Summary
Duties
- Planning, conducting, and implementing all cross-program collaboration aspects for the continuing VA-wide program led by VHA NCOD Research Business Line: that is the program of organizational data-analytics and a full suite of related technical services, research, and consultation for VA leaders' needs.
- Using advanced technical skills and knowledge of best methods, practices, and products.
- Identifying VA stakeholders whose organizational role and mission includes involvement in organizational data analytics, reaching out to these stakeholders and negotiating/convincing them to join in putting VA analytic resources and initiatives together and collaborating on shared goals and shared mission aspects.
- Assessing areas of shared and unique analytic needs, existing and lacking technical resources, analytic priorities, current and optimal distribution of technical and analytic expertise across stakeholders.
- Planning future state of resources, expertise, and technology necessary to optimize shared goals in collaboration with partners/ stakeholders, and devising an overall plan/sequence, and specific steps/milestones, for transitioning from current state to the future state.
- Advising on the potential benefits/uses of automation to improve the efficiency of program operations.
- Analyzing and evaluating (on a quantitative and/or qualitative basis) the effectiveness of line program operations in meeting established goals and objectives.
- Analyzing and evaluating the effectiveness of organization based on data findings to improve operations.
- Analyzing management information requirements to develop program or administrative reporting systems including the systems specifications, data gathering and analytical techniques, and systems evaluation methodology; combines, analyzes, and interprets large and/or complex data sets to develop data-driven organizational solutions.
- Conducting in-depth analysis of data and disseminating the results of those analyses.
- Conducting regression analyses, statistical analyses, modeling, machine learning, data engineering, mathematical programming, Natural Language Processing, auto coding and data visualization.
- Conducting statistical analysis to make informed projections, data driven decisions, and recommendations based on findings.
- Determining the best and most efficient ways to collect quantitative information and developing data required for use in the management and direction of programs.
- Developing life cycle cost analyses of projects or performing cost benefit or economic evaluations of current or projected programs.
- Developing management and/or program evaluation plans, procedures, and methodology.
- Establishing procedures for data storage and retrieval.
- Planning necessary quality checks and controls, organizing a reporting system, planning data dissemination systems, using tools, emerging technology, and various data sources to perform exploratory analyses on new and archival data sources, and exploring data using various means available to find insights and trends that may go undiscovered in traditional research.
- Formulating guidance, policies and recommendation based upon validated practices and technical advances.
- Providing scientific consultation and technical/analytic support for stakeholders in designing and implementing their local information strategies, empirical evaluations and related strategic communications.
- Responding to inquiries from collaborating partners/stakeholders in VA (including central office and field), where stakeholders seek professional help with devising, launching, implementing, evaluating, and transitioning or sun-setting their local empirically-based (aka data-based) evaluation programs that address local and unique needs.
- Representing NCOD and VA by speaking and sharing his/her knowledge and perspective during briefings, discussions, research conferences, and/or policy meetings (including at the national/VA headquarters level, federal level, and national or international conventions), on broad topics of data science practices and, particularly, on methods of evaluating workforce and management issues; recent findings in these domains; and scientific, data-analytic or technological solutions recommended.
Requirements
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 probationary period
- Subject to background/security investigation
- Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process
- Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP)
- Participation in the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination program is a requirement for all Veterans Health Administration Health Care Personnel (HCP) - See "Additional Information" below for details.
Qualifications
Duties continued:
- Authoring professional publications which get accepted and published in peer-reviewed professional research journals-as a reflection and proof of the employee's advanced subject matter expertise and credibility, on issues considered to be of the most difficult and complex nature in terms of connecting their scientific/technical bases to their applied/organizational implication.
- Speaking at professional conventions on topics of data science, at the level and from the perspective of a recognized authority for the scientific program of studies and for the translational/applied use of scientific findings to inform organizational action.
Work Schedule: 8:00am-4:30pm Mon-Fri.
Compressed/Flexible: Available
Virtual: This is at a 100% remote location
Position Description/PD#: Data Scientist/PD80795A
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized
PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required
To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 04/09/2024.
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-13 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-12. 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. 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 provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year 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.
You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below:
Selective Placement Factors
Two (2) Selective Placement Factors* have been requested by the facility to help determine which of the basically qualified applicants are likely to be better qualified for this position. The selective placement factors for this position are:
1. Experience applying scientific methods of health science and organization development (i.e. knows how to evaluate properties of organizational data, do statistical data analyses using specialized software, e.g. SAS or R, and interpret the results using scientific models).
2. Experience designing and serving as a lead researcher (not as a coordinator or administrator) on scientific studies of organizational issues (i.e. studies using scientific models, organizational data, and statistical methods).
You must provide evidence of your knowledge, skills, or abilities that meet the above Selective Placement Factor in your Resume/OF-612 in order to receive credit.
*Selective Placement Factors represent knowledge, skills, or abilities that are essential for successful job performance and cannot reasonably be acquired on the job during the period of orientation/training customary for the position. Selective Placement Factors will be used for qualification purposes. Applicants with no evidence of the Selective Placement Factor present in their Resume/OF-612 will be disqualified from consideration.
AND
BASIC EDUCATION REQUIREMENT- You must first meet Basic Education Requirements for this position as described below. Transcripts are REQUIRED.
Basic Education Requirement
Degree: Mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science or field directly related to the position. The degree must be in a major field of study (at least at the baccalaureate level) that is appropriate for the position.
OR
Combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major field of study (30 semester hours) as shown in paragraph above, plus additional education or appropriate experience. TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED
AND
ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS- In addition to meeting the basic education requirement, you must have specialized experience or directly related education as described below.
GS-13 Qualifications
Specialized Experience: 1 year of Specialized Experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-12 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization.
NOTE: To be minimally qualified for this position, you must meet 4 of the 6 examples of specialized experience listed below. Specialized experience is:
- Experience assisting with managing research programs and health and administrative personnel.
- Assisting others in implementing/consulting on research and management studies including review of their design, scientific method, interpretation of findings, and reporting.
- Providing support for program evaluations at the national level through managing customer satisfaction survey data.
- Working with quantitative data sets of organizational data using specialized statistical survey software (e.g., R or SAS).
- Assisting with the creation of interactive data reports for use by executive leaders at local and national levels.
- Assisting others in explaining the program office and agency's perspective on management issues and organizational practices to stakeholders, professional networks, and leadership groups in VA and beyond.
You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:
- Research
- Technical Competence
- Psychology
- Communications
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.
Physical Requirements: Typically, the employee sits comfortably to do the work; however, there may be some walking, standing, bending, carrying of light items, such as, papers and books.
For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website athttps://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.
Education
A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.
Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.
Additional information
The Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/.
This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.
If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.
- Benefits
How You Will Be Evaluated
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.
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.
The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.
For more information on the "Who may apply" eligibility requirements, please refer to the OHRM Status Candidates and Other Candidate Definitions document.
Placement Policy: The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position.
It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.
Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.
Required Documents
To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package which includes:
- Resume
- Most recent SF-50 (Dated at least 01/01/23 or later. Most recent pay adjustment 01/14/24, if possible) - if you are a current or former Federal employee.
ATTENTION: You may need to submit more than one SF-50 if we cannot verify you meet time-in-grade (TIG) by your most recent SF-50 dated 01/14/24 or later. For example, if your most recent SF-50 is a General Adjustment, we need your most recent SF-50 dated 01/14/24 and another SF-50 to verify TIG. Examples of SF-50s for TIG verification include your last within-grade increase or promotion to highest grade held. Promotion shows when you started the grade level and a within-grade increase verifies you were at that grade level for at least one year. Failure to provide your most recent SF-50 dated 01/01/23 or later and other SF-50s to verify TIG will result in you being disqualified. We cannot verify time-in-grade based only on the grade and step you are currently on.
- CTAP documentation
- If you are a current or former Federal employee applying for a higher grade and your SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you meet the one year time-in-grade requirement so you will need to provide an SF-50 which clearly demonstrates you meet the time-in-grade requirements. Examples of appropriate SF-50's include: Within grade increases at the highest grade held; Promotions with an effective date more than one year old; SF-50's at the highest grade held with an effective date more than one year old.
- Transcript(s), if any part of your education is being used to qualify.
