All About Recruiters

As a civilian, there is only one gateway into OTS, a recruiter. And, I’ve had a very interesting history with recruiters. I’m currently on my third, and may even get a fourth by the time I leave for OTS. The following is what I’ve learned when dealing with recruiters. This is from my own observations, and from my own point of view. Your experience can, and probably will be very different.

Finding your recruiter

From what I understand, to become an officer recruiter, you must have been an enlisted recruiter for a certain amount of time. Then, you must go through more training just to become an officer recruiter. Because of this, sometimes it’s hard to find a recruiter that’s close to you, and just because there was an officer recruiter at a certain office at one point doesn’t mean there always will be one there. To find an officer recruiter, the first thing I did was go to my local recruiting office. It turned out to be an enlisted recruiter, but she said she’d look for an officer recruiter and get me in contact with them. The next thing I did was go to the Air Force’s recruiting website. Here are two good sites:

https://www.airforce.com/find-a-recruiter

https://www.airforce.com/apply-now

At some point, I ended up chatting live with someone online too. Between the three sources, I somehow got a hold of the nearest officer recruiter, from an office over four hours away, in the next state. We did most of our correspondence by email and phone calls, and I only met him once in person.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Before I continue, I want to say that recruiters are people too, and they can make mistakes. They are overworked, under paid, and should be allowed the same 30 days of leave that everyone else in the military gets. With that said, there are good and bad qualities of recruiters. The most important quality of a recruiter is communication. Some are good at it, some aren’t as good. You’ll know that you have a really good recruiter if you feel like they are communicating well. The second most important quality is a recruiter who is willing to figure stuff out, or find the answer to something they don’t know. Recruiters aren’t going to know everything, but good ones will find the answer. When talking to an acquaintance about his recruiter (who turned out to become my second recruiter and the one that got me selected), he said this about her: “She didn’t quite know what she was doing at first, but she always worked really hard to find answers to any questions I had.” That right there is a good recruiter.

There are ugly things that can happen though. My first recruiter suddenly disappeared. This happened while I was waiting for results for the second board that I had applied for. He also had made a mistake on my application, left on vacation before it could get fixed, and so my second application never actually made it to the board for consideration. All of this happened unbeknownst to me. I didn’t find out that he had left, that my application had a mistake and hadn’t actually made it to the board, and that he had “passed” me on to another recruiter, until the second recruiter called me a week before I was supposed to get results from the second board.

So yes, just like every other job out there, there are people who are good and bad at their job. But, remember that you must also be realistic. First, recruiters are working with dozens and dozens of people, all at different points in their application process. A recruiter could be working with a few people waiting to go to OTS, more people trying to get their application in, and even more people who are just starting to go to MEPS and get their AFOQT taken. Cut them a bit of slack. Also, sometimes there are things out of their control. They have commanders, rules, and things happening above them that they can’t control. My second recruiter wasn’t allowed to submit me for an unrated board because I needed to be submitted to a rated board first, per her commander. They have to jump through lots of hoops too.

Pros and Cons of working with a recruiter

The biggest difference between the application process of active duty applicants and of civilian applicants is who puts in all the paperwork. Active duty applicants have to do everything themselves. Civilian applicants have to do everything through a recruiter. There are pros and cons for both. First, the pros:

• Recruiters fill out this paperwork for a living, so they (usually) know what every single box on every single form means. Active duty applicants have to just figure it out on their own.
• Recruiters are well connected with other recruiters and can find answers to things pretty easily, usually.
• Recruiters know little tricks that active duty applicants don’t know. For example, my personal statement fit perfectly on my form, but when we put it in the actual form it was slightly too long. But, my recruiter had a special version of Adobe PDF Editor that was able to shrink down the font slightly so that it all fit perfectly.
• Recruiters do all the scheduling for you. They schedule MEPS, physicals, tests, etc. for you.
• Recruiters are (usually) good at answering questions. They do this for a job, so they have been asked all sorts of questions, and have all sorts of info. Active duty guys just have to figure stuff out on their own.

The cons:

• You are at the complete mercy of the recruiter. There is no doing things on your own or going around your recruiter. I’ve even heard of recruiters saying they won’t be able to work with someone. (To be fair, their job is to “hire” people that are qualified for a job. For any other job and industry, if you weren’t qualified, the recruiter at that business also wouldn’t continue with the process. They’d just tell you that you weren’t qualified.)
• You don’t have as much access to the process as active duty people do. Active duty applicants have access to a portal where announcements are made, where they can see the status of their application, and where they are generally more informed after the application has been submitted.
• You don’t get any contact from anyone else, for the most part. If there’s a mistake with your application, the Air Force tells your recruiter, not you (and in my case, if the recruiter is on vacation, it gets missed and forgotten). You can’t talk to anyone in AFRS (Air Force Recruiting Service), they’ll tell you to talk to your recruiter.
• Recruiters are subject to the same transfer schedule of all other active duty personnel. You may end up with more than one recruiter during your whole application and selection process.
• Recruiters may be stationed far away. There’s nothing you can do about this. Luckily, we live in the age of cell phones and email.

Making life easier

Working with a recruiter is a part of life if you are a civilian trying to get into the military. While there are pros and cons to it, there are a few ways you can make your life easier.

• Do as much work as you can yourself. I always told my recruiters, “I know you have a lot of people you are working with, so I’m going to try and make my application as easy as possible.” I would try to anticipate what my recruiter would need next. I’d have all my paperwork in order. I’d do my homework and know what jobs did what, so I knew what jobs I wanted to apply for. I’d fill out every form quickly and neatly. If there was something I could do to make their life easier, I would do it, because I knew it reality it made my life easier.
• Hook up with fellow applicants. I feel the best way to do this is on Facebook. There is typically a Facebook group for where you are in the application process. There is a group for your board. A group for people that have been accepted from your board. A group for those that were a non-select. A group for people going to the same OTS class. A group of selects for your specific job. As a collective, you all can answer about 90-95% of questions that you have. The active duty people in your groups have access to tools that civilians don’t have (like the portal), and civilians have access to their recruiters who may have answers that the active duty people don’t have.
• Always be nice and professional. Remember, we are all human beings, and we are all trying to get on the same team. Be patient, forgiving, and considerate.

I hope this helps in some way or another. If you have questions or if I missed something, please let me know and I’ll try to find you answers.