You want to hire veterans and train them on your own terms. A Registered Apprenticeship is one of the cleanest ways to do it. You build the role. You set the skills. The U.S. Department of Labor signs off on the standards. Then you hire people and train them while they work.

Most employer guides skip the part that actually trips people up. That part is the registration. How do you write the standards? Who do you register with? What goes in the work process schedule? How many hours of class time do you need? This guide walks the build-and-register side step by step.

Veterans fit this model well. They are used to structured training. They show up. They follow a plan and hit milestones. That makes them strong apprentices from day one. Let's set up the program first, then talk about why the veteran pipeline is the easy part.

What is a Registered Apprenticeship Program?

A Registered Apprenticeship Program is called a RAP for short. It is a paid training model with a federal stamp on it. You employ the apprentice. They earn a wage. They learn the job by doing it under a mentor. They also take related classroom instruction. At the end, they earn a credential the whole industry recognizes.

The word "registered" is the key. Your program standards get reviewed and approved by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Apprenticeship or by a State Apprenticeship Agency. Once approved, your program is official. That status unlocks things a casual training plan can not.

The apprenticeship.gov site walks you through setup. Every Registered Apprenticeship has five core parts. They are the backbone of your standards.

Notice what is missing from that list. There is no rule that says you must use a union or a trade school. You can run a program in IT, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, or finance. The model is yours to build. That is the part midsize employers tend to miss.

Why are veterans strong apprentices?

Apprenticeships ask a lot of the trainee. You need someone who will stay, follow a long plan, and not quit when the work gets hard. Veterans bring that by default. The military runs on structured training. Every service member has earned a qualification by working through stages. That is the exact shape of an apprenticeship.

They also bring discipline that protects your investment. An apprentice you train for a year is a real cost. You do not want them walking out at month three. Veterans tend to honor a commitment. They understand standards, evaluations, and signing off on milestones. None of that is new to them.

The labor numbers back up the timing. The unemployment rate for all veterans was 3.5 percent in 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There is a steady pool of skilled people leaving service who want a clear path into a civilian career. An apprenticeship gives them one.

If you want the full case for hiring veterans into skilled roles, our guide on apprenticeship pathways for the trades workforce covers the business case in depth. This guide stays on the build-and-register mechanics.

How do you build the program standards?

Your standards are the rulebook for the whole program. They spell out what the apprentice learns, how long it takes, and how you measure it. The Department of Labor reviews these before they approve you. So this is where your real work happens.

Start by picking the occupation. Pick one job you struggle to hire for. A maintenance tech. A CNC machinist. A network admin. A logistics coordinator. The occupation drives everything else in the standards.

Choose time-based, competency-based, or hybrid

You must pick how the apprentice proves they are done. There are three approaches under federal rules. This choice shapes the whole program.

A hybrid mixes both. The apprentice logs hours and proves skills. For veterans, competency-based or hybrid is often the smart pick. Many already have part of the skill set from their service. You do not want to make a former aircraft mechanic sit through 2,000 hours to prove something they can show you in a week.

Write the work process schedule

The work process schedule is the heart of your standards. It lists every skill the apprentice must learn on the job. Think of it as the task list for the role, broken into stages. It goes in what the Department of Labor calls Appendix A of your standards.

Break the job into its real parts. For a maintenance tech that might be safety, electrical basics, hydraulics, troubleshooting, and preventive upkeep. List each one. Note roughly how the apprentice builds that skill over the term. This is where your subject matter experts earn their keep. Pull your best workers into a room and map how they actually learned the job.

Set the related instruction hours

On top of the job hours, the apprentice needs classroom instruction. The recommended minimum is 144 hours of related instruction per year, per the standards in 29 CFR 29.5. That class time can come from a community college, an online course, or your own training team.

You have room to flex this. You can front-load more hours in year one and fewer later, as long as the term averages out to the recommended level. Many employers partner with a local college for this piece. The college handles the teaching. You handle the job.

Who do you register the program with?

Once your standards are drafted, you register them. Where you register depends on your state. There are two paths and only one applies to you.