The following documents are accepted, and may be required if applicable to your eligibility and/or qualifications for this position. Please use this checklist to make sure you have included other documents required for your application, such as a copy of your transcript (if using education to qualify), SF-50's (current/former Federal employees), documentation to support Veterans Preference claims, or ICTAP/CTAP documentation (for displaced Federal employees). You will not be contacted for additional information.
- Cover Letter
- DD-214/ Statement of Service
- Disability Letter (Schedule A)
- Disability Letter (VA)
- License
- Other (1)
- Performance Appraisal
- Professional Certification
- Resume
- Separation Notice (RIF)
- SF-15
- SF-50/ Notification of Personnel Action
- Transcript
SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action (if applicable for Time in Grade and/or Eligibility):
- Most recent SF-50 if you are a current or former Federal employee
- An SF-50 showing your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. 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 provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade
- Award 50's do not provide sufficient information and will not be accepted for the purpose of verifying time-in-grade.
- Examples of appropriate SF-50's include:
- Within grade increases at the highest grade held; or
- Promotions with an effective date more than one year old; or
- SF-50's at the highest grade held with an effective date more than one year old.
Veterans' Preference: When applying for Federal Jobs, eligible Veterans should claim preference for 5pt (TP), 10pt (CP/CPS/XP), or for Sole Survivor Preference (SSP) in the questionnaire. You must provide a legible copy of your DD214(s) which shows dates and character of service (honorable, general, etc.). If you are currently serving on active duty and expect to be released or discharged within 120 days you must submit documentation related to your active duty service which reflects the dates of service, character of service (honorable, general, etc.), and dates of impending separation. Additionally, disabled veterans and others eligible for 10-point preference (such as widows or mothers of eligible Veterans) must also submit an SF-15 "Application for 10 Point Veteran Preference" with required proof as stated on the form. Documentation is required to award preference. For more information on Veterans' Preference, please visit Feds Hire Vets - Veterans - Job Seekers - Veterans' Preference.
If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:
Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.
How to Apply
All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 04/09/2024 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12372395.
- To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire.
- Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package.
NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date.
To verify your application is complete, log into your USA JOBS account, https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Login, select the Application Status link and then select the more information link for this position. The Application page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process. To return to an incomplete application, log into your USA JOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USA JOBS account or your application will be incomplete.
Agency contact information
VHA National Recruitment Center
Phone
VHANationalRecruitmentCenter@va.gov
Address
VHA Servicing Human Resources Office - HRMS
2402 Wildwood Ave Suite 301
Sherwood, AR 72120
US
Next steps
Once your online application is submitted you will receive a confirmation notification by email. After we receive application packages (including all required documents) and the vacancy announcement closes, we will review applications to ensure qualification and eligibility requirements are met. After the review is complete, a referral certificate(s) is issued and applicants will be notified of their status by email. Referred applicants will be notified as such and may be contacted directly by the hiring office for an interview. All referred applicants receive a final notification once a selection decision has been made.
You may check the status of your application at any time by logging into your USA Jobs account and clicking on Applications. Information regarding your application status can be found in the USAJobs Help Center.
NOTE: Participation in the seasonal influenza program is a condition of employment and a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP). It is a requirement that all HCP to receive annual seasonal influenza vaccination or obtain an exemption for medical or religious reasons. Wearing a face mask is required when an exemption to the influenza vaccination has been granted. HCP in violation of this directive may face disciplinary action up to and including removal from federal service. HCP are individuals who, during the influenza season, work in VHA locations or who come into contact with VA patients or other HCP as part of their duties. VHA locations include, but are not limited to, VA hospitals and associated clinics, community living centers (CLCs), community-based outpatient clinics (CBOCs), domiciliary units, Vet centers and VA-leased medical facilities. HCP include all VA licensed and unlicensed, clinical and administrative, remote and onsite, paid and without compensation, full- and part-time employees, intermittent employees, fee basis employees, VA contractors, researchers, volunteers and health professions trainees (HPTs) who are expected to perform any or all of their work at these facilities. HPTs may be paid or unpaid and include residents, interns, fellows and students. HCP also includes VHA personnel providing home-based care to Veterans and drivers and other personnel whose duties put them in contact with patients outside VA medical facilities.
Fair & Transparent
The Federal hiring process is set up to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.