Under PERM labor certification application requirements, employers must conduct good faith recruitment. Some recruiting efforts produce applicants who, on the face of their resumes, may potentially be qualified. Usually, these applicants possess some of the employer’s stated qualifications, but perhaps not all. The only effective way to know whether this kind of applicant is qualified is to interview the applicant, usually by telephone (and sometimes in person).

In conducting a telephone interview of an applicant, as a best practice, we recommend the following information be captured and preserved:

• the name of interviewer;
• the date and time the interviewer called the applicant;
• if the interviewer leaves a voice message, the phone number the interviewer called and the message that the interviewer left;
• if the interviewer leaves a message with someone who answers the phone,
• the phone number the interviewer called,
• the name of the person with whom the interviewer spoke/left a message,
• the message that the interviewer left, and
• any comments that the person taking the message might have made (such as, “John will be back at 3 o’clock; I’ll ask him to call you when he returns”).

If the applicant does not call back within a few days, we recommend that the employer call again and repeat the steps outlined above to demonstrate good faith compliance with DOL PERM recruitment rules.

If the employer is unsuccessful in reaching the applicant, Dinsmore & Shohl can assist the employer in preparing a draft letter for the employer to review and to send to the applicant (via Certified Mail Return Receipt Requested) to demonstrate further employer's good faith compliance with DOL's PERM rules.

When the employer speaks with the applicant we recommend, as a best practice, that the employer record the date and time of the call and notes from the interview (who said what) should be generated contemporaneously.

Please remember that advising an applicant that the position is not really open because there is an existing employee already in the job likely will cause the PERM application to be denied. The employer must treat the position as fully open in exercising good faith compliance with the PERM rules. Finally, the foreign national employee may not be involved in the interview process at all.