Your steps to apply
Registered Nurse
Veterans Health Administration · Columbia, South Carolina · Closes in 331 days
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1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: The public.
Open to the public. You must be a U.S. citizen, a national, or a person who owes allegiance to the U.S. Veterans' preference applies when qualifications are about equal.
Experience: Experience needed depends on your education and grade. For example, an associate degree plus 2 years of professional nursing experience qualifies for Nurse I, Level III, and higher grades require specialized nursing experience. Paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work, counts.
Education: You must graduate from a professional nursing school accredited by ACEN or CCNE, or approved by the right accrediting agency. An associate degree or diploma qualifies for Nurse I, Level I, and a bachelor's (BSN) or master's (MSN) can qualify you for higher levels. Foreign degrees above associate level need a formal equivalency validation. Education records must come from schools recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Licenses and certifications:
- Current, full, active, and unrestricted registration as a professional nurse in a U.S. state, territory, Puerto Rico, or D.C.
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 331 days (September 30, until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time).
The first cut-off date for referrals is November 30, 2026, and the announcement may close before the final closing date if needed.
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, based on your online questionnaire and documents. Your RN experience is also checked on five areas: Practice, Veteran/Patient Driven Care, Leadership, Professional Development, and Evidence-Based Practice/Research. Missing required information may lower your rating or make you ineligible.
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, a security clearance (Other), then the final offer with your start date.
Tips for this job:
- Use a long-form resume or CV with clear dates, hours, and duties, since the VA verifies experience.
- Claim veterans' preference in the questionnaire and send DD-214 and SF-15 forms if they apply.
- If you rely on education, send transcripts from accredited schools and check your nursing registration is current.
Kandidatu is an independent website: only the official posting counts. Read it before you apply.