PERM Recruitment Requirements: Ads, Notices, and Audit Files

PERM recruitment requirements are the set of advertising and outreach steps a U.S. employer must complete before filing a permanent labor certification application with the Department of Labor. At minimum, every employer must post an internal Notice of Filing at the worksite, place a 30-day job order with the State Workforce Agency, and run two Sunday advertisements in the newspaper of widest circulation for the area. Professional positions, meaning jobs that typically require a bachelor’s degree or higher, need three additional recruitment activities chosen from a fixed menu. All of it must fall inside specific pre-filing time windows, and all of it must be documented well enough to survive an audit.

The point of the exercise is to test the U.S. labor market. If a qualified U.S. worker applies and can do the job, the employer cannot certify the position for a foreign worker. That framing shapes every rule that follows.

Get the Prevailing Wage Determination First

No recruitment can start until the employer has a Prevailing Wage Determination (PWD) from the National Prevailing Wage Center, and no application can be filed without one.¹ DOL uses the Occupational Employment Statistics Survey to calculate the mean wage for the occupation and area, then assigns one of four wage levels based on the complexity of the duties.²

A PWD is valid for at least 90 days and up to one year from issuance. Recruitment must begin, or the application must be filed, within that validity window.³ Employers who disagree with the assigned level can request a redetermination or submit a private wage survey, but the survey must use data collected within the past 24 months and document sample size, source, and methodology.² Every advertisement and the Notice of Filing must offer a wage at or above that determination.

The Three Mandatory Recruitment Steps

Every PERM application (with the Schedule A and university teacher exceptions noted below) must include three baseline recruitment activities, all completed inside a specific window: no earlier than 180 days before filing, and no later than 30 days before filing.⁴

Notice of Filing at the Worksite

The employer must post a Notice of Filing at the physical worksite for at least 10 consecutive business days within the 30-to-180-day pre-filing window.⁵ The notice must state the rate of pay (at or above the prevailing wage), describe the job, tell readers they may submit evidence to DOL, and give the address of the appropriate Certifying Officer.⁶ Where a bargaining representative exists for the occupation, the notice goes to the representative rather than a public posting. The employer must also distribute the notice through its usual internal channels, whether email, intranet, or a physical bulletin board.

State Job Order

The employer must place a 30-day job order with the State Workforce Agency (SWA) that serves the area of intended employment. The full 30-day run must end at least 30 days before the application is filed.⁷ Keep the SWA confirmation of the posting and its dates.

Two Sunday Newspaper Advertisements

Two advertisements must appear in the Sunday edition of the newspaper with the widest circulation in the area of intended employment, on two different Sundays.⁴ If the area has no Sunday paper, the employer uses the edition with the broadest local reach. Tear sheets or publisher affidavits go in the audit file.

Three Extra Steps for Professional Positions

If the position typically requires a bachelor’s degree or higher, the employer must complete three additional recruitment activities on top of the three baseline steps. They are selected from this list of ten:⁸

A job fair related to the occupation.
A posting on the employer’s own website.
A posting on a third-party job search website.
On-campus recruiting at a college or university.
Advertising through a trade or professional organization.
Use of a private employment firm or staffing agency.
An employee referral program with incentives.
A campus placement office.
Advertising in local or ethnic newspapers.
Radio or television advertisements.

Timing matters here too. No more than one of the three selected activities may consist solely of recruitment that occurred within 30 days before filing, and none may be older than 180 days before filing. Employer websites and third-party job boards are the most common picks because they are inexpensive and produce clean, dated documentation. Non-professional positions skip these additional steps entirely.

Schedule A Occupations Skip Standard Recruitment

A narrow group of occupations is pre-certified by DOL under Schedule A, which lets the employer bypass the standard recruitment process. The list includes physical therapists; professional nurses who hold a CGFNS certificate, have passed the NCLEX-RN exam, or hold a full unrestricted state license; and individuals of exceptional ability in the sciences or arts, including college and university teachers with exceptional ability.³ The Notice of Filing is still required. The newspaper ads, job order, and additional professional recruitment steps are not.

The Six-Month Layoff Notification Rule

If the employer laid off U.S. workers in the area of intended employment within six months before filing, an extra obligation applies. The employer must notify every potentially qualified laid-off U.S. worker about the PERM job opening and document the outreach and results.⁴ A layoff means any involuntary separation without cause. The rule covers both the exact job being certified and any “related occupation” in which workers perform a majority of the same essential duties.

A company that cut a software engineering team six months ago and now files a PERM for a different software engineering role must track down and notify those former employees. This is one of the more common audit triggers and is difficult to fix later, because the notification must happen before filing.

