Patricia Shiu (the Director of OFCCP) has made the enforcement of affirmative action efforts for covered veterans and persons with disabilities a top priority. Click here to read a transcript of a live Q&A session Ms. Shiu held on December 8, 2009 where she outlined the OFCCP’s priorities (and, yes, if you scroll down to 3:24 in the chat record that is yours truly asking a question about how the OFCCP plans to educate contractors on hiring veterans).  Given the unemployment rate of veterans (particularly in the 18-24 year old age group and especially women service members), the continued expansion of the active military force (most of whose members will return to civilian life at some point), the huge number of Guard and Reserve members who rotate back to civilian life and find themselves looking for new jobs, and the growing number of disabled veterans struggling to find work, it is not surprising that there is a renewed interest throughout many parts of the Federal government in improving veteran employment.

If you have read up to this point and are not convinced that this blog contains information that applies to your organization, you might be surprised to find out what kinds of employers may be required (depending on the size of the contract awarded) to comply with some level of OFCCP regulatory requirements:

• Any business with 50 or more employees and $50,000 or more in government contracts
• Construction contractors and subcontractors who hold a Federal or federally-assisted construction contract in excess of $10,000.
• Teaching hospitals doing research for a university that has a contract with the Federal government.
• Colleges/universities who have been awarded grants or contacts to do research for Federal Agencies.
• Businesses of all sizes that have been awarded American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funds in the form of contracts or grants.

In particular with ARRA the bottom line is that if the government is giving your company tax-payer dollars to provide goods or services, it wants to know that you are making a sincere effort to employ and promote a diverse population.  That includes women, minorities, veterans and persons with disabilities.

If you are saying to yourself “Now, wait a minute – I only have to worry about my efforts in veteran outreach if my contract is over $100,000”, you would be technically correct (presuming that contract was awarded after December 1, 2003).  But if you recognized that the military demographic is over 41% non-white, almost 20% women, and includes a growing number of disabled veterans, you would quickly realize you could achieve many of your affirmative action goals just by making an effort to recruit service members in transition. Also, I would hope it is part of your long term business strategy to go after and win larger contracts/grants so you might as well begin the process now in preparation for winning “the big one”.

When it comes to outreach to veterans, many companies do the bare minimum the OFCCP requires, which is to list their job openings with their state workforce agency.  While that certainly meets the requirement, it hardly qualifies as an extensive outreach program.  Additional things an employer can do to improve outreach include:

• Provide on-the-job training opportunities to veterans
• Update your career page to attract veterans
• Reach out to veterans on campus in Reserve Officer Training Corps programs and Student Veterans of America chapters
• Host virtual open houses and communicate them to the military transition centers
• Contact the wounded warrior programs offered by each service
• Market your career web site and opportunities on social networking sites where veterans gather
• Post your jobs on military job boards or with military-focused recruiting firms and maintain records similar to what you must keep for outreach to minorities and women

(Click on any hyperlink above to read blog entries I’ve made on the topic or web seminars I offer that cover the topic or additional resources.)

To encourage employers to improve their hiring of veterans and veterans with disabilities the OFCCP came up with the Good Faith Initiative for Veterans Employment (G-FIVE).   Click here to read a blog I wrote 18 months ago on the G-FIVE.  Each December the OFCCP releases its list of organizations that have attained G-FIVE recognition.  Organizations that receive G-FIVE recognition are excluded from an OFCCP compliance evaluation for three (3) years following the date the recipient receives the rating. Companies can self-nominate to be considered for G-FIVE recognition.

If your organization has been through an OFCCP audit recently, or has applied/been considered for G-FIVE recognition, I’d like to hear about your experience and what you have discovered about outreach to veterans and veterans with disabilities.  Please be sure to comment below.

This was easy to explain – JMOs have not only supervised individuals ranging from their teens to their 40s but they have written and delivered annual performance evaluations. This is frequently one of the hardest skills to develop in young managers.

Additionally, part of their duties include coaching, counseling and giving guidance on family issues too. Employers find very few civilians of the same age and education level that match the managerial background of JMOs.

