Excellent question! The purpose of VEVRAA is to give priority referral to protected veterans regarding job vacancies. We – like yourself – wanted to know exactly what this meant. So, we read the regulation and called every state workforce agency job bank (SJB) and/or local employment service delivery system (ESDS) in the country to find out how they actually go about helping fulfill VEVRAA (per the regulation), and below is how it actually happens. The majority of the states use postings on their state site to provide preferred veteran access because directing veterans to search and apply for jobs online is a primary step in helping veterans find jobs (it’s part of the SJB/ESDS onboarding process). This is also important because many SJB/ESDS put a “hold” on the jobs for 24-72 hours so veterans can access the jobs before the general public (i.e. veteran priority referral). To give you an idea, the SJB/ESDS on-site staff monitor the posted jobs of federal contractors and when new positions are posted, they review the positions and then match them to the skills/qualifications of the veterans with whom they are working. They then reach out to those veterans and make them aware of the appropriate jobs. For those states that do not have on-site staff working directly with veterans, they expect the veterans to search the jobs themselves to find positions that meet their qualifications. In these situations, the veterans can only search jobs that have actually been posted to the SJB/ESDS. For what it’s worth, when we specifically asked about “listing” it meant nothing to them. They reconfirmed that if a federal contractor wants to give veterans preferred access to jobs, the contractor needs to post their positions on the SJB/ESDS. For the handful of states that do not put a hold on the jobs (as stated above), sending the jobs to the LVERs/DVOPs helps satisfy the VEVRAA requirement of giving priority referral to protected veterans so they can access the job vacancies first, but unfortunately only a handful of the SJB/ESDS use this process. This is a significant distinction because at the end of the day the purpose of VEVRAA is to help veterans find jobs and to help federal contractors hire veterans who are the right fit for the jobs especially considering the 7% hiring benchmark goal the federal contractors are trying to achieve. Federal contractors cannot achieve this goal if their jobs are not posted onto the state sites because the process the SJB/ESDS are primarily using is directing veterans to search and apply for jobs online as a primary step in helping veterans find jobs. I was at the same AA Briefing that I believe you are mentioning, and it was disappointing to hear because that statement is misleading to many federal contractors who rely on these types of conferences to receive their information. The approach they mentioned is focused on simply “checking a box.” In contrast, LocalJobNetwork.com first studies the laws and second, conducts research to determine how the laws are actually coming to fruition. From there, we educate based on what’s actually happening on the frontline, and we build our products, services, and resources with that in mind. This is important to us because we don’t want our customers simply “checking a box.” Rather, we want them to follow the law as well as fulfill the intention of the law, which is ultimately to hire veterans. And just to clarify, yes, we are fulfilling the “listing” requirement because we post jobs on the SJB/ESDS as well as email jobs to LVERs/DVOPS on behalf of the federal contractors. So, we have all bases covered!
You can use this OFCCP audit checklist to ensure you're doing what is required to maintain OFCCP's regulations including VEVRAA, Section 503, and EO 11246. Or request a demo to streamline your compliance and recruiting efforts.