Food Service Worker

Summary

Wage Grade 3 Food Service Workers perform tasks with several steps or a sequence of tasks that requires attention to work operations. They follow set procedures in accomplishing repetitive assignments and follow an established sequence of work. Wage grade 3 workers can do all the duties of a lower grade worker. They can work in one or more functional areas of the kitchen such as food preparation, dish and pot washing, fry and refrigerated storage and receiving and the serving area.

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Duties

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The William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital is committed to fostering and sustaining an environment which celebrates diversity, provides equitable opportunities for employment and promotion, and supports inclusiveness in our culture. Together, we strive to create and maintain working and learning environments that promote professional growth and teamwork, and are inclusive, equitable and welcoming. We embrace our differences as individuals and unite as a team toward a common goal: to serve our nation's Veterans.The incumbent of this position is assigned to the Food Delivery Unit of Food Service Operations within Nutrition and Food Services (NFS). The purpose of the position is to perform duties that require proficiency procedures and a broad knowledge of service operations, such as food preparation, dishwashing, dry and refrigerated storage, food and beverage serving.Major duties of the position include, but are not limited to:

• Receives meal orders
• Prepares cold food items prior to meal service
• Makes cold sandwiches to order and places on trays
• Prepares special feedings, nourishments for patients on liquid or supplemental feeding
• Labels and distributes individual nourishments to appropriate patients or nursing stations
• Assists higher graded cooks and/or independently prepares menu items that require little or no processing
• Follows recipes along with menu item preparation worksheets and verbal instructions in order to prepare foods and beverages
• Combines fruit and vegetable ingredients for salads, portions and assembles individual salads and desserts using correct dishware and portioning utensils
• Reports all system problems to Room Service Supervisors, Cook Supervisor or Supervisory Dietitian
• Maintains work area in an orderly and sanitary condition and prepares and stores food in accordance with proper sanitation standards
• Sweeps and mops floors, washes shelves, tables, sinks, equipment and work areas
• Displays diplomacy with peers, staff, patients and patient's families always
• Provides training to same or lower grade employees when assigned

Work Schedule: 6A-230P, 1130A-8P with rotating weekends and holidays

Position Description Title/PD#: Food Service Worker/99920A

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. citizen to apply for this job
• Subject to a background/suitability investigation
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• A complete application package; including Resume, Transcripts, etc. is required
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (
• Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.

Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed.

Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement.

Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

EXPERIENCE: A specific length of training and experience is not required, but you must show evidence of training or experience of sufficient scope and quality of your ability to do the work of this position. Evidence which demonstrates you possess the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform the duties of this position must be supported by detailed descriptions of such on your resume. Applicants will be rated in accordance with the OPM Federal Wage System Qualification Standards.

SCREEN-OUT ELEMENT: Your qualifications will first be evaluated against the prescribed screen out element, which usually appears as question 1 in the on-line questionnaire. Those applicants who appear to possess at least the minimal acceptable qualification requirement are considered for further rating; those who do not are rated ineligible and are eliminated. The potential eligibles are then rated against the remainder of the Job Elements:

• Dexterity and Safety
• Interpret Instructions, Specifications (other than blueprint reading)
• Materials
• Technical Practices
• Use and Maintain Tools and Equipment
• Without more than normal supervision
• Work Practices

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements: The work requires light to moderate physical effort with continuous standing and walking, and frequent stooping, reaching, pushing, pulling and bending. Frequently lifts or moves objects weighing up to 40 pounds unassisted. May be required to perform heavy work, such as scouring and scrubbing large-size cooking utensils and pushing heavy carts and trucks in unloading, storing, and delivering supplies. May also be required to work on ladders and use powered cleaning equipment. Incumbent is required to push room service delivery and pick-up food carts. Incumbent may lift objects weighing 50-100 pounds or more when covering Ingredient Control Room or Warehouse and push/pull carts with weighing up to 300 pounds. Sweeps, vacuums and pot mops floors as required. Must be alert and cautious to avoid falls on wet floors, burns, scalds from hot food, equipment and chemicals, and cuts from knives.

Work Conditions: The work is performed in kitchen areas where the steam and heat from cooking and dishwashing equipment often cause uncomfortably elevated temperatures and humidity. The work area is well lighted but is usually noisy from food service activities, and there is danger of slipping on floors where food and beverages have been dropped. The worker is regularly exposed to hot liquids, sharp cutting blades, hot working surfaces and extreme temperature changes when entering walk-in refrigeration or freezing units. The employee is required to wear protective shoes and gloves, or other items required by food handing guides and personal protective equipment. Must abide by personal hygiene standards and safe work procedures such as wearing hairnet, beard guard and clean uniform daily. This position requires shift work and requires duty on weekends and holidays. Incumbent may be exposed to contagious diseases while working in a hospital setting.

Education

This job does not have an education qualification requirement.

Additional information

Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer (TJO). Please visit the Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness (HRA/OSP), va.gov/EMPLOYEE/docs/The-Fair-Chance-to-Compete-Act.pdf for more information.

The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be well-qualified, applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors if applicable, and must be proficient in most of the requirements of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website which can be found at

Receiving Service Credit for Earning Annual (Vacation) Leave: Federal Employees earn annual leave at a rate (4, 6 or 8 hours per pay period) which is based on the number of years they have served as a Federal employee. VA may offer newly-appointed Federal employee's credit for their job-related non-federal experience or active duty uniformed military service. This credited service can be used in determining the rate at which they earn annual leave. Such credit must be requested and approved prior to the appointment date and is not guaranteed.

This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.

If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

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A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new windowLearn more about federal benefits.

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Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.