- Rodger, 4807 approaching runway seven bravo. - The Air Force has announced a creation of a new information operations technical training school. - So in our business, national security, where our job is to fight, fight, win. We better be masters at this gaming innovation. - Air Force basic military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - This is the Developing Mach-21 Airmen podcast. (electronic music Hey, everybody, welcome into the Developing Mach-21 Airmen podcast and thanks for the subscribes, stream or download, if you get a chance to throw us some stars or even a review, we certainly would appreciate that as well. My name is Dan Hawkins from the Air Education and Training Command public affairs office and your host for this professional development podcast dedicated to bringing total force big A airmen inside tips, tricks and lessons learned from the recruiting, training and education world, and also across the entire Air Force. So glad you could join us today, we got a great lineup for you here on episode number two of Developing Mach-21 Airmen. We're talking about all things related to being a recruiter with two NCOs with a ton of experience. Technical Sergeant Christian Manuel, a recruiting screen team NCO and Technical Sergeant Megan Roberts, the prior service program manager. Both of them from the Air Force Recruiting Service headquarters right here at Joint Base San Antonio Randolph jump on the podcast today, talking about the DSD process for recruiters, what qualities make up the best recruiters and even some of the pros and cons to being in the recruiting career field. We also take some time and dive into the training, that it takes to become a recruiter as well as the business or goals, if you will, of recruiting, as well as some of the things, that you can take back to your operational career field after your touring and recruiting is up. Recruiting is so important to the overall mission of Air Education and Training Command, our mission statement is to recruit, train and educate airmen to deliver 21st century air power. Well, it's obvious you can't get to the train and educate piece of what we do here in the first command without first having airmen in place to actually go and do that training, and that's why you need the recruiters. Our recruiting professionals brought in close to 30000 airmen into the Air Force in fiscal year 2018 continuing to trend upward as the Air Force continues to grow its active duty strength. To bring those kinds of accessioning numbers, the Air Force Recruiting Service really needs quality airmen to serve as recruiters across the country to continue to inspire, engage and recruit providing the Air Force with the airmen, that we need to deliver that 21st century air power. So without further ado, here's Technical Sergeant Manuel and Technical Sergeant Roberts to talk all things recruiting episode two of Developing Mach-21 Airmen starts right now. So, Sergeant Manuel, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into recruiting. - Sure thing, thanks, Dan, for having us. Well, Sergeant Christian Manuel, been recruiting since 2006. Originally from San Francisco, California. Let's see, started as an avionics junior in Barksdale Air Force base. Decided I wanna do a little something different, so I decided to volunteer as a recruiter. And I was a recruiting in Los Angeles, after that, I did various careers such as training, marketing, logistics and currently, now, I'm actually work in the DSD program for recruiting. - And Sergeant Roberts here with us, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into recruiting. - Good afternoon, I'm Sergeant Megan Roberts, I'm originally from Indiana, I started off the Air Force my career doing six years at security forces, I got picked up to be a recruiter four years ago. I did my first day of recruiting solicit sessions in San Antonio and then I'm at headquarters here for recruiting doing the prior service program. And I have two little ones and I'm married to an active duty member as well. - Well, we're here today kind of specifically to talk about the recruiting and the DSD program as Sergeant Manuel said, that you're specifically working on that. So I think for a lot of people, who may not understand what the Developmental Special Duty process is, could you kind of talk us through that a little bit and how it works overall, and then how recruiting works up into that DSD process. - Sure, sure, so the DSD program, it's the Developmental Special Duty program. What that program is designed to do is to fill career fields that need people to do its special duty. So those career field are not like your normal AFSCs. So it's there to fill that requirement, basically. - And so, when someone is in the program or how does that process work, how does someone get into the DSD process, are they nominated, how does that all process work? - You're exactly right, wings nominated individuals, that meet certain criteria to fill those positions, so once they call those names, the names are forwarded up to the various entities of the Air Force for approval. - So there's quite a few different jobs, that actually have this DSD process, technical training instructor, BMT, but when you talk about a prime candidate, who would make a good recruiter, what kind of candidate are we looking for from a