Food Service Worker

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has adopted the Nutrition and Food Service (NFS) has adopted the Nutrition and Food Service (NFS) Workforce Modernization Plan, one of the largest workforce innovation efforts undertaken by VHA to articulate future states of NFS operations across enterprise, identifies key priorities for NFS to modernize workforce, recognize unique positions within VHA to support Veterans NFS and established consistency of functions and streamlines hiring process.

This position requires rotation between the East Orange and Lyons Campuses to support operational needs and ensure coverage. Major duties and responsibilities include (but are not limited to): · Sets up and breaks down assigned station with the correct supplies and food items; · Portions food items into standard serving sizes using the proper utensils and specified dishware; · Decides what food items to serve for the most common diets when the diet card or tray ticket identifies only the kind of diet called for; · Provides patients with basic information about modified diets and the nutrition services that are available; · Identifies obvious discrepancies between the prescribed diets and the food items designated by the menu; · Follows directions in assembling, measuring, weighing, or mixing ingredients for basic formulas and supplemental feedings following standardized recipes and using sanitary techniques; · Delivers meal trays to the patients' bedsides; reporting the patients' comments and complaints to the supervisor or dietitian; · Provides assistance to cooks in the food preparation area including assembling, labeling and arranging completed recipe items in preparation for use by cooks; · Prepares fresh fruit/cold salads/dressings/sandwich fillings and cold sandwiches and simple cold desserts along with individual and bulk nourishments and supplement foods and beverages for patients; · Makes final check of diet trays assembled by lower grade workers for completeness, correct food temperatures; · Works in one or more functional areas of the kitchen such as food preparation, dish and pot washing, dry and refrigerated storage and receiving, and the serving line; · Performs heavy-duty cleaning tasks throughout the food service and related areas; · Performing other duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Varied hours, alternating weekends and holidays Position Description Title/PD#: Food Service Worker/PD999205, PD99920S, and PD01586A Physical Requirements: Work is performed in kitchen areas where the steam and heat from cooking and dishwashing equipment often cause uncomfortably high temperatures and humidity. Food service workers are regularly exposed to hot liquids, sharp cutting blades, hot working surfaces and extreme temperature changes when entering walk-in refrigeration units. Performs work requiring light to moderate physical effort. 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. Subject to continuous standing and walking, and frequent stooping, reaching, pushing, pulling, and bending. Frequently lifts or moves objects weighing up to 20 pounds unassisted and occasionally lift or move objects weighing more than 40 pounds with the assistance of others. This is an open continuous announcement until December 4th,2026. Qualified applicants will be considered and referred as vacancies become available.

Upon completion of your probationary period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest. As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: 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 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.