Screening Applicants and the Recruitment Report

Recruitment does not end when the ads run. The employer must review every U.S. applicant who responds and can reject an applicant only for a lawful, job-related reason. A rejection is lawful only if the applicant genuinely fails to meet the position’s minimum requirements and the deficiency cannot be cured through reasonable on-the-job training.⁹

If a resume is silent on a major requirement such as a required degree, the employer may reject without further inquiry. If the resume broadly suggests the applicant meets the key qualifications, the employer has a duty to interview before rejecting. The job requirements themselves must reflect the actual minimum needed and cannot exceed the standard for the occupation without a “business necessity” showing.⁴ If the sponsored worker was originally hired into the same role with less experience than the current posting demands, DOL will want proof that the job has changed substantially.

The employer then prepares a recruitment report summarizing how many U.S. applicants responded, how many were interviewed, and the specific, job-related reason each was rejected. Generic language like “not a good fit” will not hold up. The report is not filed with the initial application; it lives in the audit file and is produced only if DOL asks.³

The Audit File and Five-Year Recordkeeping

The employer must retain all application materials and supporting documentation for five years from the filing date.³ Build the audit file as recruitment happens, not after the fact. It should contain:

Copies of newspaper tear sheets, screenshots of web postings, SWA job order confirmations, job fair registrations, and any other proof of each recruitment step.
A copy of the Notice of Filing with a record of where it was displayed and dates, plus copies of any internal distribution through email or intranet.
Every resume received, the employer’s evaluation notes for each, and correspondence with applicants.
The signed recruitment report.
The original Prevailing Wage Determination from the National Prevailing Wage Center.

Closely held corporations or partnerships in which the foreign worker holds an ownership interest or has a family relationship with officers or partners must provide additional documentation, including articles of incorporation, a list of officers and shareholders with their relationships to the worker, and the company’s financial history.³

An audit letter gives the employer 30 days to submit the recruitment report and supporting documentation, with one discretionary 30-day extension available from the Certifying Officer.³ The application itself is signed under penalty of perjury; false statements can carry federal criminal penalties of up to five years in prison.⁶

When Supervised Recruitment Changes the Rules

If the Certifying Officer has concerns about an employer’s recruitment, they can order supervised recruitment for the pending application or for future filings. Under supervised recruitment:⁹

The employer must submit a draft advertisement to the Certifying Officer for approval before publication.
Newspaper ads must run for three consecutive days including one Sunday, rather than the standard two Sundays.
Applicant resumes go directly to the Certifying Officer, who then refers them to the employer.
The employer must explain, with specificity, why each referred applicant was rejected, and cannot reject anyone simply for lacking skills that could be learned through reasonable on-the-job training.

The Employer Pays for Recruitment

Federal regulations prohibit the employer from seeking or receiving any payment from the foreign worker for PERM-related activities, including advertising costs and attorney fees for preparing and filing the application.¹⁰ “Payment” is defined broadly to reach wage deductions, kickbacks, in-kind payments, and free labor. Violations can lead to denial or revocation of the certification and debarment from the program.

The one narrow exception is that a foreign worker may pay for their own separate immigration attorney, as long as that attorney does not also represent the employer on the PERM. If the same lawyer handles both sides, the employer pays everything.¹⁰ A worker asked to reimburse recruitment costs, ad fees, or the employer’s legal fees should treat that as a serious red flag.

With analyst review currently averaging around 503 calendar days, roughly 17 months,¹¹ there is a real cost to getting recruitment wrong. A denied application means starting over with new ads, a new Notice of Filing, and a new priority date. Building the audit file day by day, and documenting every applicant rejection in specific, job-related terms, is what separates a PERM that clears from one that stalls.

1
U.S. Department of Labor. Prevailing Wages
2
eCFR. 20 CFR 656.40 – Determination of Prevailing Wage for Labor Certification Purposes
3
eCFR. 20 CFR Part 656 – Labor Certification Process for Permanent Employment of Aliens in the United States
4
eCFR. 20 CFR 656.17 – Basic Labor Certification Process
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Permanent Labor Certification Program Frequently Asked Questions
6
eCFR. 20 CFR 656.10 – General Instructions
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Permanent Labor Certification Program Final Regulation Frequently Asked Questions
8
eCFR. 20 CFR 656.17 – Basic Labor Certification Process
9
eCFR. 20 CFR 656.21 – Supervised Recruitment
10
eCFR. 20 CFR 656.12 – Improper Commerce and Payment
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Processing Times