recruiting perspective to go out and recruit the next generation of airmen? - Sure, sure, so we use the so called the SPECAT, the Special Category Guide, so that actually lists out what qualifies to become a recruiter. So the various things as second tier airmen, staff select with ALS completed, exemplary image, we also take a look at your health records as well. So that's what the special category duty catalog does, however, when it comes to recruiting itself, we also look for a person, that has a personality. So someone, that could talk and listen and someone, that could also pay attention to detail, because recruiting, it's a challenging job, honestly. - So you talked a little bit about the qualifications in the SPECAT For the things you need to have to be qualifying as a recruiter, but we talked a little bit about the intangibles and I would think, that public speaking or the fear of public speaking might be something, that could be an issue. Is that an issue and how are those kinds of things looked at from a recruiting perspective. - You definitely need to be an outgoing person, you gotta be able to like people, be around people. You're gonna have to go into schools and talk to councilors. You're gonna have to get up in front of people and do speeches, so you need to be comfortable in those type of situations. Not saying you can't learn those things or become more adapted to them, but you need to be comfortable to be able to be open to it. - And I know we're gonna talk about this maybe a little bit later in the podcast, but part of the training for recruiters does include some of these things, like the intangible things, that we're talking about. So maybe public speaking is one, but what about from like a confidence perspective, what are you looking for in a recruiter? What kind of NCO or even, you know, is a recruiter, what makes up the ideal recruiter? - He's got a very positive attitude, you're getting ready to talk to the community and you're gonna sell them on the Air Force, so if you're gonna sell something, you gotta make sure, that you love the Air Force too. I love the Air Force, I've been doing it for 10 years, I'm gonna express that enthusiasm out to my applicants and out to those parents to show them how much, that I care about the career field, that I'm in, I care about the Air Force and I care about them and want their process to go well as well to get them into our Air Force. - Yeah, so attitude is probably one of the bottom lines, that's very important in recruiting, however, you also have to be knowledgeable on knowing what you're selling to the public. In recruiting school, you learn a certain thing, there's an acronym called MATERSS, each letter stands for things, that we sell, money, advancement, training, recreation, education, security and satisfaction, that's a lot. So those things, that you learn gotta be knowledgeable and basically when you're out in the public, you are the Air Force to these people. And sometimes they don't know, everyone thinks we're pilots, that's not true at all obviously. So being knowledgeable and knowing what you're selling and knowing how the Air Force works definitely helps. - So I think in any job it doesn't matter what you AFSC is, whether you're security forces or you're avionics or you're now in recruiting, every job has a pros and a cons list. So I just kind of wanted to maybe talk a little bit about both sides of the coin of being in recruiting to kind of paint that even picture of what a recruiter can expect from, you know, being on the positive side of things and then some of the drawbacks and how, as successful recruiters, do you kind of balance that out and do the job, that needs to be done in terms of recruiting. - So pros, I think the biggest thing, that makes this job enjoyable is watching those kids' faces whenever they come home in their uniforms, they come to the Recruiter Assistance Program. Or you see a mom or dad come to your office and they just wanna give you the biggest hug and thank you for helping their kid get into the Air Force and now that they're airmen, that's heartwarming. And it sometimes gives you chills, like it gives me chills right now talking about seeing some of the parents, that come into my office, whenever I did enlisting sessions recruiting, that's the best part of it. Special duty pay, also a big thing, that helps out in recruiting for me in special duty. - How much is that, what are we talking about? - Here in enlisting sessions it's going to be 450, for some of the tier twos, that you go into it will be-- - 350. - 350 I think is what it is. Some cons, you do have a phone, that goes home with you. That phone can ring all the time, but you just gotta set boundaries, you gotta set, hey, this is my office hours, this is when I'll be answering my phones. Another pro, you make your own schedule. So within reason with your flight chief you are the one, that sets those office hours. You control the ball whenever it comes to doing what you need to do, so if you are gonna do your PTE from two to three and then you're gonna come back to the office, then you're gonna leave the office and it'll be your PT for the day. So it's kind of nice to be able to have that autonomy. - So like, and again, every day could be a little bit different, but what is a typical day for a recruiter, what does that feel