Your steps to apply
Staff Psychologist
Veterans Health Administration · Coatesville, Pennsylvania · Closes in 19 days
Sign in to save your progress. Free, with just your email. You can read all the steps without an account.
1 Check you can apply You are here
Who can apply: Internal to an agency, The public.
The job is open to the public and to current federal employees of the VA. Applicants must be U.S. citizens, nationals, or people who owe allegiance to the United States.
Experience: For the GS-12 level, you need at least 1 year of experience as a professional psychologist at the GS-11 level. For the GS-13 level, you need at least 2 years of experience, including 1 year at the GS-12 level. The GS-11 level needs no experience beyond the basic requirements.
Education: You need a doctoral degree in psychology from a program accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS), or the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), in a specialty that matches the job. You also need to have completed a psychology internship accredited by APA or CPA that matches the job. Other paths are listed in the announcement, such as a re-specialization program or a doctorate awarded from 1951 to 1978.
Licenses and certifications:
- Full, current, unrestricted license to practice psychology at the doctoral level in a U.S. state, territory, commonwealth, or the District of Columbia.
- Non-licensed applicants may be hired as a temporary 'graduate psychologist' for up to 2 years, but only under a licensed psychologist's supervision.
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 19 days (November 23, 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 will be rated on how well you meet the qualifications listed in the announcement. Your application, resume, CV, and supporting documents will be verified, and the VA may run pre-employment reference checks. Missing or incomplete information may lead to an ineligible rating or a lower overall 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:
- Describe your experience clearly and specifically, because the VA will not assume anything about your work history.
- If you use education to qualify, include transcripts and confirm that your schools are accredited by a U.S. Department of Education-recognized accreditor.
- If you plan to use the Education Debt Reduction Program, submit the EDRP application within four months of your appointment.
Kandidatu is an independent website: only the official posting counts. Read it before you apply.