Director of Government Contracting

Duties

As the lead for the Office of GC within SBA, working to expand access to tens of billions of contracting dollars with socioeconomic firms, the Director employs both internal program management and collaborative initiatives with partner agencies and other groups. The government contracts over $560 billion per year, roughly $150 billion of which goes to small businesses. The Director's core duty is to promote and expand these opportunities for small, disadvantaged, veteran-owned, and woman-owned businesses to grow, create jobs, and generate wealth in their locate economies, including through federal contracting.

Additional Duties:

• Oversees, manages, and is accountable for government contracting programs and other program-based initiatives. Projects involve highly sensitive, visible issues with the potential for significant, precedent-setting impacts on the small, minority, woman, and veteran business contracting communities, often with national implications, significant budgetary or public policy ramifications, and/or exceptional visibility to the public.
• Builds coalitions with internal and external stakeholders to fulfill Administration priorities to invest in small and socioeconomic businesses.
• Establishes and maintains effective working relationships with various high-level individuals, including SBA leadership, Congressional staff, partner Federal agencies, national constituency groups, state and local governments, and small business communities to facilitate the execution and enhancement of government contracting programs.
• Serves as a national authority and recognized expert on strategies for uplifting historically underserved communities through economic development, job creation, and business growth, especially through government contracting. As such, represents the Agency at conferences, meetings, hearings with key stakeholders, high ranking officials of Federal, state, and local governments, and non-governmental agencies, national organizations, the small business community, and the public.
• Provides executive leadership and management oversight for the office's operations to include contracting technology, direction, strategic engagement, and research in the establishment of policy, operational plans, and implementation.
• Oversees and administers broad, emerging, and/or critical agency contracting programs. Develops measurable program goals and objectives to evaluate the overall effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction of these programs and operations.
• Develops and implements long-range strategic plans for organizational development and accomplishments of GC's mission.
• Directs and manages GC programs. Evaluates current and proposed regulatory programs and operations and recommends actions to initiate new programs as needed to achieve specific GC goals and objectives, in consultation with the Associate Administrator (AA) and Deputy AA for GCBD.

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen or National to qualify for this position
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• Veterans Preference is not applicable in the Senior Executive Service
• Initial appointments are required to serve a one (1) year probationary period
• Application package must be received by closing date of this announcement
• Suitable for Federal employment, determined by a favorable background investigation
• OPM Candidate Development Program (CDP) graduates and current Career SES members need only to address the Professional/Technical qualifications and need not respond to the Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs).
• All initial appointments to an SES position are contingent on approval from OPM's Qualifications Review Board unless the selectee has successfully participated in an OPM approved SES Candidate Development Program.

Qualifications

As a basic requirement for entry into the SES, applicants must provide evidence of progressively responsible executive leadership and supervisory experience that is indicative of senior executive level management capability and directly related to the skills and abilities outlined under Executive Core Qualifications and Technical Qualifications listed below. Typically, experience of this nature will have been gained at or above the GS-14/15 grade level in the federal service or its equivalent in the private sector.

As such, your resume should demonstrate that you have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully fulfill responsibilities inherent in most SES positions such as:

• Directing the work of an organizational unit;
• Ensuring the success of one or more specific major programs or projects;
• Monitoring progress toward strategic organizational goals, evaluating organizational performance and taking action to improve performance; and
• Supervising the work of employees; and exercising important policy-making, policy determining, or other executive functions.

Failure to meet the basic qualification requirement and address all Mandatory Technical and Executive Core Qualification factors will result in your application being disqualified.

EXECUTIVE CORE QUALIFICATIONS (ECQs): The ECQs were designed to assess executive experience and potential not technical expertise. They measure whether an individual has the broad executive skills needed to succeed in a variety of SES positions. To meet the minimum qualifications, applicants must possess all the necessary requirements for this position. You must show in your resume that you possess the five mandatory executive core qualifications.

NOTE: Current career SES members, former career SES members with reinstatement eligibility, and SES Candidate Development Program graduates who have been certified by OPM do NOT need to address the ECQs.