Some states run their own State Apprenticeship Agency, often called an SAA. In those states, you register with the SAA. Other states are covered directly by the Department of Labor's Office of Apprenticeship. In those states, you register with the OA. Both review your standards and grant the same federal status. You just need to know which one serves your state.

The easy move is to find your apprenticeship.gov state contact first. They will tell you which office handles your registration. They also tend to help you fix your standards before you submit. That free guidance is worth using. A reviewer who helped shape your draft is far more likely to approve it fast.

What paperwork do you need to register?

The registration packet is smaller than people fear. The big document is your standards, which you already built. That includes the work process schedule and the related instruction plan. The rest is supporting detail.

You will also confirm your wage schedule. Apprentices start below the journeyworker wage and step up at set points. You define those steps. You name the mentor-to-apprentice ratio so each trainee gets real attention. You include your equal opportunity plan, which is standard for any federal program.

Once the office approves your standards, you are a registered sponsor. From there, each new apprentice gets enrolled under your program. You do not rebuild the standards each time. You built the machine once. Now you just feed people through it.

How does the GI Bill help fund your apprentices?

Here is where the veteran angle pays off twice. When your program is registered and approved for VA benefits, your veteran apprentices can draw GI Bill money while they train. That money goes to the veteran, not your payroll. So it raises their take-home pay during the lean early months without raising your cost.

The VA on-the-job training and apprenticeship benefit pays a monthly housing allowance to the veteran while they learn. The amount steps down every six months as their regular wage steps up. It is a clean way to make an apprentice wage livable early on, which helps you keep good people.

The approval for VA benefits is a separate process from your DoL registration. We cover that part in detail in our guide on sponsoring a veteran apprenticeship with SAA and GI Bill approval. If you want a simpler training model without the full apprenticeship structure, look at our VA on-the-job training employer guide instead.

What does an apprenticeship cost an employer?

The honest answer is that it costs mentor time and class fees, not much else. You pay the apprentice a wage you set, starting below journeyworker level. The classroom piece may carry a tuition cost, but grants and college partnerships often cover part of it. Many states offer funds to offset apprenticeship setup too.

The bigger cost is the time your senior people spend mentoring. That is real. But it is also how you would train any new hire, just more organized. You are turning ad hoc on-the-job training into a structured program with a credential at the end. The credential helps you keep the person.

There are tax angles worth checking as well. We break down the available credits and offsets in our guide on veteran hiring incentives beyond WOTC. Note that the Work Opportunity Tax Credit expired at the end of 2025 and is not available for 2026 hires unless Congress renews it.

Which roles work best for a veteran apprenticeship?

Apprenticeships work in far more fields than the old trade-union image suggests. They fit any role with a clear skill ladder and a real shortage of trained people. That describes a lot of midsize hiring needs right now.

If you hire in the trades, our employer guide on hiring veterans for construction roles is a good companion. For plant and production work, see hiring veterans for manufacturing roles. Both pair well with an apprenticeship model.

Where do you find veteran apprentices to fill the program?

You built the program. Now you need people to put in it. This is where most employers stall. They set up a clean apprenticeship and then post it on a generic job board and wait. Veterans who would thrive in the role never see it.

BMR keeps a growing pool of veteran talent looking for exactly this kind of structured path. Over 1,000 new veteran profiles are added every month. We have 60,000 resumes built on the platform. That gives you a real, fresh supply of candidates who already match the apprenticeship mindset.

You do not have to guess who is trainable. You can reach veterans who want a clear ladder into a civilian trade or technical career. That is the exact person an apprenticeship is built for.

Start your apprenticeship the right way

A Registered Apprenticeship turns your hardest-to-fill role into a training pipeline you control. You write the standards. You set the skills. The Department of Labor approves it once. Then you hire and train as long as the program runs.

Veterans make the model work. They are built for structured training and they stay. Pair a clean program with the GI Bill funding side and you have a low-cost way to grow your own talent. The setup is more straightforward than most employers expect.

When your program is ready, you need a steady source of qualified veteran candidates to fill it. Reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start filling your apprenticeship with people who already think in milestones and standards.