Your steps to apply
Inpatient Mental Health Registered Nurse
Veterans Health Administration · Muskogee, Oklahoma · Closes in 41 days
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1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: Internal to an agency, The public.
Open to all U.S. citizens. First consideration goes to current permanent employees of the Eastern Oklahoma VA Health Care System. Veterans' preference does not apply to current agency employees.
Experience: Your nursing experience is matched to a grade level. For example, Nurse I, Level II requires 1 year of specialized nursing experience at the Level I standard, unless you have a bachelor's degree in nursing. Mental health experience is preferred but not required. Paid and unpaid work, including volunteer work, counts.
Education: An associate degree or diploma in nursing qualifies you for Nurse I, Level I. A bachelor's degree in nursing (BSN) can qualify you for Nurse I, Level II with no extra nursing experience. A master's degree in nursing (MSN) can qualify you for Nurse I, Level III with no extra nursing experience. Your nursing program must be accredited by ACEN or CCNE. Foreign nursing degrees do not count as related degrees.
Licenses and certifications:
- Current, full, active, and unrestricted registered nurse (RN) license from a U.S. state, territory, Puerto Rico, or D.C.
- A temporary Graduate Nurse Technician appointment may be possible while you pursue your license.
Experience can be paid or unpaid, volunteer work included: if it matches the duties, it counts. The full rules are in the announcement.
2 Resume and documents
Write a federal resume for this job. For each job you held, give the month and year you started and ended, your hours per week and what you did, using the words of the experience the announcement asks for. Many announcements accept resumes of up to 2 pages: check this one.
3 Apply on USAJOBS
Closes in 41 days (December 14, until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time).
This is an open continuous announcement, so it may close before the closing date once the vacancies are filled. The first group of applicants is scheduled for review on November 13, 2026.
You sign in to USAJOBS with a Login.gov account, answer the questionnaire and upload your documents, then you submit. Answer the questionnaire honestly: your resume must show what you claim.
How they rate you: You are rated on how well you meet the qualifications, using an online questionnaire. Your experience is reviewed against five nursing areas: practice, Veteran/patient-driven care, leadership, professional development, and evidence-based practice/research. Your documents will be verified, and errors or missing information may lower your rating.
4 After you apply
In USAJOBS, under Applications, you can see where your application stands: received, reviewed, referred to the hiring manager or not, then selected or not. It can take a few weeks.
For the interview, prepare three examples with the STAR method: the Situation, the Task, what you did (Action) and the Result.
If they choose you: a tentative offer, then a background check, then the final offer with your start date.
Tips for this job:
- Upload a long-form resume or CV. The 2-page resume limit does not apply to this job.
- Describe your nursing work clearly, with dates, hours, and duties, because your experience will be verified.
- If you want EDRP loan repayment, plan to submit that separate application within four months of appointment.
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