Program Specialist

Veterans Benefits Administration; New Orleans (LA); On-site; USD 56,000 - 84,000; Full time

Job summary

Veterans Benefits Administration, New Orleans, LA, is seeking a Program Specialist to assist the Veterans Service Center Manager and staff with high-level administrative duties and to manage hearings for veteran clients. The role requires meeting qualification standards, including time-in-grade considerations for current federal employees.

This position is based in the New Orleans Regional Office and involves clerical tasks, records research, and coordination of administrative processes to

Qualifications

• Specialized experience in clerical and administrative support for an office.
• Typing a variety of correspondence, greeting customers, and maintaining files.
• Experience researching and reviewing records and piecing together information from multiple sources.
• Education substitution available: master's degree or 2 years of graduate education; LL.B. or J.D. if related.

Responsibilities

• Assist the Veterans Service Center Manager and staff with high-level administrative support tasks.
• Provide technical management of hearings to assist veteran clients.

Skills

Clerical & administrative support

Typing

Greeting customers

Records research

Education

Master's degree or higher

LL.B./J.D. degree (related)

Job description

This position serves as a Program Specialist in the Veterans Benefits Administration, New Orleans, Louisiana Regional Office (RO), Veterans Service Center and located in the New Orleans office. This incumbent will actively assist the Veterans Service Center Manager (VSCM) and members for the VSC Management staff in high-level administrative support tasks and technical management of hearings to assist veteran clients.

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement:09/03/2026. 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. For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. If you are a current VBA employee requesting a reassignment or change to lower grade via this vacancy announcement, you must currently hold the GS- 09 (or higher) and the promotion potential of your current position must be at least GS-09. 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. MINIMUM QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: GS-09 Grade Level: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-07 level or higher. Specialized experience is defined as experience providing clerical and administrative support to an office; to include typing a variety of correspondence, greeting customers, and maintaining office files; or experience researching and reviewing available records/documents and piecing together pertinent information from a variety of sources OR Education Substitution: You may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education you must have: A master's or equivalent graduate degree in an accredited or pre-accredited college or university; or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree; or possession of a LL.B. or J.D degree, if related. Graduate level education must demonstrate the competencies necessary to do the work of the position. Combining Education & Experience: If you do not fully meet the length of experience and education described for a specific grade level (e.g., have six months of experience and some coursework but not a degree), the two can be combined to total 100% of the requirement. Volunteer Experience: 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. Full vs. Part-Time Employment: Full-time employment is considered to be at least 35 hours per week. Part-time experience will be credited on a pro-rated basis; when including part-time employment in your resume you must specify the average hours worked per week. Physical Requirements: Work is primarily sedentary but includes some walking, standing, bending, and carrying of light items such as papers and files. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.