LVS faced recruiting pressure because many US graduates receiving bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting and finance were F-1 students.  The firm learned that if it excluded these workers from its recruitment activities, it would lose access to 40 percent or more of graduates making it much harder to fill open positions.

But a crucial piece of the puzzle was convincing graduates that the firm knew how to properly prepare and file labor certification applications.  Graduates in F-1 status are often as concerned about labor certification as salary and opportunities for promotion. F-1 graduates born in India and China face long backlogs for immigrant visas because those queues are oversubscribed.

Because LVS is a successful accounting firm with a consistent need for new accountants and auditors, it was not difficult to document its need for workers.  If it recruited for accountants and auditors and qualified US applicants responded, LVS needed them too and was able to hire the qualified US applicants and still have open positions.

That left two problems: (1) ensuring superb quality control so that no errors made it through to Department of Labor, and (2) giving the HR department the tools it needed to communicate to F-1 graduates how the process worked and why LVS did it better than anyone else.

Quality control meant meeting with partners, managers and the HR department to ensure that job titles, job descriptions and minimum qualifications for jobs were consistent across departments and managers.  There is nothing worse than telling Department of Labor that a job requires a bachelor's degree and five years of experience only to learn that a rogue manager has been hiring workers into that job with a bachelor's degree and three years of experience and not telling the HR department. An audit-proof company is one that maintains consistency in its job titles, job descriptions and minimum accepted qualifications.

Olender uses carefully defined processes and checklists with an online case management system to reduce errors and ensure the highest likelihood of approval.

The second task required many in person and by phone meetings with HR managers and staff to ensure that HR specialists and recruiters knew the important issues that F-1 students cared deeply about.  We don't charge for these additional services because it benefits our clients and us when the HR department knows everything they need to about the process.

If you would like to learn more about PERM labor certification or you are interested in how to improve the efficiency and success of your labor certification program, please visit our labor certification page and contact us for a free consultation.