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A recruiter asked me this week, “Why should I focus more attention on military job fairs that take place on the military installations as opposed to off-base events?”  What I explain is that by attending military career fairs on the installations, their chances for connecting with high-value transitioning military job seekers are higher than with “off-base” job fairs. In this same vein, military job fairs held on-base make it easier for the men and women of the military to be able to participate as in many cases they are simply walking from their current military job to the civilian job fair. In addition, the employers I work with enjoy being able to meet the military candidates face-to-face in a setting where the job seekers already have a comfort level.

I have clients that look for maintenance, logistics and driver backgrounds and they have informed me that they have been able to meet more of this profile via an on-base military job fair than with any other channel.  Part of this has to do with the specialized outreach we do to attract candidates, but much has to do with the fact that it is easy for candidates to attend an on-base career event.

For instance, this week a company asked me if there was a “catch” to the relocation benefits provided to military personnel as they transition back to civilian life at the conclusion of their service obligation.

I explained that the government will relocate the individual from their exit location back to their “home of record” (location where they entered the military) or the equivalent distance!

This is another reason why companies find military experienced candidates so attractive as new additions to their staff. Any savings on RELO costs is a huge benefit to a future employer.  Even with some companies dropping relo reimbursement due to economic pressures, the military relocation benefit still makes a transitioning military candidate more “mobile” than a civilian candidate.

While I have seen indications that some agencies have established an office, I haven’t (yet) seen more OBVIOUS evidence on any agency career site that their VEPO exists and is open for business.  And, when I say OBVIOUS I mean a “can’t miss it” link or graphic on the agency career home page that says “Veterans – click here for direct assistance in finding a career at Agency X”.   I’d also like to see a full list of agency VEPO’s with links made available via the FedsHireVets.gov website so veterans have one place to find this kind of information.

(And, speaking of the FedsHireVets.gov website – it just updated its site on Jan 21^st.  Now it has lots of good basic information in one location for both veterans and federal HR practitioners and hiring managers – go check it out.)

To have an OBVIOUS link on the career home page is not such an odd request.  Most of the agency career sites (see a few examples here such as the Department of State, Department of Justice, and Department of Treasury) have a special link for college students, with a page full of information directed toward them on internships and special programs (such as fellowships and clerking opportunities).  Why not add a veteran link from the main career page which lands on an information page targeted at veterans?

Having an OBVIOUS link for veterans on a career homepage with a veteran-specific landing page is a “best practice” tactic I advocate in my Marketing to Attract the Military Applicant web seminar and my employer’s guide to hiring military.  Most of the civilian companies on the G.I. Jobs Top 100 Military Friendly Employers annual list and the CivilianJobs.com Most Valuable Employers for Military employ this tactic, and clearly they have proven their success and experience in attracting veterans to their organizations.

All employers (civilian or government) who want to attract military veteran applicants have to remember that this is a group of people who, while having a tremendous amount of valuable job skills and training, do not have experience in navigating a civilian/federal applicant tracking system.

Rarely does a military person have to “apply” for a job while in the military.  We can express our preferences for where we would like to be stationed, and the higher in rank we are the more room we have for negotiation on types of assignments we’d like to accept, but at the end of the day we go where we are told to go (that’s why it’s called an “assignment”).  In the military we are centrally managed by a group of human resource professionals who know where the job openings are and have access to service members job performance records and basic resume-like information (education, training, previous jobs completed, etc.).  With that information these HR professionals create a list of service men/women who meet the requirements of the upcoming vacancy and who are also in a position to move to their next assignment.  The magic happens from there.   So, you can see why navigating a civilian/federal job site can be overwhelming and frustrating.  Taking that seemingly small step of creating an OBVIOUS link and a veteran-specific landing page makes the whole process easier and less daunting.  It also demonstrates that your organization wants to attract military and wants veterans to apply.

One closing thought, just for our Federal employers:  The government has a web site called StudentJobs.Gov which lists jobs, internships, scholarships, fellowships, grants, apprenticeships and cooperative education within the Federal Government.  I don’t know that we need a VeteranJobs.Gov just yet, since for the most part we can apply to anything in USAJobs.gov.  But, if the government decides to get creative and start offering internships, on-the-job training programs, management trainee programs, fellowships, etc. just for veterans, then it should consider creating it.