like? - What does it feel like, so it's a lot of mixed emotions, because you're dealing with people and when you deal with people, people like to see, I'm gonna say like to see, but it would be to your advantage if you have an outgoing personality, you represent the Air Force, so you can't be showing up at the office with a mug face or show up to marking events and not liking your job. So sometimes you just got to do your job and for lack of better words, to suck it up. - So in line with that, you know, obviously, there're certain events you're gonna go to in the process for getting a lead on one recruit may be different today, because maybe you're at an airshow or maybe you went to a sporting event, or maybe somebody's parents brought them into the recruiting station and said, hey, please talk to my, you know, son or daughter, because they're interested in joining the military. So you know, when you look at all the different ways, that you have to interact with people as a recruiter, what would you say is maybe the biggest strength you can have as a recruiter, when it comes to your ability to kind of handle flexibility and change. Cuz I would guess, not every day is going to be the same, even thought it may seem like it would be, I don't think it is, is that true or false? - Everyday you gotta put your game face on, like there may be days where I'm like, I don't wanna come in, I don't wanna do this, but as soon as an advocate walks through the door, you gotta put that smile on, because I was in a rural area, where the Air Force was unknown, but there's recruiters out there, that maybe they're the only person, this is the Air Force, so then like, they don't wanna have that first impression, oh, this recruiter is not happy and they don't wanna be here, I'm probably gonna go to the next branch. So you gotta keep, gotta make sure you got your game face on every day. - Very true, very true, so it's an important tool, listening that's taking the time to listen to your applicant's situation is probably the most important tool. So time, listening, but that's something we don't have enough of is time. So we're taught to do the right things to create more time for yourself to do your job more effectively. - I was looking through the bullet background paper, that you, guys, sent me before we sat down for he podcast and we talked about the pros and cons list, but flexibility, obviously, an important attribute to being a recruiter, but I was looking at, you talked about the special duty pay, but I would think, maybe, another big draw for being a recruiter is the family stability aspect of being in recruiting. Can you talk a little bit about that and what that looks like? - There's no deployments while you're in the listed sessions recruiting, you don't have to worry about it, you're gonna be in the controlled tour, so you know, that you're not gonna be deployed and you get to be able to spend time with your family as well, do you have anything else? - So a typical day for a recruiter, what does that look and feel like, what is a typical day for you, as a recruiter? - So some days you may be going to school visits, you may be doing a presentation, you could be setting up during a lunch room visit. You could be setting up an appointment thereafter doing appointments for applicants starting their processing. We have different days, where we do marketing events and maybe within your town or it could be in one of the larger cities. I've done for the National Hockey League, I've been out there with my applicants and did huge swear-ins for them, I've been to the Spurs basketball games, out on the court, where they've done different swear-in events. So there's all kinds of different things, that you get involved with and with marketing, and with your community as well. - So when I was a recruiter in Los Angeles, and typically, your days are planned out. So everything's supposed to happen the way it is, right? Yeah, not true. So normally, we like to do your admin in the morning, have maybe a morning appointment, oh, I gotta do a school visit and when our school visits during lunchtime. After lunch, I gotta eat, so we all have to eat, so we actually have to plan that in our planning guide. So yeah and then after that we would maybe have an afternoon appointment, there's a term called zone posting or zone canvasing, this is where we're out in the community painting a picture of the Air Force and putting literature out there, shaking hands and just getting to know the community. Sometimes hours can get late, because people work, people have lives, right, just like everyone in the community, so we may have to stay a little bit later to hold those appointments to put people in the Air Force. So that's, my typical day was like that, a lot of it was sitting in traffic or a lot of delivering people from point A to point B, like for example, to MEPS or dropping off a document from point A to point B, so just make sure to get the job done. - But it kind of goes back to that autonomy part, that you talked about of being able in essence to kind of run your business so to speak. You have your office hours, but you do what you have to do to get the mission done. And there's a certain amount of freedom, that comes with setting your own schedule and doing things the way you like to do them, per say. So like how much of