You found a VA RN posting on USAJOBS. The role fits. The pay looks right. Then you open the application and it asks for nine things you did not expect. Most nurses stall right here. Not because they are not qualified. Because the VA application is built different than any hospital portal you have used.

This guide walks the whole flow. Step by step. What documents you need before you start. How the VA reviews and grades your package. And how your resume gets you placed at the right grade. We will not re-cover the Nurse I, II, III grade rules in depth here. That lives in its own guide. This is the application itself.

I have watched this play out up close. My audience includes a lot of military spouse nurses. They build a clinical resume, hit a strong stride at one duty station, then PCS and start over in a new state with a new license. The VA is one of the few employers that travels with you. But you have to clear its front door first. Here is how.

What Makes a VA Nursing Job Different on USAJOBS?

VA registered nurses are hired under Title-38. That is a separate hiring law from the Title-5 system most federal jobs use. It changes a few things you care about.

First, there is no rating-and-ranking quiz like most federal jobs have. No "self-certify your skills" questionnaire that scores you. Instead, a selecting official reviews your full package against the VA nurse qualification standard. That person is usually a nurse executive or hiring manager.

Second, veterans preference works differently. Under Title-38, preference points do not stack onto a numeric score the way they do for Title-5 jobs. The VA still wants your veterans preference documents, but the reviewer weighs your nursing record first. If you want the deeper split between these two systems, our companion guide on Title-38 versus Title-5 covers it.

Third, your grade is not a checkbox. The selecting official reads your experience and education and places you at Nurse I, II, or III with a step inside that grade. Your resume detail drives that call. We will get to that.

What Documents Do You Need Before You Apply?

Gather these before you open the application. Half of all stalled VA applications stall because a file is missing or expired. Pull them first. Scan them clean. Name them clearly.

Here is the full document set for a VA RN posting on USAJOBS.

One note on the DD-214. It only confirms your service dates and discharge status for preference. It does not hold your nursing duties or clinical accomplishments. Those come from your own record and your evals, not from a discharge form. Never try to build resume bullets from it.

If you served as a medic or corpsman, that clinical time still counts toward your nursing experience when you write it up right. Army 68W combat medics and 68C practical nursing specialists often have hands-on patient care that maps to VA work. Same for Navy hospital corpsmen and Air Force aerospace medical technicians. You still need an RN license for the RN role. But that prior care experience belongs on the page.

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How Do You Apply Step by Step?

The flow is the same on every VA RN posting. Move through it in order. Do not skip the document upload at the end. That is where most people lose the application.

The whole thing takes about an hour the first time. After that, your profile and documents are saved. Your second VA application can take ten minutes. So get the first one clean.

How Does VA Screen and Grade You?

Once you submit, your package leaves USAJOBS and moves to VA HR, then to a selecting official. This is the part most nurses have never seen before. So here is what happens behind the door.

The selecting official is usually a nurse executive or hiring manager. They read your resume, your license, your transcripts, and your certs together. They are answering two questions. Are you qualified to be a VA nurse at all. And what grade and step do you belong at. As of January 2024, the VA eliminated the Nurse Professional Standards Board that used to do this review. The work now sits with a selecting official who reviews your qualifications against the VA nurse qualification standard and recommends a grade and step. An approving official then authorizes it.

The reviewer checks your license is active and unrestricted. They confirm your degree. They count your years of nursing experience. They look at the type of care you gave and the setting you gave it in. ICU charge nurse time reads different than a clinic float role. Both count. They just place you at different points.

This is why your resume detail matters so much. The reviewer can only grade what you wrote. If you list "staff nurse, 3 years" with no detail, they grade you on thin air. If you list your unit, your patient load, your charge duties, and your specialty certs, they have something to place you with.

HR may request more if your package is incomplete. That adds weeks. A clean, detailed package gets graded faster and higher. The actual grade definitions for Nurse I, II, and III sit in our VA nurse grade levels guide. Read it so you know which grade your record supports before the reviewer does.

How Is Your Resume Read for Grade Placement?

A VA nursing resume is not a hospital resume. It is longer and more detailed. The reviewer needs facts, not a tight one-page summary. VA RN positions are Title-38, and they are exempt from the two-page resume limit that applies to other federal jobs. Write as many pages as you need for full detail. Most strong VA nursing resumes run two to five pages.

Here is what to put on each job entry so the reviewer can grade you well.

The extra detail is the point. A hospital recruiter wants you to be brief. The VA reviewer wants you to be complete. Those are opposite jobs. So write a separate VA version of your nursing resume. Do not reuse your hospital one.

This is also where a tool helps. Our Federal Resume Builder formats your nursing experience into the detailed federal style the reviewer reads. It keeps the hours, the unit detail, and the supervisor fields in the right spots. Built by veterans who have sat on the hiring side of the desk.

What Happens After You Submit?

Submitting is not the end. It is the handoff. Here is the path your package takes next, so you know what the silence means.

First, USAJOBS confirms receipt. You should see your status change to "Received." If you do not, your application may not have gone through. Check it.

Next, HR does a basic eligibility check. They confirm you meet the minimum, like a valid RN license. Then the package moves to a selecting official for the grade review we covered above. This review step is why VA hiring can feel slow. It is thorough, not broken.

If HR needs more, they may reach out for a document or a clarification. Answer fast. After the selecting official sets your grade and the approving official signs off, the facility can move to an interview. VA panels ask a specific style of question, and you can prep for it with our VA nurse interview questions guide.

The grade the selecting official set drives your offer. That offer includes a pay plan code, a grade, and a step. If you want to read your offer letter and know exactly what the codes mean, our VA RN pay plan and designation guide breaks the codes down. To check whether the dollar figure is right for your area, see the 2026 VA nurse pay scale and the locality pay guide.

Common Mistakes That Sink a VA Nursing Application

I see the same handful of errors over and over. Each one is easy to avoid once you know it.

The other big one is timing. People wait until the closing day, then a slow upload or a wrong file eats the clock. The posting closes. The reviewer never sees you. Apply early.

One more for the spouses reading this. If you just PCS'd and your license is from your last state, you are fine. A VA RN role takes an active license from any one state. You do not have to wait on a new state license to apply. That single rule has saved more than a few nursing careers from a PCS gap.

Your Next Step

The VA application is not hard once you see the whole map. Gather your six documents first. Write a detailed federal version of your nursing resume. Submit a full day before the close. Then let the selecting official do the read.

Your grade is set by what is on the page. So put the real picture there. Hours, unit, patient load, charge duty, certs. The reviewer grades the detail, not the title.

If you want help building the federal-style nursing resume the reviewer reads, start with our Federal Resume Builder. It is free to start. And if you want to understand how Title-38 nursing pay and retirement work over the long haul, read up on the Title-38 nurse retirement breakdown and the full Title-38 pay scale. You can also browse open roles straight on the VA Careers nursing page.

Proving your experience the way the reviewer needs is its own skill. If you are unsure how to show you qualify, our guide on specialized experience on USAJOBS walks it through. Get the front door right, and the VA can be the steadiest employer of your career.