If you are not familiar with management trainee programs (MTPs), most follow a basic structure.  Selected candidates undergo:

• An orientation to the company usually lasting 1-2 weeks.
• Rotational exposure over the course of several months to a variety of jobs within a business unit or among different business units within a company.
• Hands-on work / job shadowing of a narrower selection of positions within a business unit or among a handful of different business units within a company, lasting several more months.
• Selection to work in a specific entry-level management job in a specific business unit.  This first assignment may be as a permanent hire or as a probationary hire.

The program may also involve classroom training, depending on company requirements and the nature of the work.  During the trainee period the candidate is continuously assessed and evaluated on his/her “fit” for the various jobs and the business units.  The candidate is encouraged to express their opinion on the type of work they found most interesting and the business unit where they felt most engaged.  Ideally, by the end of the process the candidate knows the type of position where they would be the strongest and the hiring manager for their favored business unit is confident the candidate will be a good addition to the team.

Management trainee programs are offered by many leading companies in a variety of industries:

• L’Oreal (cosmetics)
• Anheuser-Busch InBev (food and beverage)
• Toll Brothers (construction)
• Marriott (lodging)
• Walgreens (retail)
• Fulton Financial Corporation (finance)
• Unilever (home, personal care, and food products)

These programs are typically marketed to recent college graduates or those just about to graduate.  Oftentimes the company’s career web page has announcements of when campus visits will occur and encourages students to contact their university career centers to apply.  Some companies don’t advertise these opportunities on their web sites, simply relying on campus visits to get the word out.

What I would like to see happen in 2010 (and beyond) is more employers making an effort to recruit transitioning military service members, particularly those who are mid-level non-commissioned officers (NCOs – grade E-5 through E-7) and junior-level military officers (JMOs – grade O-1 through O-3), to apply for these programs.  I’d like to see more of these companies visiting the military transition centers and attending military job fairs in an effort to reach out to veterans and to encourage them to apply.

Think about it – veterans already have a great deal of supervisory and managerial experience:

• How many 21-year old college seniors can say they have led a team of nine workers (or more) to accomplish any significant task?  How many of them have been doing it for years and under incredibly challenging situations in austere environments?
• How many young adults have had personal and financial accountability for the people and equipment for which they were responsible?  Few civilians have experienced a report-of-survey and had their pay docked because company equipment was damaged or lost.  Few students have undergone something akin to the scrutiny of an Article 15-6 investigation or a Line-Of-Duty investigation because two of their employees were in an altercation in their living quarters.
• How many students have written performance reviews or coached employees for a promotion?
• How many 20-somethings have developed unit/team training plans and assessed others on the level of knowledge attained?

NCOs and JMOs, who are typically between the ages of 22 and 30, can say they have done all of that and more.

Military service members also have real-world experience in many industries.  Over 80% of the jobs in the military have a civilian equivalent.  There are veterans with extensive backgrounds in healthcare, logistics, transportation, IT, law enforcement/security, emergency management, project management, engineering, intelligence and human resources, to name just a few industries and fields. The area a service member will have the least hands-on familiarity with is in the actual business aspects – how this company makes/saves money – since that is one thing a veteran rarely had to be concerned with in his military job.  However, I suspect business aspects would need to be emphasized with the college students as well, so I still believe the veteran would be the stronger candidate.

Yes, companies could be attracting great candidates with supervisory/managerial experience and real-world industry experience versus candidates with little to no supervisory/managerial experience and primarily book-knowledge.  So – why don’t companies market these training programs to veterans? Most companies focus on college students because they don’t realize there is another resource of young talent with industry knowledge.  Most employers are unaware of the breadth and depth of experience our military men and women have.

If your company has a management trainee program that is not currently being marketed to veterans I encourage you to consider adding military hiring to your recruiting strategy.  If you need more information on where to find veterans or how to market to veterans I invite you to register to attend one of my web seminars on these military hiring topics.

I also recommend those employers with existing MTPs consider their choice of career site language.  Phrases like “offers recent college graduates”, and “use your degree” discourages non-commissioned officers who have not completed a degree from applying.  Unless there is a strong reason why a college degree is required (versus desired), employers are encouraged to also accept applicants with relevant experience.