1. Leading Change: This core qualification involves the ability to bring about strategic change, both within and outside the organization, to meet organizational goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to establish an organizational vision and to implement it in a continuously changing environment. (Competencies: creativity and innovation, external awareness, flexibility, resilience, strategic thinking, vision)

2. Leading People: This core qualification involves the ability to lead people toward meeting the organizations vision, mission, and goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to provide an inclusive workplace that fosters the development of others, facilitates cooperation and teamwork, and supports constructive resolution of conflicts. (Competencies: conflict management, leveraging diversity, developing others, team building)

3. Results Driven: This core qualification involves the ability to meet organizational goals and customer expectations. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to make decisions that produce high quality results by applying technical knowledge, analyzing problems, and calculating risks. (Competencies: accountability, customer service, decisiveness, entrepreneurship, problem solving, technical credibility)

4. Business Acumen: This core qualification involves the ability to manage human, financial, and information resources strategically. (Competencies: financial management, human capital management, technology management)

5. Building Coalitions: This core qualification involves the ability to build coalitions internally and with other Federal agencies, State and local governments, nonprofit and private sector organizations, foreign governments, or international organizations to achieve common goals. (Competencies: partnering, political savvy, influencing/negotiating)

Fundamental Competencies: These competencies are the foundation for success in each of the Executive Core Qualifications; Interpersonal Skills, Oral Communication, Continual Learning, Written Communication, Integrity/Honesty, Public Service Motivation, Expertise Working Across Cultures and Communities to Achieve Advancements in Equity, and Being Able to Articulate Complex Subjects in Basic Terms that Inspire Others. The Fundamental Competencies are crosscutting; and should be addressed over the course of each ECQ narratives. It is not necessary for you to address the Fundamental Competencies directly as long as the narrative, in its totality, shows mastery of these competencies on the whole.

Applicants are encouraged to follow the Challenge, Context, Action and Result (C-C-A-R) model outlined in the guide .

• Challenge - Describe a specific problem or goal.
• Context - Describe the individuals and groups you worked with, and/or the environment in which you worked, to address a particular challenge (e.g., clients, co-workers, members of Congress, shrinking budget, low morale).
• Action - Discuss the specific actions you took to address a challenge.
• Result - Give specific examples of measures/outcomes that had some impact on the organization. These accomplishments demonstrate the quality and effectiveness of your leadership skills.

Additional information about the SES and Executive Core Qualifications can be found on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) SES Website . You are strongly encouraged to review OPMs Guide to SES Qualifications for specific examples and guidance on writing effective ECQ narrative statements.

More specifically, applicants should have demonstrated experience in change-management, policy development, and mobilizing and inspiring senior leadership across organizations and/or agencies. Applicants should have experience directing highly complex programs that involve major policy developments that can impact how tens of billions of contract dollars flow from the United States government. This position is part advocacy, coalition building, policy development, relational organizing, management, and contracting expertise. Applicants must be able to manage a large team that supports multiple areas of impact within the agency.

MANDATORY TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS (TQs): All applicants must submit a written narrative response to the following TQs. You must address each TQ separately. Each TQ narratives must not exceed two pages. Please give examples and explain the complexity of the knowledge possessed and the sensitivity of the issued you handled.

• Demonstrated experience briefing high-level officials, interacting with internal and external stakeholders to build coalitions to achieve organizational goals and initiatives, and providing coherent and persuasive ideas and proposals to senior level executives, internal policy makers, and to large numbers of employees that result in promoting and improving engagement in initiatives or other critical functions that drive economic development support to underserved communities.
• Demonstrated experience strategically leading an organization to transform operations that advance the opportunities of end-product users/customers, especially users/customers from presumed disadvantaged backgrounds, as they seek to spur economic growth, job creation, and/or community development, such as (though not necessarily) through contracting with governments, businesses, or other entities.

Education

Education cannot be substituted for specialized experience at this level.