The US Army is taking applications for the new recruiting warrant officer field
The Army rolled out a new recruiting warrant officer field, the Talent Acquisition Technician Warrant Officer. Soldiers have from January 3 through February 2, 2024, to submit their applications. Selection boards for this field will be conducted early this year. These boards will choose up to 225 soldiers. Once selectees complete their training, and report to their duty stations, they will be engaged in marketing, teambuilding, as well as other activities focusing on recruiting.
From the Military Times:
According to a personnel policy message, the selectees “will attend in-person assessment and selection” at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The service will hold three selection courses, each capped at 75 attendees.
In addition to passing the in-person selection, successful applicants must have at least a 110 general technical line score on the ASVAB, pass a specialized recruiting background check, and meet medical and administrative requirements to become a warrant officer (if not one already). They must also hold at least a secret security clearance, and non-warrants also must complete the Warrant Officer Candidate School after selection.
The first wave of hopeful 420T warrant officers will come from current mid-career warrant officers of other fields, according to the Recruiting Command application website. Those who have served in recruiting roles — whether before or after they became warrant officers — will receive preference, according to the personnel message. Warrant officers with a degree in marketing, psychology, human resources, or a data analytics field will also receive preference.
The second cohort is open to permanently-assigned active component recruiting noncommissioned officers who hold the current 79R recruiting occupational specialty. Eligible recruiters must be between the rank of staff sergeant and master sergeant. The service only wants those who have led a recruiting station and have an associate’s degree (or 60 semester hours of college). The application deadline for the second cohort is March 4.
The Military Times has additional information here.
How come they have matching family photo sets?
Are they brothers?
It came with the frame.
The budget groans.
Anyone with more than one brain cell to rub together would RUN, DO NOT WALK from this selection, school, and assignment.
Any other MOS, you would have a chance at a successful career.
With Recruitment, you’re set up to failure from the start.
I concur. I served under and knew a few ethical, motivated, and successful Recruiters, but most 79Rs convert for self-serving reasons. Not to say they aren’t good at what they do, but a lot of what the average 79R does is not exactly in keeping with the Army Values. When you’re on numbers, you need to keep those numbers up. If a Station Commander needs to get his numbers up, he’s begging, stealing, and borrowing from those under and alongside him in order to do so. Sure, you’ll probably make SFC if you give up your soul. That’s a strong bargaining chip for the low-density MOS SGT or SSG who just wants to pick up rank, but a much lesser bargaining chip for higher-density MOS’, which naturally draws in those who aren’t exactly stellar performers in “their” MOS. Seriously, that was a thing among Career Recruiters: those who made E-7 prior to converting held themselves in higher regards than those who converted, then made E-7.
I suspect this new WO billet will cultivate the same culture. You’ll have that initial class, being senior and already established in their original fields, who look down on the second class and who will in turn be looked down on by those who’ve spent years in USAREC. Within that second class, you’ll have the handful of extremely successful Recruiters who still had upward mobility as NCOs looking down on the SSGs and junior SFCs who they will feel switched over because they were struggling to get promoted. The third class will be held in disdain because they are complete outsiders to both the Warrant Officer Corps and recruiting.
E5 11B with 4 years service… came down on orders for recruiting while in Berlin. Did 6 years in Illinois. 1st 4 years in the far west Chicago suburbs with 4 rural high schools out in the corn fields. Had no problem making numbers and occasionally sharing with my station partners. Last 2 years worked at the Chicago MEPS station as a Guidance Counselor closing the sale and getting the contracts signed. Then came down on orders for Retention NCO school and assignment to Germany. Did 3 years in 3rd Inf Div servicing an Infantry Bn, 6 years in servicing 1st Bde, 10th Mtn at Ft Drum when it activated, 1 year 2ID Retention Ops at Camp Casey Korea, 1 year 7th ID Retention Ops at Ft Ord which was deactivated then relocated to Ft Lewis servicing the I Corps Support Group for my last 3 years of my 24 year career.
Followed that with 20 years with the USPS.
So you were a professional body snatcher then?
Semi-professional
You gotta be shitting me.
“They must also hold at least a secret security clearance”
Evidently there is a reason, but we are not allowed to know it. Some new secret squirrel recruiting technology? Or maybe they are going to fall back on old fashioned press gangs and want to keep it quiet.
Maybe it’s just PII. When I worked at a phone call center, the steps they went through to make sure all the callers’ PII was secure and not disclosed………
Honestly, given our tech-forward approach to warfighting, is there any reason why everyone in uniform shouldn’t have at least an interim SECRET clearance? Other than the cost?
What career field has to give up the 225 WO slots to fund these?
They are counting on Joes and NCOs going into the WO pipeline. I’m pretty sure there isn’t some WO2/3 hiding in some office somewhere sipping on his coffe and surfing the net that nobody knows what he does, that wants to give up what he has for some job in recruiting command that actually has you under a microscope.
I looked at the WO route, a few times. Was too old for aviation and had no feeder MOS for any other attractive options… nothing left was appealing in the least; had “recruiter” been an option at the time, it would have been the absolute least appealing of the unappealing.
I highly doubt that anyone who signs up for this will be the face we want to put forward to any potential recruit.