Here are some examples of great organizations that do make the effort to market to military and recruit military into their management trainee programs:

1. General Electric’s Junior Officer Leadership Program, commonly known as JOLP.
2. The US Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) agency.
3. Con-Way

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study published in March 2007 entitled “Characteristics and Pay of Federal Civilian Employees” reported that in 2005 the average permanent full-time civilian federal employee was 47 years old.  The average federal worker in that group retires at age 59.  In the same study the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reported that it expected a peak in federal retirements to occur between 2008 and 2010.   It is reasonable to assume that this expected peak has been delayed by a few years because of the ongoing recession, but it will come eventually.

So, what can the Federal Government be doing now prepare to replace all of those people? The government competes with the private sector for the same applicants, and oftentimes the private sector wins because it offers a better salary or more (perceived) prestige.  And the process for applying for a federal job is so complicated (compared to private industry) and takes such a long time that applicants with high demand skills feel the road to a career in the private sector is just easier to pursue.

To make federal employment more appealing to young Americans, Representatives David Price (D-N.C.) and Michael Castle (R-Del.) introduced the House version of a bill called the Roosevelt Scholars Act in July 2009.  In November 2009 Senators George Voinovich (R-OH) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) submitted the Senate version.   Both versions of the Roosevelt Scholars Act would provide scholarships to students in skilled fields such as engineering, information technology, foreign languages and public health in exchange for a federal government service commitment of three to five years. Both versions of the bill would establish a small foundation to administer the scholarships, and provide tuition and living expenses of up to $60,000 per year.  The primary difference between the two versions is that the Senate version covers both undergraduate and graduate (masters, law and doctoral) students, where the House version applies only to graduate students.

The Roosevelt Scholars Act is aimed at those pursuing education that is directly related to one or more occupational areas designated as “mission critical”.  The top areas where the government is hiring include medical and public health, security and protection, compliance and enforcement, legal, and administration/program management.  Go to Where the Jobs Are 2009 to see additional federal agency hiring projections by professional field (IT, education, engineering, etc.).

Students who receive Roosevelt scholarships would be required to intern with a Federal Agency while pursuing their degree.  After completing their degree, the Federal Agency can use a Special Hiring Authority to make a non-competitive appointment for a period not to exceed 2 years.  After which, the appointee can be converted to career or career-conditional employment to serve out the remaining 1-3 years of the commitment.  Uncle Sam hopes that at the end of the commitment the scholar’s experience will have been so fantastic and rewarding that he/she will want to stay with the government for a longer career.

It sounds like a great idea.  It should – the Roosevelt Scholars Act is modeled after the Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC), a college-based commissioning program which has been highly successful in producing roughly 40% of the officers serving in todays military.

So, here is my crazy idea – why not modify/amend the Roosevelt Scholars Act to create a special avenue for military veteran scholars?  The selection process to become a Roosevelt Scholar would work the same and the veteran would have the same 3-5 year federal commitment after completing his/her degree.  The bonus is that the service member already has use of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill to cover tuition, books, and living expenses.  And, if the veteran chooses a college that participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program, which is designed to supplement the difference between undergraduate and graduate tuition costs, much if not all of the costs of the graduate degree will be covered.   In this way, all parties win:

• The veteran gets an (advanced) degree and a federal job;
• The Theodore Roosevelt Scholarship Foundation (which would administer the program) retains the money which can then be used to fund more scholarships for non-veteran students; and,
• The Federal Government gets great quality hires AND has an additional way to support the new Executive Order #13518 (“Employment of Veterans in the Federal Government”) AND can accept an unlimited number of veterans into the program because it isn’t restricted by the amount of money in the foundation available to fund scholarships.

If you think this is a good idea contact your congressional representative and/or senator and let them know you’d like to see the bill updated to better support veterans.

If you want to check on the status of either version of this bill go to The Library of Congress’ THOMAS search engine for the Bill Summary and Status Search of the 111^th Congress (2009-2010) and type in “Roosevelt scholars”.  THOMAS, named after Thomas Jefferson, is designed to make federal legislative information freely available to the public.

