Duties

Summary

Why work for the Federal Bureau of Prisons?

You can have a meaningful career with an agency that truly values a diverse workforce. You will find a diverse workforce employed from entry level jobs to senior management positions. We protect public safety by ensuring federal offenders serve their sentences of imprisonment in facilities that are safe, humane, and provide reentry programming. Employees at correctional facilities perform correctional work regardless of their specific occupation.

Learn more about this agency

Responsibilities

Receives telephone calls and screens out those which can be handled by supervisor's subordinates or other offices and tactfully refers them as appropriate.

Personally takes care of matters such as providing information concerning special programs and all matters regarding handling of correspondence and meetings of the Regional Director.

Maintains the Regional Director's and may maintain the Deputy Regional Director's and/or Executive Assistant's calendars and schedules appointments and conferences without prior clearance.

Maintains master files of BOP program statements, operations memoranda, policy waivers and program manuals.

May serve as the Administrative Remedy Coordinator and may oversee the Administrative Remedy Clerk and coordinates the regional office's responses to inmate Administrative Remedy Appeals.

Maintains a log of receipt of appeals and assigns to appropriate office for response and follows up to ensure responses are timely.

Prepares semiannual reports for the Regional Director.

Travel Required

Occasional travel - Travel may be required for training and/or work related issues.

Supervisory status
Yes

Promotion Potential
11

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• U.S. Citizenship is Required.
• See Special Conditions of Employment Section.

The Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provides eligible surplus and displaced competitive service employees in the Department of Justice with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. If your Department of Justice component has notified you in writing that you are a surplus or displaced employee eligible for CTAP eligibility, you may receive selection priority if: 1) this vacancy is within your CTAP eligibility; 2) you apply under the instructions in this announcement; and 3) you are found well qualified for this vacancy. To be well qualified, you must satisfy all qualification requirements for the vacant position and score 85 or better on established ranking criteria. You must provide a copy of your written notification of CTAP eligibility with your application. Additional information about CTAP eligibility is at: Click Here

Qualifications

To be considered for the position, you must meet the following qualification requirements:

Education:

GS-09: Master's or equivalent graduate degree; OR 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree; OR LL.B. or J.D., if related.

GS-11: Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree; OR 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree OR LL.M., if related. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work.

OR

Experience:

You must have at least one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and complexity to the next lower grade level in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. To be creditable, this experience must have equipped the applicant with the particular qualifications required to perform successfully the duties of the position, and must typically be in or related to the position to be filled.

Some examples of this qualifying experience are:

GS-09:

• Experience screening telephone calls and visitors to the office, referring to staff members and forwarding to the supervisor only those calls or visitors requiring that person's attention. Scheduling appointments and making commitments for the supervisor to attend meetings, luncheons, etc, without prior approval.
• Experience reading all incoming correspondence, determining proper action, at times preparing answers before referring to the supervisor. Reviewing outgoing correspondence and reports, ensuring proper format, grammar and punctuation.
• Experience managing an office budget, taking and distributing minutes of meetings, and maintaining supervisor's calendars and scheduling appointments and meetings.
• Experience in the use of office technology such as personal computers and prepared software, including spread sheets, data bases, work processing and desktop publishing programs.

GS-11:

• Experience ensuring all support activities related to timekeeping, preparation and processing of travel documents, conference planning, arranging teleconferences, solicitation of hotel and meeting space, equipment maintenance, mail processing, correspondence, responses to telephone requests for information, and other administrative tasks are completed correctly, in a timely fashion, and in compliance with federal, and BOP regulations and policy while communicating the agency's views on current issues and programs.
• Experience reviewing and revising internally-distributed reports and operations manuals, forms, and correspondence for grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, clarity, and content accuracy and consistency.
• Experience providing direction and guidance to support staff on procedural matters such as the proper preparation of written material and reviews work products for proper format, grammar, punctuation and typographical errors.
• Experience reviewing monthly obligations for assigned cost centers. Reconciling all purchases and other obligations to the FMIS system to ensure accurate reporting of funds status.

OR

Combination of Education and Experience:

Have a combination of education and experience. This experience must have equipped you with the qualifications to perform the major duties of this position as described above.

Credit will be given for paid and unpaid experience. To receive proper credit, you must show the actual time (such as number of hours worked per week) spent in the activities.

**Your eligibility for consideration will be based on your responses to the questions in the application.**

Education

See Qualifications Section for education requirements, if applicable.

