How It Started…How It’s Going
The challenges Army recruiters faced during the pandemic and what some see as the way ahead
Story by John S. Wollaston 3rd Medical Recruiting Battalion PAO
FORT KNOX, Kentucky - The COVID pandemic of 2020 presented a myriad of challenges to an Army that’s expected to be trained and ready to fight no matter what the situation or condition. One of the more challenging obstacles to overcome was in the world of Army Recruiting. Lockdowns of cities and towns combined with military installations going to “essential personnel only” status effectively brought Army face-to-face recruiting efforts to a standstill for most of last year.
“Networking with local Reserve units and NPS was a challenge.” according to Sergeant 1st Class Sonia Albers, a medical recruiter with the 3rd Medical Recruiting Battalion’s South Bend, Indiana recruiting station. “I could not put a name to a face since all travel stopped and most people [sic] teleworked.”
“Initially during the lockdown, all applicants had concerns and uncertainty about literally everything. They all wanted the process to be put on hold,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Allen, a recruiter in the 3rd MRB’s North Central Chaplain Recruiting Office located in Chicago, Illinois. “We had to focus on reassuring talking points about ‘this will pass’ and ‘the army will still keep going and we'll still need chaplains.’"
Even getting the basics done to start the process of bringing a doctor or chaplain into the military proved to be problematic for recruiters during the pandemic. Not only were local government offices shuttered, the Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS) and Non-Prior Service (NPS) recruiting stations that the medical and chaplain recruiters relied on for assistance had closed the doors to their physical locations as well.
“If we had an applicant requiring a moral waiver that was a challenge as well. Some courts and police departments took forever to send our request back since they telework.” Albers added.
Allen agreed, “We also had complications with MEPS, getting fingerprints done at NPS stations and any part of the process that involved interactions with other people.”
Now, as the country continues to move into a post-pandemic 2021, the new challenge facing recruiting is to emerge from the collective bunker America has lived in for over a year and get back out and return to tried and true recruiting methods, a difficult task considering the varying levels of restrictions in place on a state to state and in some instances city by city basis.
That task becomes even more formidable, is in the world of medical recruiting for the Army, where recruiters located mainly in and around the colleges and universities with medical schools, deal with social distancing policies and on-campus visiting guidelines that are often stricter than the city where the campus is.
“As for our station, our main issues were face-to-face career events table setup. We really need those events, Sgt. 1st Class Albers said. “Especially with a small market and only one big school that produces the most pre-med, which is Notre Dame.”
“For prospecting, we want to maintain the momentum from the webinars and social media footprint.” Added Sgt. 1st Class Allen. “From an overall mission perspective, church populations and donations are going down so people are wanting active and no longer reserve. But as for practices, we want to start visiting seminaries and denominational events again, but maintain the same work ethic on the virtual space at the same time, not losing the progress we made there.”
One technological advance made in recruiting during the pandemic is the introduction of virtual recruiting. Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, and a host of other web-based collaborative software and apps emerged into the forefront of American business and education, it only seemed logical that military recruiting would join the virtual world as well.
“Our recruiting NCOs and Officers have shown innovation by discovering new ways to dominate the virtual space,” said Lieutenant Colonel Crystal Belew the commander of the 3rd MRB. “I look forward to watching these tactics continue past the lockdown.”
The reliance on virtual recruiting teams isn’t likely to go away in the near future. The ever- shifting situation with the pandemic means recruiting stations within the 3rd Medical Recruiting Battalion are looking to add their own virtual recruiters to make inroads into where college age recruits are living more and more, in the virtual world of the internet, where online recruiting of individuals will become more prevalent going forward. Lt. Col. Belew says however there’s still something to be said for engaging a recruit face to face.
“The virtual domain offers many benefits, but the 'gold-standard' of face to face interactions can never be truly replaced when you are helping a Future Soldier decide some of the most important
decisions of their life.”
| Date Taken: | 09.27.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 09.27.2021 15:28 |
| Story ID: | 406118 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 227 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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