I posted a link to Executive Order #13518 “Employment of Veterans in the Federal Government” as a discussion item in about two dozen different veteran groups on LinkedIn.  I was curious to see what kind of response news of this order and its “Veterans Employment Initiative” would generate.  Reaction fell into one of three categories:

1. Roughly 10% of the respondents were very excited to hear this news.  I’ll call this group “The Inexperienced Innocents.”  This group was comprised primarily of service members who will be transitioning from the military in the next few months and looking for employment.  They have not yet tried to navigate the federal job world, but they trust that, somehow, this order will make the federal job hunt experience one that is simple, expedient, full of feedback, and generally not frustrating.
2. Almost 80% of respondents fell into the category of “The Scorned Skeptics”.  These veterans have “been there – done that – couldn’t even get a d*mn t-shirt because I never heard back from anyone regarding any job I ever applied for on USAjobs.”  Phrases like “lip service”, “smoke and mirrors” and “just trying to look like they support veterans” were common.  The tales these veterans told of frustrated job searches were soul crushing.  Somewhat surprising was the number of former service members with easily transferrable experience (i.e., healthcare, transportation, and logistics) who were unable to find a job within the government.
3. The final 10% I’ll call “The Reservedly Optimistic”.  That is the category into which I fall.  The folks in this category tended to be those who currently work or have experience with corporate recruiting practices.  We know the current system does not work well for veterans (or, arguably, anyone who doesn’t already have a federal job).  However, we also know that systems can be improved.

I know personally of the frustrations veterans experience with breaking into the federal job scene.  Back in 2005 my husband spent almost 9 months applying for government positions before he gave up.  If someone with solid technical/IT/telecommunications skills (both military and civilian), a current top secret clearance, and Washington DC area residence couldn’t find work anywhere in the federal government, what hope should anyone else have?

So, President Obama, the burning question all respondents want to ask is “What will be done differently this time?”

As evidenced by my depressing statistic of 80% Scorned Skeptics, simply coming up with a slick marketing campaign that tells the veteran community “the government wants to hire you!” is not going to persuade us that this is more than lip service.  Change does not come easily to those who are entrenched in a comfort zone. You will have to convince, nay, motivate, the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Office of Personnel Management, and all 24+ members of the Council on Veterans Employment to think “outside the box”.  They must be willing to look for and try best practices from corporate recruiting and retention initiatives, in particular those veteran hiring initiatives that civilian companies have undertaken that have had much success.  If the companies listed on G.I. Jobs “Top 100 Military Friendly Employers” and CivilianJobs.com’s Most Valuable Employers (MVE) for Military can figure out how be successful at hiring military veterans, I think the federal government can be open to learning something from them.

As I have spent the last two years educating civilian employers, federal hiring managers, and college/university human resource professionals on how to develop and implement a military hiring initiative, I feel uniquely qualified to offer you some of my personal suggestions:

