I will be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about how to become an officer in the USAF Reserves, so I was very interested to receive this information. An Air Force Journey follower reached out and was willing to provide their perspective for your benefit. This person is a civilian who is applying to become an officer in the reserves. Here are a few thoughts I wanted to add.
AFOQT
You don’t have to rely on your recruiter to schedule the AFOQT for you, you can often set this up yourself. If your recruiter sets up the test for you it will probably be at the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) which is closest to you. They may also set up an appointment for you to take the test at the closest Air Force ROTC Detachment. If you don’t want to wait on a recruiter, ANYONE can call the nearest detachment to set up the test. I have heard the larger detachments will host the test every month but it really just depends on the detachment. From what I have heard, the process of calling a detachment and setting up the test is fairly straight-forward. Once you take the test your results are uploaded to a master database and you can download them after a few weeks.
Civilian Application Resources
One of the things this person struggled with is a short timeline for submitting all of the paperwork. While you are waiting on your recruiter, there are resources on my blog and in other sites which can help you put everything together. It can be pretty overwhelming, but a great place for a civilian to start is at this dropbox some recruiter out there set up for their recruits. To be better prepared, you could browse that location and start putting things together before your recruiter even asks. Here is the link:
I met with Reserve Recruiters, and asked what enlisted jobs they had available, and they said, “So many things; what do you want to do?”
I asked, “Do you have any intel or language positions? I’m bilingual.”
“No, not at the moment,” they replied.
“How about education or instructional stuff? I’m a school principal,” I said.
“No, we don’t have that.”
“Well, what do you have?”
“Anything! What are you looking for?”
” . . . Um, so I hear there’s a pilot shortage?”
“Yes, but then you’d have to be an officer.”
” . . . I’m okay with that.”
They gave me the number for the officer recruiter and told me her name. She works a State over, and she’s in charge of multiple States, but there’s nobody else I can work with. I have never even met her in person.
I called and left a message, but I never got a response. I called again a week later and she picked up, and we talked about the process, my qualifications, what jobs are usually available, etc. Then she asked me to text her my email address. This was at the end of August, 2017. She pretty quickly sent me the application paperwork, with instructions to fill it out and gather legal documents, letters of recommendation, etc. I sent her everything within 2 weeks, except for letters of recommendation, which I asked for an “extension” to get.
At the end of October, I asked if she could set up the AFOQT for me, and she started working on it. That was really where she dropped off the earth. In addition to her regular load, she went TDY for who knows how long.
I texted her with no response, or no news, once a month, until February, when I finally got my last letter of recommendation (I was waiting on a letter from an equally busy Brig General). When I got that letter I called her and talked to her in person, and she said she’d get the AFOQT set up with MEPS, but I heard nothing for two months.
During this whole process I kept talking to my retired military friends, and they kept saying they’d get me in touch with somebody on the base. They said there was a way around the recruiter, but I’ve never seen any real evidence of that (at least not for a civilian.)
I texted her again in the middle of April, and she said she’d work on it. I texted her again a week later, and she said she’d check that day. By that afternoon she gave me an update and the next day she sent me the sign-up request.
From then on, things have been good. Especially once I took the AFOQT and got good scores, she’s been quick to respond and communicate. I took the AFOQT in the middle of May and a week later, she was working on MEPS paperwork for me. I’ve sent her the paperwork and I’m waiting to hear when my examination will be.
In regards to selection, she told me that she talked to the Reserve Wing and there are two units that will take non-prior service (both for non-rated positions), so she promised to only provide her best candidates. She told me I’m first on her list.
Obviously I’m not in the running for a pilot position or any rated slot, even though my navigator score was 98. There’s no need for a part-time pilot that they’d have to train up from scratch, especially an old one that would need a waiver. My recruiter never said I was too old, but I talked to a full-bird Colonel who just retired and started flying for Delta, and when I told him how old I was he laughed out loud. I’m okay with non-rated now. It will actually be better for my family, and less disruptive to my career.
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