Purchasing Agent

The Cincinnati VA Medical Center (CVAMC) is a two-division campus located in Cincinnati OH and Fort Thomas KY serving 15 counties in Southwest OH Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana with 6 Community Based Outpatient Clinics located in Bellevue KY; Florence KY; Lawrenceburg IN; Hamilton OH; Clermont County OH and Georgetown OH. The CVAMC also supports two off main campus locations in the Cincinnati area via an Eye Center and Mental Health Outreach Community Division.

This position utilizes knowledge of policies and procedures for delivery orders and small purchases and knowledge of commercial supply sources and common business practices related to sales prices discounts units of measurement deliveries stocks and shipments. The Purchasing Agent maintains responsibility for work leading to the purchase of a wide variety of complex and highly specialized services supplies equipment and systems that support the full range of programs and activities.

Major duties and responsibilities include:

• Purchasing Support - Conducts purchasing under the micro purchase threshold; reviews and edits purchase requests; resolves issues to ensure requests and bills are processed accurately and in a timely manner; identifies needs or problems and determines corrective action; utilizes federal and agency acquisition regulations to identify possible sources and other pertinent information related to purchases; tracks obligations/commitments and monitors expenditures to support recurring budget forecasts and identify potential fraud waste and abuse based on procurement history and purchase trends; and
• Procurement Support - Procures supplies and services to meet the purchase rental or lease needs of the organization; develops unique selection criteria for each purchase; Prepare and issue contract modifications for changes in delivery schedule and sends formal correspondence to a variety of customers such as inventory management specialists other service line contacts and contracting officers as appropriate for the purposes of auditing documents processing receiving reports and payments.; conducting open market research and sole source small purchases for highly specialized medical items with critical product requirements; and
• Administrative Support - Serves as the first line of contact for medical staff and customers in regard to procured items; develops reports and spreadsheets obtains organizes files and retrieves reports for briefing and presentation purposes; performs a variety of receptionist timekeeping record keeping and miscellaneous duties in medical facility; and
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• Subject to background/security investigation
• 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 drivers licenses or state-issued dentification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP)

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement 04/29/2026.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-6 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-5. The grade may have been in any occupation but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade as required by the this instance you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

Toqualify for this position at the GS-6 level you must have:

At least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-5 level in the Federal service that equipped you with the particular knowledge skills and abilities to perform successfully the duties of a Purchasing Agent and that is typically in or related to the work of this position.

Specialized experience includes: experience performing clerical or assistant duties in support of purchasing and procurement; procuring supplies and services to meet the purchase rental or lease needs of an organization; working with medical staff to determine procurement needs and priorities; resolving a variety of shipment payment or other discrepancies in support of procurement programs and operations; purchasing various equipment supplies and services through the use of a purchase card; and assembling and/or summarizing information from files and documents as required to create reports utilizing automated computerized supply/inventory management systems and Microsoft Office software programs such as MS Word and Excel.

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:

• Customer Service (Clerical/Technical)
• Decision Making
• Manages and Organizes Information
• Manages Resources
• Reasoning (Clerical/Technical)
• Technical Competence