• Allow federal HR professionals to more aggressively search for the right candidates.  This is opposed to passively posting a job opening on USAjobs, waiting for 400 applications to come in, and then sifting through them to find the one diamond in a pile of coal.  Civilian recruiters actively seek out (though the use of social networking sites, Internet Boolean searches and data mining multiple resume databases) potential ideal candidates for their openings and “push” jobs to them rather than using the “pull” method described above.
• Allow those companies with extensive experience in placing military veterans with civilian employers to assist you in this effort while you train your current HR practitioners/recruiters how to do that kind of work.  Corporations know that when they don’t have a particular knowledge area or ability it often makes good business sense to bring in outside experts (short or long term) in order to ramp up quickly and get the hiring machine moving.
• Motivate federal recruiters and hiring managers to utilize the hiring tools they already have. The government has veteran hiring preferences, several special approval authorities just for veterans and special schedules that allow a tremendous amount of flexibility when traditional competitive hiring procedures are not feasible or practical.  Hiring managers can choose to use any or all of these to simplify and bypass the standard route to employment.  The number of veterans hired under these approving authorities is quite low.   Is that condition because hiring managers don’t know they have these tools, don’t know when to apply them, don’t know how to apply them, or is it because they choose, for whatever reason, not to use them?   Human beings are motivated by two things: fear and reward.  Civilian companies figured out a long time ago that incentivizing their employees to do things increases compliance and productivity.
• Add creative training experiences, such as internships and on-the-job training programs, designed just for veterans as vehicles to bring them into the federal government.  Civilian employers have been using these kinds of programs for decades, with the shift in emphasis now going to “experienced” applicants vs. the more traditional college students.
• Invest in creating better career websites for the agencies.  Include things like “chat with a recruiter”, informational web seminars on “working at Agency X”, videos on a “day in the life at Department Y”.  How about a skills cross walk – “if you did this in the military, you may want to consider these careers in Agency Z”.
• Come up with a comprehensive campaign to market federal jobs to the military. Outreach takes on many forms.  Take a look at your own military service recruiting sites (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps) for great examples on how to go “above and beyond” the norm to recruit.  And, really work with the Veteran Service Organizations to get the word out and to develop a pipeline of referrals.  The VSO’s will either be your strongest allies or your worst detractors, depending on how you approach and integrate them into the initiative.  And, don’t forget to include the professional military associations such as the Military Officers Association of America and the National Guard Association of the United States.
• Change the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) policy that places a time limit on how long a veteran can use the services of transition centers.  Currently, active duty service members (or reserve component members who are on active duty) have 180 days after separation to use the services of a transition center.  Given that it takes 6-12 months on average for veterans to find jobs, why is the service window so short?  Take a lesson learned from colleges and universities – generally their alumni can use their career service centers indefinitely after graduation.  And, why don’t we have career services support for reserve component members who have not recently served on active duty?  Lack of close access to a transition center can easily be mitigated.  Many civilian career counselors/coaches offer their services virtually (i.e., via web seminar, over the phone, via computer/chat/IM, etc.) so, inability to council Guard and Reserve members face-to-face should not be an excuse. 
• Provide more robust services in the area of military resume writing, especially federal resume writing.  Feedback I’ve received directly from transitioning military members is that they are not getting the guidance they need and the follow up they want so desperately from the transition centers.  And the “military friendly” recruiters I’ve spoken with say that the quality of the resumes is still very poor.  That those recruiters are still able to successfully find and hire great military candidates is due in large part to the effort they have made to educate themselves on the military and how to translate an un-translated resume.
• Implement sponsorship and integration programs to help the service member adapt to and thrive in a civilian workplace.  Creating a federal “veteran networking group” (affinity group, affiliation group) would be a great start.  The precedent has already been set with Young Government Leaders.
• Start tracking the retention statistics on the number of veterans hired.   Include that data on the annual “Employment of Veterans in the Federal Executive Branch” report.  Is anyone else besides me curious about the retention percentage of veterans hired under those above mentioned special authorities after the initial authorization period expires (generally 1-2 years)?

To those leaders from DOL, VA, and OPM charged with implementing the Executive Order – I have more ideas if you are interested in hearing them.  I’ll be attending The Advisory Committee on Veterans’ Employment, Training and Employer Outreach (ACVETEO) Open Meeting on December 2^nd.  Let’s chat.

View the 2009 MVE Winners .

The truth is the government buys just about everything you can think of.  And it’s not just the obvious items such as general contracting/construction, training development, office supplies and vehicles.  Here is a sample list of recently requested items that may surprise you:

• Aerobics and fitness instruction
• Document storage and reproduction
• Trash removal and recycling
• Shoeshine kits, hairbrush and comb sets, lint brushes
• Cosmetology instructor
• Lodging and conference services
• Meeting facilitation

As a bonus – being a Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB) or Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) is an advantage.  Federal agencies have procurement goals for doing business with VOSBs and SDVOSBs.

So, how does one “do business with the government”?  As someone who is going that route herself, here is the down and dirty list.

1.  The SDVOSB is a certifiable designation, so you have to go through a formal process to attain the designation.  It’s not hard to do, but you do have to do it.  The Department of the Veterans Affairs VetBiz page has a good explanation of the process

2.  Get a DUNS number .  It is a unique 9-digit identification number assigned to a business.  It is free to obtain.  You’ll need it for the next step.

3.  Register with the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) website.  You cannot get a government contract if you are not in the CCR.  It is free to register.

4.  Figure out which North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes are related to your business and make sure you associate them with your profile in the CCR.  For example, if your company does junk removal and recycling you can look up NAICS codes for those services using “recycling”, “sanitation”, “hauling”, “garbage”, etc. as keywords.  Be very thorough and pick as many NAICS codes as necessary even if it just touches on what you do.  Read the next tip to find out why.

