Feds Hire Vets - Veterans' Preference

While this is true, I will caution you that more often than not the hiring process is competed before it begins. What do I mean by that? Well, in most cases an individual is already chosen and the job announcement is merely a formality to ensure legal compliance. The best way to get into civil service is VRA, basically any hiring authority can bring you on in the excepted service without the formality of the competitive service hiring process, basically a direct hire.
"Veterans' Recruitment Appointment (VRA) is an excepted authority that allows agencies, to appoint eligible veterans without competition. If you:

are in receipt of a campaign badge for service during a war or in a campaign or expedition; OR
are a disabled veteran, OR
are in receipt of an Armed forces Service Medal for participation in a military operation, OR
are a recently separated veteran (within the last 3 years), AND
separated under honorable conditions (this means an honorable or general discharge), you are VRA eligible."
This is how I was hired and it helps if you know someone or have a "rare and mysterious skill" that is needed, oh that skill has to be a result of training received in the military. Good luck...

I just thought you might care to know some stuff about that, honest. By and large, there is truth to that, however, trust me, having looked into it, I can assure you that what youmsay isn't always quite as clear cut as one might typically initially think. First, when I was a clinical resident, allied health, though we've long since had me shut my license when I became!e ill, I'd found out that there is, in fact, an explicit statutory exception for those in such clinical residency training programs, there, I assure you, I did check to be certain, however incongruous it might seem, such hiring preference very definitely is quite strictly forbidden, from what I'd been told. Now, having said that, there was very good reason, ostensibly, why Congress passed such legislation, or such an admin rule had been implemented, in the BA, as I'd learned, the object being tomhabe only the very best clinical residents treat vets. My first residency director was himself a vet, and, for that reason, being as he had an unpaid, or without compensation (WOC) residency spot open, I think mynbeingna vet got me some sympathy vote. However, I'd learned also that such sympathy vote was purely a discretionary option, not mandated by law. Further, while essentially all the states and/or territories generally have analogous statutes, I'd also found out, on the Federal civil service side, that, if a facility is run nyna contractor, even though the facility may be Federal, the contractor, evidently, is under no obligation to follow such hiring preference, an aspect I also had checked before I became!e disabled later on. I've even looked at volunteering, and vet preferences for that, and can assure you that, while vet provisions are often made to encourage vet participation, such chances are, most definitely, from what I've seen in having tried for sevl yrs now, in any way, shape, or form, guaranteed, by any means. I've always understood vet hiring preference for Federal civil service to nemumder OPM, and nefore my disability, did ask about that whole topic quite in detail, I can assure you. I only !mentioned alp of that, as I !erepy thought you might perhaps be unaware of such aspects, not because such vet preference isn't a good thing, it is, of course, however, I've generally found it to be rather a quite mixed nag, and by no means as uniform a practice as one might perhaps initially expect, that's all I'm trying to say. Believe !e, I did a good deal of asking about such rules, and delving into many of the often arcane aspects of it, and, whole the points awarded for Federal civil service hiring, or state/local hiring, are given, it is by no means, at least from what I've seen, uniform in application, or!always necessarily guaranteed, even in Federal or state/local civil service organizations with direct hiring authority. I realize others here might of course disagree, or have had different experiences, certainly, I just thought I'd explain what I'd seen of such things, for whatever those thoughts might be worth, I'd be most eager for any discussion, many thanks.

Even with this preference I know some people that still have trouble getting hired but it could be that the other candidate was still better qualified but hiring in the federal government does not have good enough transparency to know.