Your steps to apply
Registered Nurse – Surgery Clinic
Veterans Health Administration · Marion, Illinois · Closes in 6 days
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1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: The public, Federal employees - Competitive service, Veterans, Federal employees - Excepted service.
This job is open to the public, but you must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or owe allegiance to the U.S. Veterans and current federal employees may also apply, and veterans' preference may apply.
Experience: Your experience is rated at a grade level from Nurse I (Level I to III) up to Nurse III, based on your education and years of professional nursing. Preferred experience includes outpatient work in the last 5 years, specialized areas such as wound, orthopedics, urology, podiatry, or general surgery, and at least 3 years of nursing experience.
Education: You must graduate from a nursing school accredited by ACEN or CCNE. An associate degree or diploma can qualify you for the entry levels, while a bachelor's (BSN) or higher degree can qualify you for higher levels with less experience. Foreign nursing degrees need formal equivalency validation to count above associate level.
Licenses and certifications:
- Current, full, active, and unrestricted nursing registration in a U.S. state, territory, or D.C.
- Basic Life Support (BLS) certification including AED, from the American Heart Association or Military Treatment Training Network, with proof before employment
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 6 days (November 9, until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time).
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 your documents. Your RN experience is judged on five nursing areas: Practice, Veteran/Patient Driven Care, Leadership, Professional Development, and Evidence-Based Practice/Research. Missing or unclear information may lower your rating or make you ineligible, and the VA may check references.
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:
- Make your resume show each job's dates in MM/YYYY format and the hours you worked per week, or you may not get experience credit.
- If you are a current permanent federal employee, send a non-award SF-50. The 2-page resume limit does not apply to this job.
- Get BLS certification with AED from AHA or MTN before you are hired, since you must show proof.
Kandidatu is an independent website: only the official posting counts. Read it before you apply.