5.  Once you are in the CCR, register in Federal Business Opportunities (commonly known as FedBizOps).  You can set up watch lists for your various NAICS codes so you get daily/weekly emails with any Requests For Proposals/Presolicitations, etc. that are newly posted to FedBizOps.  Agencies sometimes send out a blast email to companies with a particular NAICS code in their profile to alert them to an opportunity coming down the pike, so it is a good way to find out information early.

6.  Contact your local Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC).  They can give you advice, training, and help you make connections and introductions in the federal government.  Most of their services are free.  Some of their classes may cost a minimal amount ($25-100 depending on the topic).

7.  Contact the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) for each federal agency you want to do business with.  They are very helpful and it is their job to help you make connections within the agency and to explain “how to do business” with that agency.

8.  Search each agency’s OSDBU web page to see if the agency has a “vendor outreach” day or other event where SDVOSB/VOSB’s can come to the agency and meet with various contracting officers from that agency (sort of like speed dating for contractors).  There are also a lot of conferences you can attend (two good lists are at http://www.osdbu.gov/general.html and at http://www.fbcinc.com/search.aspx)  to do a larger-scale meet and greet with a lot of federal agencies and other small businesses and learn something from the seminars offered at the conference.  A lot of these events are in the Washington, DC area but several are held in other locations.  Two big ones you should try to attend: 20^th Annual OSDBU Procurement Conference, April 21, 2010 in Chantilly, VA (near Dulles Airport in the DC area), and there is a really big one just for veterans called the 6^th Annual National Veteran Small Business Conference and Expo in Las Vegas July 19-22, 2010.

9.  Decide if being on a General Services Administration (GSA) schedule is right for you.  There are many different schedules, covering lots of different types of products and services.  You can search for schedules by keyword at GSA’s eLibrary.  For example, recycling services are covered under 9 different schedules.  You can be on more than one schedule, and that eLibrary site will display which companies are registered under each schedule (a good way to check out your competition).

Basically, being on a schedule makes it easier for the government to do business with you because you are already “pre certified” in their eyes.  Many agencies will look to schedule holders first when announcing opportunities (schedule holders have their own website where opportunities are posted that are not posted in FedBizOps).  If it makes sense for your business, all the steps for the process and even video how-to’s are on GSA’s web site.  However, the more specialized your product or service, the less sense it may make to be on a schedule.  It is great for commodities (i.e., pens, lumber, gravel, office supplies) and highly competitive general services (i.e., janitorial services).

You can “get on the schedule” yourself and it is free; however, it is a 4-8 month process and a lot of writing and paperwork to get on a schedule, so don’t think you can do this in a weekend.  Know that once you are registered in the CCR there are companies who will send you emails and snail mail offering to “help you get on the schedule”.  They generally charge anywhere from $6,000-20,000 to do it.  Many of them do offer free seminars on “how to do business with the government”, and those can actually be fairly helpful (some more than others).  The PTACs also offer those kinds of classes for no or low cost and GSA has those classes for free as well.

Last but not least:  the most important thing to keep in mind when trying to do business with anyone/any agency is that your status as a SDVOSB/VOSB is NOT what is going to get you a contract.  You have to have a product or service that an agency needs, and you still have to sell yourself as the best provider of that product or service.  Being a SDVOSB/VOSB is the “icing on the cake” because agencies do have goals for doing business with disadvantaged businesses.  However, they aren’t just going to hand you a contract because of your status.

I just came back from a conference in Tampa for SDVOSBs and VOSBs and I cannot tell you the number of business cards I was handed that said something along the lines of “Bradley and Company – a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business” and NOTHING ELSE.  One day from now when I am going through these cards I am not going to have any idea what Bradley and Company does.  Are they a general contractor?  A records and documents company?  A seller of office supplies?  One tidbit I learned in a class was to put my status (I am a VOSB and a WOSB – a Woman Owned Small Business), my DUNS, my CAGE code and all of my associated NAICS codes on my business card.  I printed up a bunch of labels with that info and plastered them on the back of my existing cards.  I also made a tri-fold prospectus for my company and put all that info on the back of the prospectus as well.  I use those cards and marketing materials when I attend the vendor outreach days/conferences so the contracting officers know what I do from the front of the card and how to do business with me from the back of the card.