Advice for When You Meet Your Military Recruiter

Advice for When You Meet Your Military Recruiter Advice for When You Meet Your Military Recruiter How should you prepare for a meeting with a military recruiter? Learn about what to expect and what questions to ask. If you are unsure of which service to join, you may want to visit recruiters from all of the services. Tell the recruiter up front that you are visiting all of the recruiters before you make any decision. Bringing a Friend or Relative to Your Recruiting Meeting Its a good idea to bring a parent, relative, or better yet, someone who has served in the military for your first visit. However, make sure its someone youre comfortable with hearing the answers to the personal questions your recruiter will ask during that first interview. These include, Have you ever used drugs? The recruiter asks these questions to make sure he knows your basic qualifications and whether or not he can afford to spend valuable time with you. If you dont want your parents to hear the truthful answer to these questions, youre probably better off going alone. Questions to Ask Your Recruiter Its a good idea to prepare a list of questions to ask, in advance.  Be as specific as possible. While most recruiters will not lie to you, remember that the recruiter lives or dies by the number of people he/she can recruit. He or she may not volunteer information which may chase away a potential quota-maker. Its up to you to ask pointed, specific, no-nonsense questions, and expect direct answers. Be very suspicious of any unclear, or vague answers. Always press for specifics. If in doubt, ask the recruiter to put the information in writing, and sign it, or to show you in the regulations, guides, or pamphlets that what he/she is saying is true. If youre joining the active duty Air Force or the active duty Navy, in most cases, you dont want to ask too many questions about specific military jobs. Job selections for these branches are performed during your processing at the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS), and the recruiters have nothing (or little) to do with it. Rather, focus your questions on the general advantages of that particular service (length of basic training, leave (vacation), medical care, barracks/dormitory/housing conditions, education benefits, etc.as). If youre joining the active duty Army, active duty Marine Corps, Army or Air National Guard, or the Reserve forces (of any of the branches), the recruiter will have more input about job opportunities (more on this in the next chapter). Common Courtesy for Recruiter Meetings Treat the recruiter with the same courtesy that you would give if you were at a meeting with the hiring director for a civilian job. Recruiters are busy animals. Recruiters put more hours on-the-job than just about any person in the military. Recruiters do not get a monetary bonus for signing people up. They get their regular paycheck, whether you enlist or not. If you drop by without an appointment, dont be surprised if your recruiter isnt there. He might be taking someone to MEPS, speaking at a high school, trying to calm jittery parents at an applicants house, or taking a few days of well-deserved leave (vacation). Show up for your appointment, and dont cancel at the last minute. If you were trying to get a job with Microsoft, you most certainly would not walk in dressed like  a bum or make an appointment, just to cancel it at the last minute. Getting Down to Basics Sooner or later, youre going to have to stop shopping, and decide on which military service you want to join. You may have met a recruiter who impressed you, or you may have met a recruiter that left you cold. Its important that you not choose your military service based upon your perception of the recruiters quality. Choose your service based on your interests, not whether or not the recruiter was kind enough to buy you lunch at McDonalds. Once you make your decision, make an appointment with the recruiter for the service you want to join. The first thing the recruiter is going to do is to pre-qualify you. The recruiter will ask you a bunch of questions to see if you  qualify for military service. These will be questions about age, citizenship or immigration status, education level, criminal history, drug abuse history, and medical conditions. The recruiter may weigh you, and ask to see personal paperwork (birth certificate,  high school diploma,  social security  card, etc.). Tell the Whole Truth to the Recruiter Its important that you be truthful with the recruiter. Its also very important that you not allow the recruiter to encourage, advise, or even hint that you lie about any of this important information. It is a felony to give false information or withhold required information on any military recruiting paperwork. Remember, there is no  right to join the  United States Military. The recruiter uses the information you give to determine whether or not you are qualified to join, based on  Department of Defense  (DOD) and individual service standards. Those standards exist for reasons. It is not up to you, or the recruiter to decide which standards are valid and which ones are not. It is much better to be disqualified for enlistment in the first place and never join; then it is to lie about it, go through basic training, have the lie discovered, then get thrown out of the military (possibly with an administrative discharge that will follow you for the rest of your life). ASVAB Test In addition to the pre-qualification questions, the recruiter may ask you to take a sample  Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)  test. It is a computerized  ASVAB  mini-test, with representative questions in the four areas of the ASVAB which determine the overall  ASVAB Score  (AFQT Score). These areas are  Word Knowledge, Paragraph Comprehension,  Mathematics Knowledge, and Arithmetic Reasoning. This mini-test has a pretty good reputation for estimating what  youre  AFQT score is going to be when you take the full-blown test. Some recruiting commands have policies that will preclude scheduling the applicant for the actual  ASVAB unless they achieve a designated  minimum score  on this practice ASVAB. Medical Questionnaire Of particular importance is the  medical questionnaire  (there are two of them- the first one is completed in the recruiters office, and the second one is completed at MEPS when you take your physical). It costs the military a lot of time and money to process the medical physical. If medical pre-screen in the recruiters office finds anything questionable, the recruiter must get permission from the medical officials at MEPS to even schedule you for a physical. Just as there is no  right  to join the military, neither do you have the right to have a physical. If the MEPS medical official determines (from the pre-screening questionnaire) that you are not medically qualified, they can simply refuse to allow you to take the physical. If this happens, youre pretty much dead in the water, as far as enlistment is concerned, as waivers are generally not granted in such cases, nor is there any workable avenue of appeal. What if You Don't Meet the Standards? Even if you dont meet the standards, sometimes criminal history, minor drug abuse, and medical conditions can be  waived. Whether or not a condition can be waived is not up to the recruiter. Its up to superiors in his/her command (exactly how high up the chain of command depends on what the waiver is for), who make decisions based upon current law, regulations, and policy. Some things cant be waived, and the recruiter can tell you this, straight up front. There is simply no way even to guess whether or not a waiver will be approved, even if someone has gotten a waiver for the same condition in the past, or- conversely- if nobody has ever gotten a waiver for the condition in the past. Each and every waiver is evaluated individually, using several individual factors, including but not limited to: Is the condition progressive?Is the condition subject to aggravation by military service?Will the condition preclude satisfactory completion of prescribed training and subsequent military duty?Will the condition constitute an undue hazard to the exam or to others, particularly under combat conditions?Is the recruit exceptionally qualified, otherwise? (ASVAB scores, etc.)How are current  recruiting goals? How bad does that particular branch of the service need this particular applicant at this particular point-in-time? Generally, when the services are doing well in their recruiting efforts, fewer waivers are considered. During years when the services are having a tough time finding enough qualified applicants to meet their quotas, they are more generous in the  waiver approval arena. I have seen waivers approved for a specific condition, only to see a waiver disapproved for the same condition, by the same service, just a few weeks later. Remember, each of the services has their own standards and policies when it comes to processing recruiting waivers. If you dont qualify for one service, its possible that another service would agree to process and approve a waiver. In general, the  Air Force  has the reputation for approving the fewest waivers, followed by the  Marine Corps, the Navy/Coast Guard, and finally the Army. Because  National Guard  recruiting policies can differ greatly from state-to-state, many times, the National Guard will approve a waiver that the active duty and reserve forces wont even consider. Once the pre-qualification is done, the recruiter then knows whether or not he/she can start processing you for enlistment.