The universal outreach and recruitment provision requires sponsors to send advance notice of all program openings to the recruitment sources on its outreach and recruitment list. A sponsor that has continuous open enrollment should send its position postings to its recruitment sources regularly, as well as whenever there is any change to the apprentice position posting or description. Generally speaking, a sponsor will satisfy this requirement by sending out the posting on a quarterly basis (and any time the posting changes). When evaluating a sponsor’s compliance with this requirement, the Office of Apprenticeship will take into account circumstances in which quarterly postings may not be cost-effective (e.g., for a very small program where there are hardly any openings) or might not be sufficient (e.g., for a program that has a very large number of openings every month).
How can a sponsor that accepts applications for enrollment in its apprenticeship program on a continuous basis (sometimes called “open enrollment”) satisfy the universal outreach and recruitment requirement?
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The Office of Apprenticeship has developed the Universal Outreach Tool to help all sponsors – of large and small programs – identify qualified talent from all parts of their typical recruitment area. The tool can be accessed from the Universal Outreach Tool link on the Apprenticeship Equal Employment Opportunity Recruit and Hire webpage.
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No. Sponsors are not permitted to engage in preferential hiring based on race, sex, or any other protected category. Further, nothing in the Equal Employment Opportunity regulations requires sponsors to select unqualified applicants or a less qualified person in preference to a more qualified one. Indeed, doing so on the basis of a protected characteristic like race or sex would be unlawful under the regulations.
Sponsors are required to engage in outreach and recruitment activities designed to reach all demographic groups within the relevant recruitment area and need to ensure that their programs offer equal employment opportunities to all apprentices and applicants. Further, sponsors required to maintain Affirmative Action Plans may need to set race, sex, ethnicity, or disability utilization goals – if they find that their programs underutilize any of these particular groups. However, these goals are not quotas; they do not provide a sponsor with justification to extend a preference to any individual on the basis of a protected characteristic, nor do they permit sponsors to create set-asides for specific underrepresented groups. For example, the regulations make it clear that sponsors should not establish separate ranking lists based on protected characteristics.
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Yes. Under 29 C.F.R. 30.10, a sponsor may give priority to qualified workers who have been waiting for openings in the program, as long as that selection procedure is applied uniformly and consistently and complies with the requirements for selection devices under the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures.
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Yes. Background checks are allowed, with a few caveats. First, sponsors should indicate what type of background check they mean (e.g., criminal, credit, etc.) and what they mean by “passing it.” For example, descriptions might include “no felony conviction within the last seven years,” “no drug convictions,” or “no conviction of any kind within the last five years.”
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