Every WO I ever met in the Army that wasn’t aviation, was a master of disappearing into a office somewhere. Like for real, the only time I ever saw more than one WO in the same place, I was at some maintenance support battalions motor pool for what ever reason,and took a wrong turn and walked into some office only to be faced with three of the oldest WOs I ever laid eyes on, pretty sure they were all WO3/4s.
I’m predicting that this summer we will see articles about this program not getting enough volunteers, or enough that can pass the screening board.
My thoughts, too. The only non-pilot WO I came across was in the motor pool. The Sgt. I usually talked to about checking out a ton and a quarter for the airfield wasn’t in, and the PFC sent me to a WO who walked away while I was talking to him.
I only ever met a maint WO in any of my infantry units one time. I THINK my other 3 battalions had a WO in that slot, I just never saw them. The one maintenance WO I did meet, dropped me for asking him a question. You should have seen the look of utter disgust he gave me right before her told me to get down. Didn’t yell, just told me to push, and I swear after a minute he walked away and PFC Andy didn’t know what to do. I got up and left that office space in the motor pool and avoided it for the remainder of my year in Korea.
That’s… disappointing. Every WO I’ve ever had the pleasure of interacting with has been cordial and accommodating. Tough to catch, sure, but grade-A soldiers almost to a man.
You caught a carp in a bowl of walleye.
Harder to find than Bigfoot, Easter Bunny or Loch Ness Monster.
They won’t claim it, but 180As are the only exception I’ve ever met. Sadly, it’s the only one where “disappearing” is part of the job description.
Wow bad enough they already have “career recruiters” up to E9 don’t see how this could help recruiting in any way. From actual experience career recruiters just ride the backs of normal sailors and soldiers that end up on recruiting duty. The Navy CRF force looks at these recruiters as expendable and will do everything in their power to blame any failure to meet mission on the normal recruiter. The attitude was you got em for 36 months grind them til their done and repeat with the new ones.
The Army has much the same attitude, though Recruiters stop being really responsible for production if and when they make it to E-8. A squared-away and caring 1SG or CSM might try to help a struggling NCO or station, and there’s a slight chance that an E-8 MSG might get tasked with OJT training, but that’s it.
Same basic principle, though. Convert and become a 79R, and you get a constant influx of SQI “4” Detailed Recruiters to use and abuse for three years. If they fail to make mission you can effectively end their careers by relieving them and sending them back to their MOS. Some, like Infantry, might not care, but most of the Army, to include centralized senior NCO boards, is going to view that relief for cause as an indicator that you’re unfit for promotion or even continued service.
I’m not sure about now (20+ years after retirement), but as long as you made your E6/SSG, you could stay for a 20 year retirement.
“Talent Acquisition Technician Warrant Officer.”
Join them up with a Jew, and a gay man and you’ll soon have a hit Broadway musical….
Good luck, Troops…ya gonna need it.
I thought we were told a few years back that opening up the Military to the Alphabet Crowd was going to solve all of the recruiting/retention issues? Guess not, huh?
Indeed the “Hordes of Homos” have yet to appear…
I’d love to hear what the Warrant Officer Corps has to say about this.
I’m a retired Army Club Management warrant officer and me and everyone of my contemporaries worked hard at what we did. The aviation warrants were good guys. Cannot say the same for some of the others. Once a new maintenance warrant brought an NCO into the Officers Club. In those days that was not permitted. I took him aside and diplomatically explained the policy. He filed a complaint with the club board. At the hearing he said I told him I was privately asking him to leave with the NCO because he was a brother warrant officer rather than publicly telling them about the policy. The board chairman rolled his eyes at that.
Sadly, it’s hard to find either O or NCO clubs on bases, anymore.
As a retired NCO, I can understand the desire not to have one of us soiling your space just as we never liked junior enlisted men in ours – but I can’t agree that drawing a hard line is the best approach. Several officers tried to talk me into making the transition throughout my career, and it was that kind of classist attitude that offended my plebeian heritage and kept me enlisted. One even argued that officers should be encouraged to put their hands in their pockets – to prove that they were better than their EMs and that the same rules don’t apply. Reinforcing an already set-in-stone distinction breeds contempt more than it does respect.
When it came to young joes being groomed for the NCO ranks, they’d be welcomed into our clubs as long as they were sponsored. My guess is that’s the same mentality that WO held.
What’s a WOC?
Something you throw at a wabbit….😁
No one will show up.
This will certainly improve morale and recruiting numbers.
Another excellent idea from the fine folks at the Puzzle Palace….
//end sarc
From The Good Idea Fairy.
(who deserves to be throttled, dissected, entombed, and the remains thrown into the Marianas Trench)
But they’re so short of recruiters and recruits, they aren’t going to approve any current recruiters becoming warrants. lol
Would it matter? The Warrants would be selected, receive their assignments, and promptly disappear…never to be heard from again!🤣
Probably another unpopular opinion, but I think a career recruiter is a bad idea.
Recruiters are frequently assigned to suburban locations hundreds of miles from military bases. From the perspective of military standards I expect issues with some members of a career field that spend most of their career in that environment.
I’m unclear as to the connection between your first and second paragraphs. Please expound.