requiring consideration of the total human resource management program; and Proven expertise in managing the entire recruitment and staffing process for federal agencies, from developing strategic recruitment plans and crediting plans with hiring managers to managing competitive/excepted service appointments, priority placement programs (e.g., PPP, CTAP/ICTAP), and veterans' preference; and A comprehensive background in applying, interpreting, and ensuring compliance with Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Department of Energy (DOE) regulations.

This includes experience developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and responding to audits specific to federal HR programs; and Experience planning, evaluating, and leading HR projects and initiatives within a federal agency context.

This involves conducting studies, developing solutions to complex problems, and creating guidance and standards for new or changing programs relevant HR operations.

Time-in-Grade: Current career or career-conditional GS employees of the Federal government, or former career or career-conditional GS employees, who have a break in service of less than one year, are required to meet the time-in-grade restriction of one year of Federal experience at the next lower grade, with few exceptions outlined in 5 CFR 300.603(b).

Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to current career or career-conditional federal employees applying for a Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

Limit your resume to no more than two (2) pages. If more than two pages are submitted, only the first two pages will be reviewed to determine your eligibility and qualifications. Major Duties:

As an HR Specialist (Recruitment and Placement) at the full performance level, you will: Represent PMA HR SSC rendering expert and authoritative recruitment and placement advisory and technical services.

Perform broad reaching, innovative, cross-functional analyses to develop human resources (HR) recommendations responding proactively to specific HR challenges.

Manage and/or accomplish the most complex recruitment and placement work assignments, complete extremely difficult and/or complicated projects, regularly requiring identification and resolution of precedent-setting and/or highly controversial operational problems.

Complete pre-announcement duties. Conduct recruitment conversations with hiring managers.

Work with hiring managers on refining and/or developing recruitment/placement criteria to recruit for hard-to-fill highly technical, professional and/or specialized positions in areas where a shortage of qualified personnel exists.

Consult with and expertly advise managers about internal Merit Promotion and external Delegated Examining (DE) vacancy announcements.

Establish priorities for filling positions, considering the importance of vacancies to missions, and the availability of qualified internal and/or external candidates to fill positions.

Expertly advise customers about recruitment and placement regulatory guidance and its applicability to hiring efforts (e.g., Veterans Preference, USERRA, SME utilization, DHA, etc.).

Lead or participate in identification, design, development, and implementation of more efficient ways to deliver recruitment and staffing products and services to assigned organization managers and staff through automated information systems.

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Posted on USAJOBS: 3/10/2026 | Added to FreshGovJobs: 3/11/2026

Source: USAJOBS | ID: 26-PW-00372-12905783-MP