that do you get in that job, how much autonomy and freedom do you get as a frontline out on the street recruiter, you know, as you put together your plan and how you're gonna approach getting new recruits. - So you're, probably, your first six months of recruiting, you're gonna hate it, because you're not gonna know how to do anything with time management and you're gonna be like, I'm gonna go back to my career field right now, how can I get there? I think all of us have went through it, but once you get the hang of time management and being able to understand, okay, I've gotta plan on my events, not only do I have to plan them, I actually have to promote these events, I gotta make goal. So once you get all that bound, you're getting the swing of things, you can have as much autonomy as you need as long as you're getting all that done checking all your boxes, going to your school visits, doing your community events, making goal. - That's very true, just like Megan said, recruiting is like running your own business. I would suggest to try to enlist other people to help you to do your job, I mean, for example, we have people called rapers, requiter assistance personnel, that come in from basic training in tech school, that you put in there, of course, they're there to help you assist with your recruiting efforts as well. So autonomous, yes, we love when rapers come in, because we could tell them to deliver a person from point A to point B, documents from there to here, do a school visit, so you don't have to do as much talking. So that's what we do, a lot of talking and recruiting. - And I do wanna touch on it, but you did talk, you mentioned the word goal, so what does that mean truly for a recruiter, I mean, is that a bad thing? Like what is your goal, what are you trying to do as a recruiter and how do you manage everything you have to do and work to meet those goals. - It's not a bad thing, it's based off of your area, so what your area has normally produced throughout within a certain amount of time. My goal in San Antonio was three or four, so every month I had to put three or four people into the Air Force, that didn't really change. So every month I knew I gotta at least have four people to be able to put to jobs, to be able to leave for the Air Force to go to basic training. So you kind of know what your goals are gonna be, it's not gonna be crazy or one month you got a one and the next month you have six. So it usually stays pretty consistent. - So when we talk about goal or quota, people, I don't know, that's just a negative term now. But we call it goal, the Air Force has a big goal, for example, 300000 per year. Those goals go down to the groups and then the groups go down to, I know, I may have said 300000, but a number, okay? (laughing) Those numbers go down to the various groups and the various squadrons and the number goes down to your flights, the numbers go down to individual recruiter. And that number is made up through manning, market, propensity and those are three things, that you learn as a recruiter how your goal is setup. - So it's a team game as well, though, you may have a goal, but you also have people in that support chain, who are trying to help you meet your goals as well, right? - Yes. - It's not just a solo effort, when we talk about, obviously a recruiter at office X even though you may be out in a rural area, there's a whole support chain, can you just kind of talk to me a little bit about who's in the chain of command to support you through that process? - So usually we work a lot with our flight, like, if you're with a flight member, who's struggling and one of the recruiters, that would have a little bit extra more flow than that person, you would try to help them out and be like, hey, I've got a lot of applicants, that I'm working on right now and wait time's gonna be a little bit longer, which it would be, this recruiter over here doesn't have as many applicants. If you wanna work with them, your process will be a lot quick, because you don't have to wait in line. So that's a good way for sporting, if your flight chief as well will be coming out and doing office visits on you to make sure, that you're hitting all those areas to where you're gonna be successful to make that goal. So doing your school visits, going out there and zone canvasing, and prospecting, doing your telephone prospecting, making sure you're doing all the things, that will help you get to your goal. - So we've talked a lot about being out on the streets and actually recruiting and some of the pros and the cons, I wanted to talk a little bit about recruiting school and how you get trained to be a recruiter. So I know the training is here in San Antonio, could you go a little bit in depth a little bit and talk about the curriculum and the things, you kind of mentioned it earlier in the podcast, some of the things, that you learn, but can you kind of talk through how that process looks like from start finish as you get picked for DSD recruiting and come into the career field. - Sure, so recruiting school is located at Lachlan and it is four, seven weeks and you learn various things, like I mentioned before, are features and benefits of the Air Force, we also learn how to sell the Air Force and it's another acronym it's called IMPACT. IMPACT is used to, it's kind of like a foundation