Program Support Assistant

Full Job Description

The Position is located within the Department of Veteran Affairs, Veteran Health Administration, Bedford Massachusetts.

The incumbent will be responsible for administrative tasks for current and future research studies. The position will work within the admin team, as well as with study teams and independently.

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 02/17/2026.

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-07 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-06. 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.

Provide a copy of your last or most recent SF-50, "Notification of Personnel Action" to indicate your current federal status.

You must also submit additional SF-50(s) to clearly demonstrate one year time-in-grade as required in the announcement.

If the most recent SF-50 has an effective within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate that you possess one year time-in-grade.

In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one year time-in-grade.

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.

AND You may qualify based on your experience as described below.

Specialized Experience GS-07: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-06 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization.

Specialized experience is defined as aquisition experience and/or development of program information and resource materials and personnel to support the policy development and/or technical activities of the study and center; monitoring budgets for research projects and grants that involve tracking of funding and in the preparation and editing of proposals for VA based grants; maintaining systems of program-specific data to track items such as project budget and spending; providing administrative and clerical support, internal auditing, identifying internal process inefficiencies and providing solutions.

Additional experience in Root Cause Analysis, Improvement Requests, training development design and implementation to staff; streamlining processes to align with programming, data entry into databases, assisting in the overall management of financial resources of a research program.

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Acquisition Strategy Administration and Management Change Management Customer Service Database Administration AND Additional Assessment Requirements: Executive Order (EO) 14170, Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service ("Restoring Merit"), and the Chance to Compete Act of 2024, require agencies to "incorporate skills-based and competency-based technical assessments" into the Federal hiring process.

To ensure that Federal jobs are filled based on merit and competence.

Every hiring process across the competitive service, or any process otherwise subject to competitive hiring, must include at least one technical or alternative assessment before issuance of the certificate.

This announcement requires the submission of an Accomplishment Record Assessment, which measures knowledge, skills, abilities, or competencies.

Per Office of Personnel Management General Schedule Qualification Policies, federal employees are assumed to have gained experience by performing duties and responsibilities appropriate for their official series and grade level as described in their position description.

Experience that would not normally be part of the employee's position is creditable when documented by satisfactory evidence (e.g., a memorandum from the manager, human resources director, or official documentation such as SF-52, SF-50 documenting an official detail/assignments, or other comparable documentation).

The documentation must indicate whether the employee performed the duties full time or, if part-time, the percentage of times the employee performed the additional duties.

To receive credit for experience in your resume that is not within the official series and grade level of your position, you must provide official documentation of such experience as indicated above.

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. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week.

Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities.

Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit OPM's web site at http://www.opm.gov/qualifications/standards/indexes/alph-ndx.asp. Major Duties:

This is a Term position Not to Exceed 3 Years from the effective date of the appointment. This is a non-bargaining unit position. This is a non-bargaining unit position.

The initial application review cut-off for this job announcement is 50 applications. The first 50 applications received will be considered first.

Applications received after the initial cut-off number (50 applications) may not receive consideration unless otherwise requested by management.

If management requests additional certificates, applicants will continue to be reviewed in groups of 50 in the order they applied.

VA offers a comprehensive total rewards package: VA Total Rewards Work Schedule: Monday-Friday 8:00am-4:30pm Compressed/Flexible Schedule: Available Telework: Available Duty Location Status: Will work from a VA owned or leased space Position Description Title/PD#: Program Support Assistant/ PD034650 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required Physical Demands: Typically, the incumbent sits comfortably to do the work.

However, the incumbent occasionally may perform a variety of work related physical duties, including but not limited to, traveling between various offices (i.e.

Jamaica Plain VAMC and McCormack federal bldg. in Boston) carrying light/moderately heavy items (i.e.

5-20 pound items, standing in an upright position for varying lengths of time, and manual use of computer equipment for data processing.

Major Duties: Maintains systems of program-specific data to track items such as project budget and spending. Monitors budgets for research projects and grants.

Provides administrative and clerical support work to support activities of the study and center, including email updates and preparation for meetings.

Provides monthly review of research credentialing portal to confirm study employees can continue to conduct research.

Completes the necessary paperwork for study/center requirements and evaluation of research clinical/epidemiology and genomic studies, and will maintain accurate records.

Provides excellent customer service to internal and external customers.

Coordinates, reviews, and approves travel support for leadership, Invitational Travelers and Center Directors for government travel.