ONLY if education is a requirement/substitution for specialized experience, applicant MUST upload legible transcripts as verification of educational requirement. Transcripts MUST be uploaded and electronically linked from USAJOBS at the time you apply and MUST include identifying information to include School Name, Student Name, Degree and Date Awarded (if applicable). All academic degrees and coursework must be completed at a college or university that has obtained accreditation or pre-accreditation status from an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. For a list of schools that meet this criteria, Click Here .

Foreign Education: For information regarding foreign education requirements, please see Foreign Diploma and Credit Recognition at the U.S. Department of Education website: Recognition of Foreign Qualifications .

If you are selected for this position and qualified based on education (i.e. basic education requirement and/or substitution of education), you will be required to provide an OFFICIAL transcript prior to your first day on duty.

Additional information

This position IS NOT included in the bargaining unit.

The Department of Justice provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process, please notify the hiring/servicing personnel office. The decision of granting a reasonable accommodation will be on a case-by-case basis. Selection will be made without discrimination for any non-merit reason such as race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.

Special Conditions of Employment Section:

Initial appointment to a supervisory/managerial position requires a one-year probationary period.

The incumbent is subject to geographic relocation to meet the needs of the agency.

Appointment is subject to satisfactory completion of a urinalysis, physical, and background investigation. All applicants are subject to National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and credit checks.

The addresses listed on the USAJOBS account/resume must be the primary residence at the time of application. You may be required to provide proof of residence.

This position is not test-designated and not subject to urinalysis testing under the BOP Drug Free Workplace Plan.

Current Federal Law Enforcement Employees:

Individuals selected who are under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) or Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and who have not had three years "primary" law enforcement retirement coverage, will not be covered by law enforcement retirement while in this position. To regain coverage, individuals must return to a position with "primary" coverage.

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

If your composite score exceeds the average score for this job, your resume and supporting documentation will be compared to your online assessment questionnaire responses and utilized to determine whether you meet the job qualifications listed in this announcement. If you rate yourself higher than what is supported by your application materials, your responses may be adjusted and/or you may be excluded from consideration for this job. If you are found to be among the top candidates, you will be referred to the selecting official for employment consideration.

There are several parts of the application process that affect the overall evaluation of your application:

• Your resume, which is part of your USAJOBS profile;
• Your responses to the eligibility questions;
• Your responses to the online assessment questionnaire;
• Your supporting documentation, if required.

Time-in-Grade: Federal employees must meet time-in-grade requirements for consideration. You must meet all qualification requirements upon the closing date of this announcement.

If you applied to more than one grade level, BE ADVISED that you may be selected at ANY grade level for which you applied and are found qualified (i.e., if the job is announced at the 9/11 grade levels and you apply for the GS/GL-9 and the GS-11,and you are found qualified at BOTH grade levels, you may be selected at either grade level).

What Competencies/Knowledge, Skills and Abilities are Required for this Position?

The following Competencies/Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA's) are required:

GS-09 and GS-11:

• Ability to communicate orally
• Ability to communicate in writing
• Ability to plan and organize work
• Ability to collect, develop and analyze information
• Ability to organize the workflow of clerical and administrative support functions
• Ability to work with data on a computer

To preview questions please click here .

Background checks and security clearance

Security clearance
Other

Drug test required
No

Required Documents

• Resume showing relevant experience (cover letter optional).
• In order to receive credit for experience contained in an uploaded resume, your employment history must be documented in month/year format (MM/YYYY), reflecting starting date and ending date and include the number of hours worked per week. Failure to follow this format may result in disqualification.
• Current or former Federal employees NOT employed by the Bureau of Prisons MUST submit a copy of their SF-50 Form which shows competitive service appointment, tenure group, and salary. If you have promotion potential in your current position, please provide proof. If you are applying for a higher grade, and your experience was gained at a Federal agency other than the Bureau of Prisons, you MUST provide the SF-50 Form which verifies the length of time you have been in your highest grade and supports your claim for time in grade.
• Employees applying with an interchange agreement must provide proof of their permanent appointment.
• Current federal employees NOT employed by the BOP and former federal employees MUST submit a copy of their latest yearly performance appraisal/evaluation.
• CTAP, Click Here , if applicable.
• A college transcript which includes the School Name, Student Name, Degree and Date Awarded (if applicable). (Note: If you are selected for this position, official transcript(s) will be required prior to your first day.)

Failure to provide these documents could possibly result in removal from consideration for this vacancy. If uploading documentation, do not identify/save your documents utilizing a special character such as %, #, @, etc. Documentation should be identified/saved as VA Letter, DD214, or Transcripts.

We cannot be held responsible for incompatible software, delays in mail service, applicant application errors, etc.

If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education .

Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.