you use to guide applicants in joining the Air Force. So after you learn the sales process, you maybe learn public speaking as well and you'll also learn how to use something called Apres. Apres is our database into where how we put people in the Air Force as well. - So you talked a little bit about, you know, the public speaking, we talked about that a little bit and how to sell, how much training do you get, like what kind of instructors are coming in to kind of teach you those, I mean, a lot of people say, I'm a staff sergeant or I'm a tech sergeant, I know about the pay and benefits, but I think there's probably a lot more to it, right? It's some pretty in depth instruction. - Oh, very much so, I mean, for example, when I was a recruiter, after your person says they want to join, however, you can't, you have to ask certain questions to probe, in recruiting school you're taught on how to probe and actually sell certain things, that, you know, that they're meeting, but which they don't even know. So for example, why do you wanna join the Air Force. Some of them say, I don't know. Seriously, can you please expand on why you're here at my office? - I wanna go to school. - You wanna go to school, so how are you gonna pay for school? - I don't know how I'm gonna pay for school. - So why, well, first of all, why do you wanna go to school? - So I can have a better future. - A better future, so when you say you want a better future, what do you mean by that, can you paint that picture? - I just wanna be successful, I wanna have enough money to be able to support myself and maybe a small family. - So you're saying you're wanting money so you could support your family, right? - Ding, ding, ding. - Right, there you go, so once we uncover those needs we could support them with the benefits and whatnot. - So kind of what you did there, a little bit of a role play there, but is that kind of like the processes, that you go through in the training as they teach you how to figure out what motivates, maybe, a certain person to wanna join the Air Force? So that's really great and what kind of training do you get, like, do you end up having to give public presentations or anything, how does that work? - So you'll actually do different types of presentations, where you'll either do it in front of a group of teachers or you're gonna do it in front of a group of students, so you have a target, you speech is to those group members. You also will go through sales labs, so you'll have a phone lab, where you're gonna go through and ask a perspective applicant on questions to try to get them to come to your office is the main goal. And then, the next type of lab you're gonna have is it's a mock office, like you're sitting in a mock recruiting chair, you have applicants coming in. You're gonna have steps, that you're gonna have to be able to follow with the impact training for our selling course and then you are also gonna have different interruptions. You might have somebody, that comes in and be like, I got the pizza for you and you're gonna have to try to get them out of there, so you can keep doing your appointment. So there's different things, that incorporate for the training, but it's to try to get you prepared for what your actual office is gonna be like. Cuz it's gonna be the same way, you're maybe in the middle of an appointment and you're gonna some random person on the street walk in and they wanna sell you hair products. Then you have to tell them, sorry, no soliciting, and push them out of there. - So after you get done with recruiting school, how does that process look, obviously, needs of the Air Force, but there's over a 1000 places, that you could go as a recruiter, so how does that process work? I got picked for DSD, I'm gonna be a recruiter, I go to training at Lachlan, I do my seven weeks of training but how am I actually assigned to a location? Do I have any kind of say in that process, what is that entire, how does that look? - Of course, of course, so AETC will send you a list of assignments of what is available and then the memorable rack and stack the locations based on priority, preferences and whatnot. However, AETC uses certain criteria to get certain assignments based off of your list. So they time one station, they use joint spouse, they use overseas returnees, it's kind of like fantasy football. So if you don't get a certain assignment, then they move down the list and that's pretty much how it works. - So you talked a little bit earlier about different tiers inside of recruiting, there's tier one, two and three actually, so could you kind of break those down in what that really means? - Sure, sure, so tier one, that's your normal enlisted sessions recruiter, they're in schools and on the streets and putting people in the Air Force. Tier two, career fields, some of those are production careers, however, a lot of them are support career fields to support the recruiter. So just to start off with production recruiters for tier two those are your health professions recruiters, they recruit nurses, doctors, surgeons, dentists. That also contains recruiters, that recruit officers as well for pilots, line officers to whatnot. And then you do have, oh, excuse me, overseas recruiters too so recruiters, that are in Guam or Japan, or Europe. A lot of those, you need enough experience, which leads me into the support recruitment. So a person could work at MEPS, a person can do training and marketing, those are jobs to train recruiters and kind of put on marketing events for the recruiters in the field. Operations career fields as well, they're more so with the wavers and booking jobs, and whatnot, so I know, we're both tier two, Megan and myself. So I think that's, oh, and then tier three, okay. So tier three, those are your supervisory career fields. So those are your flight chiefs, those are your production superintendents, they are the ones, that oversees recruiters and pro-soups, they oversee flight chiefs. - So I saw your no in here about transitioning to a career recruiter and how that the recruiting DSD is the only one of the 11, that transitions into a career field, all the rest are just one assignment and back to where they came from. But recruiters have the option to stay, can you talk a little bit about that and what kind of factors go into that? Like is that just an individual's choice or is that something like how the chain of command has to approve. - Sure. - What does that look like? - Sure, so if a person is in recruiting for a certain amount of time based off their, if they have a five level or a sta-ven level on their AFSC, and if they're within the recruiting for a certain amount of time, their original AFSC goes away. So that's when you become a career recruiter. For example, me, I used to work on B 52s, I was out of my career field for a certain amount of time and a five level and my AFSC went away. Which I'm totally fine with, cuz I love recruiting. So however, if a person were to, it's called RTF, return to force, because recruiters are technically on loan to us. So their, I wanna say biggest hurdle staying at recruiting, but their biggest hurdle is their career field managers. Because I understand, we understand, we have numbers to fill so once a person gets near their end of recruiting, they will fill something called the MOI, memorandum of intent. That form gets forwarded to the flight chief and production superintendent. If you get a recommend to stay in recruiting, that's amazing however, if it goes to up to your career field manager, then it's really on them. Because technically, you're still on loan to us. So if they say yes, we keep you another three, four years, however, if the career field manager says no, then you gotta go back. - Well and you know, we talk about staying, but for those, who do their one tour in the tier one bracket and then go back to their career field, what are they taking back to the Air Force, you know, to their operational career field as a recruiter? I mean, you know, obviously getting experience outside of your career field is always a good thing, I think, that that is looked upon favorably from a WAPS promotion and promotion testing career field, but I'm talking about what are you taking away from being a recruiter, that you can take back to the security forces or avionics or whatever job, that you came from, what are you taking back? - So like you said earlier, it helps you with promotion, shows, that you were able to step out of your career field. But I think, I was a very young staff sergeant coming out of security forces into recruiting, I've matured a lot in these four years. Being able to get up there and talk in front of people, associate with parents, being able to talk to leadership, cuz I was in a high viz area, where I had a lot of colonels and chiefs. If I would've been staff sergeant, I would've probably we tried to hide in the corner, if a colonel or chief came in, but now you can feel comfortable, you get that confidence to be able to talk and be able to present yourself. So I think that helps a lot going back to your career field. And you've got all those tools, that you learned about Air Force benefits, going back to your career field and being able to mentor airmen, you have all those tools, that you can take back to help your airmen with, maybe it's education benefits or they need to go to get all the information to apply for their schooling. So you have a little bit more, than you would've had, if you stayed in your career field. - So when you look at the recruiting career field as a whole even when you decide, perhaps, to even get out of the Air Force, if you've done a tour in recruiting, I think, that it has some great opportunities skillset wise, that you learn, that you can apply to civilian lives as well, right? - Very true, very true, so as recruiters, we are salesmen, saleswomen. So if you like that and know a lot of businesses and companies out there, we are prime candidates to them. So I know a lot of realtors in San Antonio, so I know my realtor, he actually helped me find my house and he was a recruiter. So my previous supervisor, she's a realtor now. And you know, when I did the marketing job I worked with a lot of sports teams too and I actually enjoyed that a lot. So working with sports teams, help brand the Air Force and if you could do that for the Air Force, I mean, I wanna see why not, you could do that for a fortune 500 company. - When you look at recruiting as a whole, right, the ATC mission is to recruit, train and educate airmen to deliver 21st century air power, well, obviously, you can't get to the train and educate part without the recruit part first. And so obviously, it's easy to see how that recruit part ties in to the bigger Air Force mission as a large, because you can't really do anything without first getting those recruits into the front door and getting them into Lachlan to basic military training, but first they have to go through that accession pipeline. But when you look at how recruiting fits into that Air Force big picture, what are the things, that you think about? - Big thing is our number one resources are people, so you, as a recruiter, average recruiter can bring anywhere from 80 to a 150 airmen into the Air Force. That could almost be an entire squadron, so you have a big impact on the Air Force itself, because you you're replenishing our forces. And being able to bring that next generation airmen into the Air Force. - Why and you talked about it a little bit earlier, you talked about how those recruiters really are kind of that tip of the spear of being the Air Force brand, they are telling the Air Force story in a lot of areas of this country, that maybe don't know that much about the Air Force. I remember from when I came in, you know, my recruiter painted a big picture of the Air Force and it was all positive, but there was no other Air Force representation out there, so how awesome is that. And I was curious, you know, you both have been out kind of the front line recruiter, but what's your best to feel good goose bumps story about a recruit, that either you are really proud about or that you knew, wow, I think this is a big deal. - I had a kid, he went to one of the lower income schools here in San Antonio to the point, where they pay for all the kids lunches, they give them all school supplies. He came to me, he kept losing weight and I was like, what can we do, what can we do to make it better. And we were waiting for him to graduate school, it got so bad, that his mom didn't know how they were gonna turn on the light bills, like to turn on the lights for their house. As soon as he graduated high school we were able to get him a job to leave that very next week. So getting him into the Air Force gave a situation, that he was in, because they lived day to day and so it felt foreign. And he had tumbled into my office, I had to go to a school to do his visits just because he didn't have transportation to come see me. So watching him now and he called me from the airport on his way to his first duty station just to thank me, because he was like, I wouldn't be where I'm at today, if it wasn't for you, Sergeant Roberts. So those are the warm fuzzies you get for recruiting applicants like that. - I guess, as far as stories go, I will just reflect upon my story. So I come from a fairly rough neighborhood, the city, the city is Richmond, California and you, guys, every heard of Coach Carter before, that movie, so yes, I grew up in that city, where that movie took place as a background. So I did try college for a little bit, decided it wasn't really for me. Had a part time job, I saw, that working at Old Navy just could only bring me so far. So I did join and I went through the basic training test, became working on airplanes and whatnot. And at that time, school wasn't for me, however years going forward, I mean, I do have my MBA in marketing and my undergrad is an HR and two CCFs. So four degrees is not too bad and I did not pay one dime for it. So I really thank the Air Force for that. - So we'll kind of wrap it up here, but my last question would be for both of you, if, you know, airman X or sergeant X called Sergeant Roberts or Sergeant Manuel and said, I'm really on the fence about this whole recruiting thing, I'd rather go do something else, what would you say to person X about your experience as a recruiter? - I loved my time in listening sessions, I love my time now and tier two recruiting as well, but the things, that you get to do in recruiting is awesome, like what better than changing lives? That's the best part of this job is you knowing, that you're changing somebody's life for the better. So you can't say that for a lot of jobs. - I would say, I mean, it's a great way to invest in yourself. Yes, it's gonna be tough, yes, there will be challenges and trying times, however, during those times, that's when you become polished and you became a better person, because of it. Before recruiting, I was very passive, I sat in my corner, I'm good, but now I could talk and listen, I could, whatever you want me to do, I'll do. So that's, recruiting did a lot for me. - Well, I wanna thank both of you for your time today. - Thank you so much. - Thank you for having us. - So there you have it, lots to take in in the world of recruiting, the DSD process and what it takes to be a successful recruiter. We wanna say thank you to Technical Sergeant Roberts and Technical Sergeant Manuel for dropping all their knowledge on us today, and thanks for tuning in here today on episode two of the Developing Mach-21 Airmen podcast as we dive into the world of recruiting, training and education. As a reminder, you can follow Air Education Training Command via social media on Facebook at Air Education Training Command, Twitter at AETCommand and Instagram as well is on the web at www.aetc.af.mil. For our entire AETC public affairs staff, I'm Dan Hawkins, so long, we'll talk to you next time on Developing Mach-21 Airmen. (electronic music)