State Hiring: an Interview You Cannot Be Refused — Not Points on a Score
For an initial appointment to a competitive classified state position, a veteran, a serving member, a spouse, an unmarried surviving spouse or a dependent parent who meets the minimum qualifications must be offered an interview. Where five or more such applicants exist, at least five must be interviewed.
Verified August 23, 2026
What this benefit is
For an initial appointment to a competitive classified state position, a veteran, a serving member, a spouse, an unmarried surviving spouse or a dependent parent who meets the minimum qualifications must be offered an interview. Where five or more such applicants exist, at least five must be interviewed.
What it's worth: An interview the agency must offer for an initial classified appointment you are minimally qualified for
- No dollar figure is claimed. The value is a shortlisting right, and it converts into money only where it turns into a job.
- It applies to INITIAL appointment to the classified service only, so it does nothing for a promotion or a transfer inside the service.
Who is entitled to it
- The section reaches the servicemember, a spouse, an unmarried widow or widower, and a dependent parent.
- Your discharge is honorable, under honorable conditions, or general.
- You are in this state.
Not sure whether that describes you?
Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.
How to claim it
Deadline: At the point of applying for the vacancy- 1Declare it on the application. Subsection (3)(a) says applicants entitled to interview preference "shall be clearly identified" — an undeclared veteran is invisible to the rule.
- 2Check you meet the minimum qualifications published for the job classification. That is the only merit gate in the section; there is no examination score to clear.
- 3The arithmetic is worth knowing: if fewer than five preference-eligible applicants exist, the agency must interview all of them; if five or more exist, it must interview at least five.
- 4The Guard and the Reserves count. So does current service — a serving member and their spouse are covered as well as a former member.
- 5A dependent parent has a route of their own where the servicemember lost their life under honorable conditions on active duty or active duty for training, or became permanently and totally disabled from a service-connected disability.
- 6An unmarried widow or widower of someone who died in service is covered unless the circumstances of the death would have been cause for a separation other than honorable or general.
- Form
- Identify your status on the state application
- File with
- Kentucky Personnel Cabinet, and the hiring agency
- Documents you will need
- dd214
- No renewal
- Once granted it does not need renewing.
Sources
Why only one source type: Only the statute could be read. The Personnel Cabinet’s own hiring guidance was not reached this session and the veterans department’s site (veterans.ky.gov) is edge-blocked from here, so nothing operational is claimed beyond the text of KRS 18A.150 itself.
This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.