Instructional Systems Specialist

This position is part of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) Training section. The VCL is a 24 hour/day, 7 days/week, 365 days/year call center service aimed at connecting callers world-wide to a caring, qualified VA counselor.

Major duties
Remote: This is remote position. Selectees will work 100% of the time in a non-VA-owned space outside of the local commuting area of a parent station. The employee's workspace must be suitable for conducting business and as such, remote employees are expected to provide a secure, distraction-free home-based worksite with reliable high speed internet connectivity. The employee will be required to travel to the closest VA Medical Center or VA Outpatient Clinic for issuance of equipment, and as needed for technical support. Selectees will be required to self-certify that their remote workplace meets all safety, privacy, and internet speed requirements. This announcement will remain open until the closing date of November 10, 2026, or when the applicant count is reached, whichever is earlier. The applicant count is the point at which the first 50 applications are received. All applications submitted that day up to 11:59 p.m. eastern standard time on the date the applicant count is reached will be accepted and considered. Major duties and responsibilities include: Accomplishes broad and complex assignments associated with conceiving, developing, implementing and evaluating VCL/PSOC (Peer Support Outreach Center) training programs and curriculum for VCL external stakeholders. Applies principles of organizational development to help build the capacity to design and develop training programs and curriculum focused on improving employee knowledge and understanding of evidence-based and best practice crisis intervention skills and agency processes and protocols. Provides independent, critical reviews of entire courses or specific lessons, focusing especially on the inherent logic, completeness and efficiency of teaching strategies and methodologies, finalizes changes with the course developer and submits them for final quality review in accordance with prescribed completion dates. Constructs/develops practical exercises and examinations to meet and measure the specified training objectives. Recommends course structural changes to provide the proper sequencing of objectives, adequate spacing of practice and reinforcement exercises and an overall instructional design whose learning outcomes are logically consistent with the teaching purposes. Analyzes organizational performance problems, new requirements and taskings to employees that are or may become training issues and recommends appropriate actions. Develops and delivers presentations to executive leadership and department leads to introduce and seek approval of new or enhance external training initiatives. Reviews job and task analyses; task inventories; job and target population data; course participant's feedback and recommendations; existing course materials to identify training shortfalls and redundancies. Determines appropriate strategies to correct problems identified and makes recommendations to senior leadership. Serves as a subject-matter authority in the methodologies of adult learning, Interactive Multimedia instruction, Instructional Systems Design, Criterion-Referenced instruction, Competency Based instruction and/or Experiential Learning Model instruction in the area of providing specialized training, e.g., curriculum development, instructional media, multimedia delivery systems and audiovisual training aids, training devices, programmed instruction, testing and outcomes measurement, etc. Assists in developing training and education strategies and products for the VCL program. Conducts comprehensive literature reviews and performs professional research in order to identify innovative techniques and tools that will facilitate the tailoring of training content to meet the needs of the Veteran's Crisis Line, Peer Support Outreach Center and its external stakeholders. Provides ongoing pedagogical training, guidance, and assistance to other subject-matter authorities who are analyzing, designing and developing training programs and products. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Remote: This is a remote position. Selectees will work 100% of the time in a non-VA-owned space outside of the local commuting area of a parent station. The employee's workspace must be suitable for conducting business and as such, remote employees are expected to provide a secure, distraction-free home-based worksite with reliable high speed internet connectivity. The employee will be required to travel to the closest VA Medical Center or VA Outpatient Clinic for issuance of equipment and as needed for technical support. Selectees will be required to self-certify that their remote workplace meets all safety, privacy and internet speed requirements.

Qualifications
IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR THIS POSITION AT THE GS-11 LEVEL YOU MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING: This position includes a Selective Placement Factor (skill, knowledge, ability or other worker characteristics are basic to – and essential for – satisfactory performance of the job). Selective Placements Factors are a prerequisite to appointments and represent minimum requirements for a position. Applicants who do not meet the Selective Placement Factor are ineligible for further consideration. The Selective Placement Factor for this position is: " Experience utilizing learning theories, principles, methods, practices and techniques of education and training in order to evaluate, design and develop education and training program needs; utilizing Interactive Multimedia Instruction in the design and development of mobile applications, web-based and CD-ROM instructional delivery platforms" PLUS BASIC INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT: You must possess a Bachelor's Degree (Transcript Required) that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours appropriate to the work of the position to be filled. The course work must have included study in at least four of the following five areas: 1) Learning theory, psychology of learning, educational psychology: Study of learning theories as they relate to the systematic design, development and validation of instructional material. 2) Instructional design practices: Study of the principles and techniques used in designing training programs, developing design strategy and models and applying design methods to the improvement of instructional effectiveness. 3) Educational evaluation: Study of the techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of instructional/educational programs, including developing written and performance tests and survey instruments and determining reliability and validity of evaluation instruments. 4) Instructional product development: Study of the techniques appropriate for developing training materials, including identifying learner characteristics, specifying objectives, applying training strategy, validating training materials and evaluating training. 5) Computers in education and training: Study of the application of computers in education and training, including selecting appropriate computer software. (COPY OF TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED AT TIME OF APPLICATION) ~AND~ IN ADDITION TO MEETING THE BASIC INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT LISTED ABOVE, YOU MUST ALSO MEET ONE OF THE FOLLOWING REQUIREMENTS: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: You must possess one (1) full year of specialized experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled. To be creditable, specialized experience must have been equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-9) in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience includes performing subject-matter research, evaluating and developing educational materials, standards, guides, methods and aids; advising on, designing, developing and providing educational and training services in formal education and/or training programs. (THIS EXPERIENCE MUST BE SUPPORTED BY YOUR RESUME TO BE CREDITABLE.) ~OR~ SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION FOR EXPERIENCE: You must possess three (3) years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree that is directly related to the specialization of the position to be filled. One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent 1 year of full-time study. If that number cannot be obtained from the school, 18 semester hours should be considered an academic year of graduate study. Part-time graduate education is creditable in accordance with its relationship to a year of full-time study at the school attended. (COPY OF TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED AT TIME OF APPLICATION) ~OR~ COMBINATION OF EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION: You must possess equivalent combinations of successfully completed graduate level education and specialized experience, as described above, may be used to meet the total qualification requirements at the GS-11 level. Only graduate level education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be combined with experience. (THIS EXPERIENCE MUST BE SUPPORTED BY YOUR RESUME TO BE CREDITABLE AND COPY OF TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED AT TIME OF APPLICATION) For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

How to apply
Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online assessment and submission of the required documentation specified in the Required Documents section above. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13105259. The application process is as follows: 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. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 11/10/2026. After submitting the online application, you will be notified whether or not you are required to take additional online assessments through the USA Hire Competency Based Assessment system. This message will be delivered to you via email notification. The email may be routed to your "Spam" or "Junk" folder. IMPORTANT: If you are asked to take the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be presented with a unique URL to access the USA Hire system. Access to USA Hire is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Be sure to review all instructions prior to beginning your USA Hire Assessments. Click here for Computer System Requirements. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue at a later time, you can re-use the URL sent to you via email and also found in your USAJOBS account under the "Track my application" link for the corresponding application. Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit.