MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
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MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Life Lessons from the Recruiting Trail with Michael Runyan
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade—or so the saying goes. Michael Runyan, the "Runin’ Onion," has a recipe that involves a dash of personal suffering, a sprinkle of expectation management, and a whole lot of resilience. Join us on a journey through Michael's lens as he shares his wisdom on the Mindforce podcast, providing a riveting narrative from his days of recruiting for officer accessions in New York City, to finding solace in books during his commutes, and the life lessons he’s picked up along the way.
Ever wonder what shapes the heart and mind of a military recruiter? Michael peels back the layers of his personal history, revealing the influence of his father's military and engineering career, the trials faced with his mother's struggles, and the profound impact of early fatherhood, all interwoven with his commitment to Air Force recruiting. His story is a testament to the human spirit's ability to adapt and find meaning, providing an intimate look at the trials and triumphs that come with building a career, marriage, and family under extraordinary circumstances.
Buckle up as we navigate the evolving landscape of Air Force recruiting, from the Nurse Transition Program to the challenges of post-COVID recruitment. Michael provides a window into the future of mental health in the military, pondering the potential impact of overdiagnosis on recruitment and the integration of AI technologies. It's an episode brimming with honesty, rich with personal anecdotes, and a deep dive into the complexities of military life and the resilience it fosters. Don't miss Michael Runyon's story and the insights it imparts on finding your footing amid life's challenges.
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Thank you for watching. Welcome to the show. This is Mindforce, a podcast for love, life and learning where your mind matters. Today we got Michael Runyon in the house. We like to call him the Runyon Onion, and we're going to be talking about recruiting. Call him the running onion, and we're going to be talking about recruiting.
Speaker 2:So, michael, uh, who are you? What do you do?
Speaker 1:and why are you here? So I am michael running.
Speaker 2:I'm running under, yeah, the running onion. I can't believe you remember that was 10 years ago. Um, I'm currently an officer accessions recruiter in new york city. Uh, we cover the state of new york for for all officer accessions recruiter in New York City. We cover the state of New York for all officer accessions not just your cyber and tech folks and your pilots and everything like that, but mostly health professions doctors, dentists, nurses, mfcs, things like that. And why I'm here is because I had an old friend reach out to me asking me to do his podcast and I thought it sounded pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yes, I miss you on the first one, but we got you on this second request I had an old friend reach out to me asking me to do his podcast and I thought it sounded pretty cool. Yes, I miss you on the first one, but we got you on this second request. I'm super excited to have you out here. We're going to start with a couple of warm-up questions, kind of break this ice and get to know you a little bit. First one is what's one app you're using, one book you recommend and one thing you're listening to?
Speaker 2:An app I'm using. So I our office is in lower Manhattan and I live in South Brooklyn, so I'm normally on the train or walking or on the ferry. So I mostly listen to a lot of audio content, whether it's like podcasts or just music on Spotify or books on Audible, things like that. So those are kind of the main main ones that I'm using.
Speaker 1:You'll get to listen to this soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I listened. Well, I read the train of day and I was like I better listen to this podcast before I get on it. So I listened to a couple of them today and I was like it's pretty good.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's awesome to hear.
Speaker 2:So one book what are you reading or what have you read in the past? That's a good go-to. I just listened to Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey on Audible. I read it when it first came out I think it was in 2020 and it was very good. And I don't know, man, there's something about Matthew McConaughey's voice that I was just like I just want something that is just like I know it's going to be good and it's just fun to to. So I just listened to Greenlights just for fun and burned through it in a couple of days and then I just started listening to I think it's called the Universal Christ by Richard Rohr. I've read some of his books in the past. Falling Upwards is very good. So I just given Universal Christ a shot and see how it.
Speaker 1:See how it goes so those last few things you mentioned, what would you say, is your, your takeaway? What was real big off those?
Speaker 2:uh falling upwards, is a book I think it's called the two um spiritualities for your, your front side of life, on the back side of life, like once you pass over into a certain phase or age. On the back side it's just kind of a different perspective of a different way of looking at life. Um, his main thing is that there's uh like third way thinking, like um, there's first way thinking is just like how you identify yourself. I, I am a man, I am a parent, I am a political party, religion, air Force. You know what I mean. It's how you identify yourself. You're building an identity.
Speaker 2:Second way thinking is tearing things down. It's very, it's very kind of realizing things aren't what you thought they were and just kind of tearing away those identities. Kind of realizing things aren't what you thought they were and just kind of tearing away those identities. And then third way thinking is kind of looking at things and thinking about how, even though they may or may not be true, there is truth within them. And it's um, there's definitely things to take away um from how you, how you view things in different ways. So I would recommend it.
Speaker 1:It's a really good book awesome, yeah, and matthew m McConaughey man his voice. I've seen some of his college commencement speeches and whatnot. He will pull you in. That's awesome. And then last warm-up question what's one lesson you've learned in life in your wonderful 34, 5,?
Speaker 2:6-ish years, I'm 33.
Speaker 1:Oh dang it, I went the wrong direction I'm turning 33 next month 33 years of life that you think everyone should internalize.
Speaker 2:Oh man. General theme life is suffering, I think, but it's not bad news, I think it's. It's how you use that suffering and, um, how, how you, how you take it and move forward with it. Um, I think a big thing. I mean, I wouldn't tell my applicants life was suffering, but when I used to do enlisted recruiting, um, there's, there's a lot of expectations, a lot of like, I need to have this job in this location in order to be happy and I, you see it over and over and over, and it's the same conversation over and over and over, and the big thing that I would give them is just like it's not gonna be what you think it is whether it's, whether it's either way, it's not going to be what you think it is.
Speaker 2:Whether it's whether it's either way, whether it's you got the wrong job or you're in the wrong place, or you got exactly what you wanted, because I've heard it so many times Somebody got exactly the job they wanted, they went to the location they wanted and they hated it. Or, flip side of that, you've got a job you thought you might not want and you went to a place you might not want to go and it's the best thing that's ever happened to you. So it's, I think it's all. I think it's very much just like your perspective on on how you can can take that suffering and move forward with it I think it's an internal thing too, because I've seen that a lot, you know, having troops and whatnot.
Speaker 1:They like, they want this thing, um, whatever it may be location or a section in the flight or whatever to make them happy. And they get there and they're still not happy. It's because, I mean, the root of it is yourself. You are the thing that's moving, you're the common denominator, so there are things that make you maybe feel more fulfilled and things like that, but at the core of it, it, if you're not happy and you have lingering issues going on, then it's not going to matter where you move in a lot of cases. So that's a good point. I like that. Okay, we're going to move into the AFSC discussions. We're going to learn all we can about this. So what is your AFSC, what's the official title and how did you find it?
Speaker 2:So I am currently an officer accessions recruiter. The AFSC, I believe, is 8R200. I found it because I don't know who your audience is. I'm sure it's mostly Air Force members, but if they're not, we have something called DSD. It's the Developmental Special Duty. There's a few within the umbrella. It's like your TIs, your recruiters. There's a few different things in there.
Speaker 2:But I think it was 2018 and my flight chief came down, sergeant Warren Richards. He retired, he's no longer in. He works at the Library of Congress now. But he came in and he was just like, hey, we got DSD spots, who wants to go? And at the time they would just pick you right. They would just see who has a clean record, who would be a good fit, and they would just throw you in there. But he came down, he asked and I said what is it? And he was like it's only recruiting positions and I was just like, yeah, put me in. I didn't think twice about it. I didn't think about it at all. I was just like, yeah, put me in there. And he went away.
Speaker 2:Like a month later I got an email that was like congrats, you've been selected. And I was like, oh, oh, my you, you, I mean, at that point you still have to do stuff. You have to do like interviews and collect your records and do a bunch of stuff. And um, at the time I just I knew a bunch of people that had been recruiters and came back from it or did go into recruiting. So I reached out to a ton of people and I was just like hey, what is this like? And the majority of them were like that's the worst thing you've ever done, that's the worst decision you could have made. And I was like oh no. And then I had like one or two people that were like, listen, it's the best thing you've ever done and I was like I wouldn't I believe you guys.
Speaker 2:I believe you guys, even though, like, everyone else is telling me the opposite. There there's like two people. I remember who they were. I was working with them and I was like I'm just going to believe you. I think this is the best thing I've ever done. And yeah, so you do some interviews, you have to put your package together, you get official photos taken of your how you look in uniform and things like that. I submit everything and once you get through the process, you go to recruiting school. It is about two months. It is at Lackland Air Force Base, and did you ever do tech school at Lackland? I did, yes. So isn't that big building in the back corner like behind security forces? I was air transportation prior, so we did tech school back there too but.
Speaker 2:I think it's like contracting, which you probably yeah, that was mine, yeah, but yeah, I went there for two months um, it's, it's very intense, it's very serious and uh, but they, they teach you a lot. They teach you like sales skills and public speaking and everything else, and everybody gets their assignments. And how they do assignments is they just show you like here's 70 places that are open, rack and stack it however you want, send it back to us, and most people get something in like their top five or ten, and it kind of works, because not everybody wants the same thing. I remember at the time on the list there was Nampa Idaho, which hindsight I think would actually be a nice assignment. But at the time on the list there was a Nampa Idaho, which hindsight I think would actually be a nice assignment. But at the time I was like this is I would never go there. Who would want to go there? And like one of my good friends that sat in the class next to me, he was like I'm going to Nampa Idaho and I was like why would you want to go there? But I got orders to Upland California, which is right outside of la county.
Speaker 2:It's right on the border of it. So it's a high population. Um, it's more of a well-to-do area, I guess. So there's um a lot of parents that have money, the kids go to good schools, um, but a lot of them want to get out of that area specifically, so, um, a lot of them end up joining the air Force. But yeah, I'm running. Where am I going? I'm running off track.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll transition to the next question. So we heard a little bit about you with the book and listening to some things and things like that, but can you give us a quick rundown on your backstory, give us kind of the foundation of you, and then we'll dive more into these AFSC.
Speaker 2:Foundation of me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Tell us your origin story. My origin story, uh, oh, gosh, port dog, I'll give you. I'll give you the real origin story. Um, yes, I grew up in maryland. Uh, my dad was a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Air Force. He was enlisted and then he commissioned as an electrical engineer and he retired. And he retired before I was even born. And then he moved to Maryland and did a government job working on a naval base over there. And then my mom was also working at the naval headquarters on the base too.
Speaker 2:And I think it was around when I was like 15 that my dad got sick. He was, he was older, he was in his uh, late 60s at that point and he got sick. He got cancer and he fought it for a while, did chemo for a few years, went into remissionission. Everything seemed good. It came back and when he was 72, I was 18. So he was 72, I was 18.
Speaker 2:He passed away from cancer at that point and it was just like a real wake-up call moment for me, where I was just like I had already been through a lot this past few years, like trying to balance, like being a teenager, but also like being there for him and taking care of him. You spent a lot of time in the hospital up in DC. So there was a lot of days where, like I would get up and I wouldn't go to school, I would drive with my mom up to the hospital and spend all day up there with them. And, um, yeah, it was just, it was a lot. It was a lot to go through.
Speaker 2:And then but I remember at that point my mom did not take it well. She kind of turned her over to, uh, a lot of heavy alcohol abuse. She was with her own mental health issues. It was not a good scenario. At that point I just remember thinking I need to do something. The thought of student loans terrified me. It didn't make any sense. I didn't know if it would give me a bunch of money. Need to figure out something. And I went and stayed with a friend. Um, shout out, nick mg.
Speaker 1:Uh, he's a very popular navy youtuber now.
Speaker 2:But nick um, he had he had joined the navy and he was at his his a school in virginia beach and I went down for the weekend and I stayed with them and he had he was he's my age, he was 18, 19, like he had an apartment, he had like it seemed like his life was together, like immediately as soon as he joined the Navy, and I was just like, is this real, is this how this works? I don't. I started looking into it and I was just like I'm joining the Navy and my dad, he was literally on his deathbed, he was like his last week and I went to him and I was like, dad, I'm going to be okay, I figured it out, I'm joining the Navy. And he was like, no, don't do that. And I was like why?
Speaker 2:And he was, and he kind of he laid it all out for me, he he cause as a kid he never talked about the air force. I part of it was, I think, a lot of the stuff he did. He wasn't supposed to talk about A lot of the projects that he worked on and it just didn't seem like something that he was pushing on me. Over time it was never even a thought. But in that moment where I was like I'm joining the Navy.
Speaker 1:He was like don't do it, here's why.
Speaker 2:He was like don't do it, here's why. Here's why the Air Force is better, like they take better care of their people, like it's just. It's a very different environment.
Speaker 2:And he convinced me and I was just like, all right. So I had already driven up to the recruiter's office and they were. They were just never there. They were always out and about doing stuff. And I tried again and I finally got a hold of them and went in there, took the ASVAB immediately, let them know like I will do anything, I'll do anything. And I had a good ASVAB score. Everything was good.
Speaker 2:But just at that time this was like 2009,. I remember talking to other applicants and I was like how long have you been in the process? And they were like I've been in the process for a year and I'm waiting for a job still. And I was like that's not gonna be me. So I just told him I was like I'll do literally anything. So, like a few months later he called me with a uh, mechanical aptitude contract, which basically is like a, an open contract within that field. Um, meaning that you'll go to basic training, you select a job while you're there, that's within the mechanical field, which I was totally fine with. So, um, yeah, that's my origin story also. I I guess this is a big part of it I got married at that same time and also had a kid that same year. Like life, just like hit me super fast. 18 years old, married with a kid, just lost my dad.
Speaker 2:Like it was a very intense time and wouldn't recommend most 18-year-olds to get married. Obviously, that's crazy. Somehow it all worked out.
Speaker 1:Uh, we've been married for it's gonna be 15 years next may and uh, she still likes, you like it all.
Speaker 2:Just I don't know everything worked out and I'm very grateful for all of it.
Speaker 1:But that's awesome. Yeah, it's crazy how uh life is. I mean, I guess back to your life is pain and struggle. But yeah, I lost my dad a couple years ago as well, that long fight with cancer, and it's definitely not a fun thing and it's kind of rough and difficult to see how it ripples out to the family and things like that. How it ripples out to the family and things like that. But I think it does. I mean not that it's the outcome you want, but it does pass on things to us. I feel like I've always been fairly upbeat and things like that.
Speaker 1:But that was another moment where he only made it to 50. And so it's just like life's too short for holding on to anything or staying in a bad place for really too long, like things are just going to keep flying by, um. So now I just kind of carry that, even to a greater extent than I did before, cause you don't know, you don't know what you're going to have, so you just got to cherish the days, um. But let's jump into the introduction and kind of get, uh, a little bit more on this AFSC. Um. So can you give us a brief introduction and kind of get a little bit more on this AFSC. So can you give us a brief overview and kind of the primary responsibilities of a recruiter?
Speaker 2:Sure so for Officer Accessions Recruiter. How we do it currently is we have small hubs throughout the country and each recruiter is assigned to a program Specifically. Right now I work with nurses so I handle nurse applications from the moment that they are looking for somebody. I do their initial appointments, schedule them for maps to do their physical schedule, their interviews with the chief nurse and any specialist, build their applications, collect letters of recommendation, transcripts, everything like that, and submit their applications to the board, depending on what program they're doing.
Speaker 2:For nurses it's obviously fully qualified nurses. We hire all specialties, whether they are a CRNA or a clinical nurse or OBGYN, like whatever they are. We normally have all positions available for fully qualified. Outside of those, we also do nurse transition program, which is your brand new nurses that just graduated um from nursing school. That's not necessarily true, as if they have less than one year credible experience and their gpa is 3.3 and they have their bsn, we can hire them under the ntp program and basically they go through a 10 week course and then they're kind of like in their first year. It's more like a residency to train them up in either OB OR or med search and then, outside of that we also do scholarships.
Speaker 2:So if they come to us and they say I want to do this doctorate program for family nurse practitioner or CRNA, we will pick up tuition and pay them a monthly stipend while they're going to school and then once they graduate they come in to do that job within the Air Force.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how did you go from e-recruiter to o-recruiter? Is that a normal transition or how does that work? Yeah?
Speaker 2:So recruiting is like its own career field, and I think that's what most folks in the airports probably don't understand is everybody sees like the DSD cycle rolls out. You get picked up, you're a recruiter. At the end of that enlisted recruiting tour you have an option where you can go back to your career field, which I would say 60 to 70 percent of folks do don't quote me on the numbers, but it seems right or you can stay in recruiting and go to tier two. So recruiting is three tiers. It's. Tier one is enlisted recruiting. That's what everybody does, starting out.
Speaker 2:Tier two is officer recruiting, special warfare recruiting um, there's a ton of jobs like working at meps, um, being a trainer, uh, working in an operations center, working at the headquarters there's a ton of different jobs within the headquarters uh, being at the recruiting schoolhouse, um, there's, there's a ton of stuff. And it's a ton of stuff that, like, you wouldn't even think about, like all our marketing folks that are out there and everything else. Like it's, there's a lot. So. And then tier three is mostly management positions. It's your flight chiefs that are overseeing a region of recruiting offices. That's kind of the big one. So, whether they're enlisted flight chiefs or health professions flight chiefs or special warfare flight chiefs those are kind of the bread and butter for tier three, feels like. And then there's also senior positions, with all those other ones that I mentioned, like senior trainers, senior ops, things like that that's awesome.
Speaker 1:We even had a msc that was over a recruiting squadron. That was pretty something not typical. Yeah, um, cool, uh. So next is this is always a difficult one, but I have to throw it out there trying to give the tens of listeners I have an idea into some of these career fields. So can you try to walk us through what a typical day or week looks like in this career field Every?
Speaker 2:day is looking different, I'm sure yeah, every day is a little bit different, so recruiting is very heavy on planning. Uh, you make a plan, you work the plan um for us yeah, things change all the time too.
Speaker 2:um, for us, specifically, like in our scenario, um, we hire nurses specifically like as far as like what we're doing when we go out, we're primarily involved with colleges to come out and do presentations for their senior nursing students, to go to their career fairs, be involved with whatever. Whatever they're doing, so and like like for me it's nurses, it's very specific in that one route. But, like our our doc recruiter, right, he might be going out to do their match day at the university or to go to different events that are more geared towards their program. So, day to day I would say we're looking for events, things like that, to get them on the calendar. When we go out, it can be all over the place, so like it might be at a school nearby in brooklyn or it might be at a school upstate that's like six hours away. So it just depends um how far it is if we're going tdy or not. Um what we're doing for it, sometimes it's just setting up a booth and just being at a career fair, but sometimes it's like getting up in a theater and talking in front of like a hundred plus students to go over our information and do like a Q and a with them.
Speaker 2:Outside of that, it's very heavy on the admin work, like I said, like building those applications. There's a lot that goes into it and a lot that goes into getting them qualified through maps. Outside of that, we do a lot of lead generation. So think, like, for us, like more, more professional applicants are going to be on LinkedIn, so we spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, um emailing school lists that are relevant to the programs and GPAs, like we filter them down for what we're looking for. Um and just constantly looking to see like how can we generate leads and interest to get people to to come to us. So those are kind of the big ones, um lead generation schools and just all the admin work that goes along with it.
Speaker 1:So with the schools and things like that, um, are they requesting you or are you trying to sell yourself to get to certain locations, or is it kind of a mix of both?
Speaker 2:It's a mix of both, um, I would say, to get to certain locations, or is it kind of a mix of both? It's a mix of both, I would say, because I came into recruiting in 2018, which, at the time, doing enlisted recruiting in Southern California was very easy. It's just people are coming to you and you're just putting them in Same thing with going to the schools, like you're going to high schools or community colleges. It's not anything too crazy. I came into the health professions recruiting world during, I guess, post-covid we got here in 21. So it was very different, especially being New York City. I think a lot of people thought like oh, covid's over. But, like New York City, covid was like a traumatic event where a lot of those schools just like shut their doors and like just shut everything down. And even today I go to some schools where they're like half of our faculty is remote still and it's. I think it took a long time for everybody to kind of shift out of that and get back to students being on campus, classes being in person. Um, so it was a real push, this, like past year, to like hey, we're the air force, we're here and we want to like be involved with what you're doing and that's received in a lot of different ways. Um, some people are not into it, some people are very into it. Um, I think it's cool when we find places where you have universities that are, have professors that are veterans, that like are are all about it and they want to help, and then sometimes it's not even that they're veterans, they just have families that are, um, family members that are veterans, and they're just very grateful.
Speaker 2:So I, I did, um I did a presentation recently at Hunter college and there's, um, this professor. She's invited me out a few times to talk to her class and she's just been like super helpful. And I just didn't know. I didn't know why, because, no, there's not a ton of people that are like going out of their way to help you too much. So she just kept helping me and I was like I don't really understand why. And then she messaged me and kind of like told me her backstory about, like, how her dad was in World War Two and that's like how he met her mom and they moved to the US and he, like she, took care of him like in his aging years until, like, he passed away. And it was very emotional and I was just kind of blown away by it, where it was just like you never know, like what people's uh attachments are or links are to, like military service.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you really never know what's going on with people, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you never know. So it was. It was very cool, but um but yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:so what are some of the key tasks? You talked about planning, so what are other key tasks and some challenges that you're encountering?
Speaker 2:uh, I mean I'm sure you've seen it in the news right, like air force recruiting I mean not just air force, ground, but like all branches of recruiting are down somehow. Um, obviously I can't speak to all of it. There's a ton of factors that go into it that are pretty easy to point out, but, um, one of the big ones that we've seen is, um, they put a new system in place called Genesis, I want to say in 21, at the tail end of 21,. They put it in place and basically it's um, it gives new electronic health record.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, it gives MEPS access to pull your medical records. You sign off on a form saying they can pull it. They can pull medical records. So, like normally, when you put an applicant in, you fill out a medical history report, you submit it. If they want to see documents, they'll request them. You kind of go back and forth for a minute and then they'll give them the thumbs up and they come to Maps to do their physical.
Speaker 2:Now with Genesys it's obviously created a huge admin burden. Where you submit it, they have to pull it in the system. They pull whatever they can find and then they have a lot of questions about it. There's a lot of unanswered questions, I think, where they see something and they're like what is this? What does this mean? Is this resolved? Do questions, I think, where they see something there and they're like what is this? What does this mean? Is this resolved? Do they still have this? And then they have to reach out to the applicant and the applicant has to pull more documents. Prove that it's not an issue and it's just.
Speaker 2:I think it's created a pretty large admin burden on the map side and it's slowed down things significantly as far as like getting people into maps and completing their physicals. So I think that's that's been like the big, big hurdle that I've seen. Obviously, like we were saying, like coming out of COVID, like I think there was some, it was like we were having to get back out on the streets and reintroduce ourselves of like this is the air force, this is what we do, and just having that piece in place and like having it not be there during those COVID years, I think was probably pretty detrimental.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one thing I think it's cool you touched on you know some of the positions that you're recruiting for nurses and things like that. That's one thing I always find kind of hilarious. If you do touch base with someone that's a civilian and doesn't have any military experience, like it seems like the mind explodes and they find out there's other jobs. I always remember I forgot who I was talking to. I wish I could remember who it was. But I had someone said I thought you practiced war and I was like I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1:But we have like 128 different jobs. We got the dude at finance and you know the gal doing, you know civil engineering and whatever else, and so it's kind of funny sometimes like we all have normal jobs actually, like a lot of us have pretty you know normal things. I mean even a jet mechanic mean still a mechanic to a certain extent. So I mean, as long as you're not like aerial refueling, which is probably not done anywhere else in the world, there's probably an equivalent of us somewhere. So it's always funny to see that mind kind of explode. But let's move on to the next one Training and education. You touched on tech school, but what are some of the other things that you go through for training and education. You touched on tech school, but what are some of the other things that you go through for training? When you went from e to o, was there additional training there, or what are some of the trainings that you get along the way, or can you get continuing education?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, I mean obviously they. They have their own degree within ccaf, so that's a thing. Most I mean most folks that they're hiring are going to be NCOs and probably already have a CCAF complete. So a lot of them transfer credits and it is knocked out. Besides that initial two months of training at the recruiting schoolhouse, when you go from enlisted recruiting to officer recruiting, you go through something called the OA workshop I think it's about two weeks out at Randolph Air Force Base. I think it's about two weeks out at Randolph Air Force Base. And there's also our sales training. Is you get a more tailored version of it for health professions applicants and a lot of this, I mean a lot of the training aspect that comes down from. It is like things change so fast in the field that a lot of like the good training that you're going to receive is from other recruiters.
Speaker 2:So, like when I did enlisted recruiting, um, we weren't really on social media when I got there and I I noticed it and I was like, hey, can we get on on instagram? Like, is that allowed? How does this work? And I just ran with it. I know I blew up the account as big as I could. I got up to like 7,000 followers at one point and it was just like, really like, churning it out to the point where, like I would be out, like picking up my kids at school, and some teenager would see me and be like hey, I know you and it was.
Speaker 2:It was really good. And, um, I, I understood instagram because I was obviously on instagram already and I built a training for other recruiters and just like pushed it out there. I made it on like a google site and just like created like best practices here's how you do it and just send it out there and it got a lot of good attention. Um, and I. But now if you ask me to like, hey, how do you do instagram? Like what would be good, like Like I don't know, like it changed.
Speaker 2:They added they added reels, like things are different now the algorithm is different, I don't know. So a lot of that training is like it is so in the moment time, specific, that a lot of times, like, the best practices that you're going to get are from other people. So like a big part of this is just it's networking, like talking to other recruiters and saying, like what are you doing? Does that work, does that make sense? Um, we obviously pay for training too, like we'll have, we have a linkedin rep that trains us up on like how to use the recruiter side of linkedin. Um, but I think, by by by and large, like the best training I've gotten has always been from other recruiters and just seeing what they're doing and like what works.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So on the Instagram, I just had a curiosity Did you touch base with, like Air Force PA and did they restrict you at all? Or I mean you said you kind of jumped in there, but did you get any backlash on what you did, or did they not like anything or how?
Speaker 2:did that go? Things change over time. I mean, when I first started doing it, I reached out to our training and marketing office and I was like what are the rules? And they showed me the regulation that guided it. It wasn't too big, it was just like obviously you're representing the Air Force, you have to be representing the Air Force, but that's already your job. You know what I mean? You are an nco. You should have enough sense to like not say anything crazy on social media, like your job is to promote the air force. So, um, over time, like yeah, they do. Um, they did provide additional guidance or training, but as far as pa being involved, there was nothing really too much like that.
Speaker 2:It was largely at the time. It was largely up to our training and marketing offices to kind of keep an eye on it and make sure that everything was on the up and up. There were certain things over time that they deemed were a no-go, but it was largely like sharing information with third-party websites right Like us using Google Sites to create like office pages. They were just like we can't do that because we cannot keep an eye on like every single page that's out there and we don't know what you guys are publishing. And if you are publishing anything that is collecting information, it's obviously a problem because it's a third-party site. So what I will say that came out of it. That was good, because at the time it was very controversial. This is like 2019. They were like we need to have, like full control over how we're getting applicants info in here, and they created the Aim High US Air Force app and at the time, it was very new and I had a friend that was working over at headquarters.
Speaker 2:I was kind of working on it and he just looped me in on like the, the programming calls, where like they'd have a programmer there and we would all be in the app and he would be like does this work? And we'd be like no, you gotta fix this. And he would like fix the code on the other end and publish it and like, does it work now? And so we just got to sit in on the calls and it was super cool, like watching the app being built, because at the time it was like we're like what are we even going to use this for? But now it's like advanced enough that like we can collect applicants information. So like when I do a presentation, there's 100 students in there.
Speaker 2:At the end of the presentation I have a QR code on the questions page and I'm just like, hey, can you guys please scan this? Like I bring food and stuff. So I'm just like I need you guys to scan this so I can like prove how many people are here, so we can justify the cost and everything else, and when they scan it, they can fill in their information, they can say if they're interested or not. They can put their email, phone number, everything else, and when they hit submit it goes immediately into my bucket in a in a system that we use to like process all the applicants. So when I go back to the office and I get logged in I'll have all the applicants that were at the event already in the system. So it's super useful. Now it's very cool, but at the time we were just kind of making this thing and we were like I don't know what it's going to be for, but it's probably going to be good.
Speaker 1:It's so crazy. You never know the impact or far-reaching. You're working on this thing and it just seems kind of cool all the time and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So that's awesome. Next question I got for you under the training and education what do you think is the most important personality trait or strength someone would need? They're like, hey, I want to be a recruiter. What do they need to get into this career field and really be successful?
Speaker 2:I mean, there's a few things I think you need to be organized From. What I've seen is a lot of these recruiters are going to go out to locations, especially like brand new ones, are going to go to locations where they're just by themselves, um, like in my scenario I I was in an office with like another recruiter. You guys are, even though you're there together.
Speaker 2:You're not working together like you're both running your own processes, processing applicants, doing your own thing. You have a flight chief that's somewhere else. Normally, um, our flight chief was about an hour away and we'd see him, uh, once or twice a month. Maybe he'll come out, run reports, check things, make sure everything's good. But you need to be very organized to like stay on top of it, and I think, um, obviously, being responsible like you need to be on top of everything and make sure it's all moving in the right direction, to like to maintain that autonomy, otherwise you're going to have somebody coming down on you meaning like you need to do X, y and Z every single day.
Speaker 2:It's that's no fun. So self-driven, yeah, self-driven. Another big thing is just being curious. Your job is just talking to people primarily, and you talk to so many people every day that when you do these appointments, especially, and you're building that initial relationship and the initial rapport, just being curious of why do they want to do this, like, why are they doing this? Why now, like, why does this make sense for them?
Speaker 2:And I think, because a lot of times you fall into patterns where you see somebody and you see their scenario and you're like, yeah, I've seen this before, I know what this is, and sometimes it's true, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes, like, once you start digging in with them, it's something completely different and it's being able to to speak to that or answer any questions that are specific to that, or just even being to being able to relate to it, because a lot of times, like those concerns or fears that they may have, that are kind of deep down, like once you get down, and then you be like, oh yeah, like I've been through this and I know exactly how to answer this, like so it's uh, yeah, just being curious about people. I, I think, is a big one.
Speaker 1:I think that's interesting too, because we just mentioned that right Like. We never know what someone's going through. So you think you do at a surface level, but humans are super complicated. I did want to ask another question earlier, so I guess I'll kind of jump back. So, with the school visits and these things and you briefly touched on it right there but how much leeway or autonomy are you given to be able to get after that, as long as you're meeting the things that you need to and fulfilling requirements, are you good to try, because you were able to start the Instagram and try some new things, are you given quite a bit of leeway?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say there's a lot of autonomy within recruiting as a whole. That's obviously dependent on your location and personalities that are involved and what your boss is like and everything else. But from what I've seen by and large, like talking to recruiters all over the nation, like I think the majority of them are experiencing a lot more autonomy than they ever did in prior career fields. I just remember, even like midway through my, my enlisted recruiting tour, I went to NCOA, like the leadership school at Lackland airport space and a lot of the people in the class were at Lackland, they were TIs or something closely related and I just remember at the time being like oh man, like my day to day is so different than like a normal military job and that can be a good thing and a bad thing.
Speaker 2:Obviously it's fantastic when it's all working out and everything's going smooth. But like when you aren't hitting the numbers you need or you're not getting the things you need, like, then it can get stressful right and I mean part of that is self-induced, which is better than having somebody else induce it. But I think a lot of recruit experience that stress of like oh man, like I need to hit these numbers, Otherwise, like it looks like I'm not doing my job, which normally isn't true, Normally like they're extremely busy or like trying to get to the thing that they need, but, um, it doesn't always pan out that way.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think that perfect segue leads us to the next one. Every job has its ups and downs. What are some of the positive aspects that we talked to? Have a little bit autonomy, which is awesome, and and what are the some of the things that are a little less desirable. So, what's what's good? What are you enjoying?
Speaker 2:What do I enjoy? What do I enjoy? What do I enjoy? I think it's. I think it's the relationship building. I think that's like the most enjoyable part, um, whether it's with applicants or with influencers, like those, those college professors or people that can help you, like I think that is the most enjoyable part, like just being able to go out and talk to people. Um, especially here in New York city, it's very different. I think. When you go to a lot of places that are near military bases, they kind of have a rough idea of like oh yeah, there's a military person here. Um, but when you're, when you're in Manhattan and somebody sees you in uniform, it's they're like you can see them doing the mental math of like trying to piece it together, like why are you here? What's going on?
Speaker 2:And uh, even even for me, for me like if I see somebody in uniform, I look at them. I'm like, what are you doing here? I went to, uh, we keep our, we keep our cars in this parking garage across the street. And I went down to get a car the other day and there was this like a brand new airman just standing there in her ocps and I was like, hey, I'm sergeant running, uh, what are you doing here? And she was just like I just joined the air force, I'm from harlem and I came back to do rap.
Speaker 2:You know rap oh yeah, recruitment assistance program she's like I'm back doing rap and I they told me to come get this thing and I was just I was talking with her and it was such a trip to like just see somebody else like out in the wild. That's in the air force, so it's cool that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I got two quick, uh rap stories just because we're we're bringing that up. That's, that's pretty hilarious. So my first one this guy came in I was home on rap after going through air traffic control tech school and, um, the recruiter had asked have you smoked weed less than 12 times? I guess that was that threshold and whatnot. And he paused for a second and said today I was like oh no. And then there was another one. One of my jobs was to check the voicemail for the recruiter and just make sure you know, take down phone numbers and whatnot. And this guy got hammered. And so he's like I love, I love the air force, I love my recruiter, just like hammered. So I luckily just kind of deleted that one and moved on to the next one. I was like I don't think she needs to to hear that one. I'll try to save him. I don't know if that guy went on to do better things. I hope so, but those were two pretty hilarious stories but, we'll move on on the flip side.
Speaker 1:Uh, what are some of these challenges and downsides to this particular career field? We're going to make sure we're representing the entire career field, the entire field.
Speaker 2:Uh, I mean, it's like you just said, like having that person leave the voicemail like it was pretty. It sounds like just like screaming about how they love the Air Force, but like I think the majority of recruiters can attest to that. Like you have some crazy interactions Most of the time, like most of the time they're fun, like that you know what I mean when it's just like it's a fun story that you can take away and you just like tell your somebody at home and they're just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened. But sometimes it's like dangerous. It's sometimes it's like, uh, somebody was smoking crack outside of my office and they tried to burn it, the whole office down, and which just happened up in, uh, up in the bronx, and it's just like whoa, there's very dangerous scenarios that you can run into that like I think that most people don't have to deal with in their day to day. And like regular Air Force life.
Speaker 2:Like when I was in California, we came in one day and we were there for a little bit and we were just like something doesn't seem right. It's just me and my office friend. We're looking at each other like what's wrong, like something's wrong in here and we found, uh, I like looked on the floor and I found like one of my coins. I had like a coin rack on the desk and there's a coin on the floor, so I picked it up and I went to put it back on the rack and then there was no coins on the rack and I was like what, what is this? I thought it was like we were attached to a marine's office so I thought like, oh, the marines are pulling pranks, whatever. Ha ha ha.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, I went to get my uniform and it wasn't there and I was like these marines, they're just, they're silly. And then our, our, uh, we like credit cards for the gas for the cars and they were gone. And we were like uh-oh, and then we really we started looking around, were like a lot of stuff is gone and we called the cops. The cops called OSI and OSI showed up in like 20 minutes and we were nowhere near an Air Force base and I was like where are you at?
Speaker 1:And he was just like oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm just stationed right over here and I was like that's crazy, I didn't know you guys were everywhere. But yeah, I right over here. And I was like that's crazy, I didn't know you guys were everywhere. Um, but yeah, we I was.
Speaker 2:I was sitting there the next day and I was just like how did this happen? Who would do this? And I had this flag on the wall that, like when my um airmen would ship out, they would write their name on it, their job, and the day they shipped out and at the top there was a there's a new name and it just it was a name and it said one way down and it had an arrow it was not the regular format, obviously and I was just like who is? Who did this? And I googled the name and our city that we were in and I found him and he had already been arrested, like a month prior, for, like, breaking into a church and doing something similar. I called the cops back and I was like, hey, uh here's some information and they were like oh, we actually arrested him yesterday for something completely different.
Speaker 2:Um, so yeah, he's already here. So this all works out and I try to get my stuff back. And they wouldn't give it back. They were just saying that it was like it was pretty gross, like what he did to the uniforms and stuff. So they were like you don't want it. So I'm like okay I'm just like a regular air force member would never have to deal with this oh, that's wild this was never a thing at my old job, but yeah, you just have.
Speaker 2:You have a lot of experiences like that or you're just like, oh man, man, this is different.
Speaker 1:So you could definitely say that's something that sets this career field apart from others. Are there any other unique or specialized aspects you think that make this particularly interesting or demanding? I guess you know being able to set your own schedule and you know being in remote places is kind of interesting, because the locations you've mentioned are are nowhere near bases, so just the location itself is kind of interesting yeah, I mean those are largely good things, um, and I mean all of these have pros and cons.
Speaker 2:Well, like being able to get out in the community and represent the air force and like bring what we have to offer, like that's largely a good thing. Um, until you have those types of interactions where, like, they get dangerous or a little concerning and you're just like, oh man, that's, it's not not the best.
Speaker 1:So, um, have you ever denied someone and then gotten like a threat or anything, or does that not happen?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's. People get threats all the time um and a lot of times they keep us aware about it. Then we get like email sent out to us of like oh, this office in this location received these types of phone calls or got this letter, or this happened or that like so, yeah, you're, you're aware that there's risk at play, but, um, yeah it it just. I think it's mostly mostly good though.
Speaker 2:I would say those, those scenarios are very like one-off scenarios that, like most recruiters will have like one or two stories of, but by and large, like just being able to get out in the communities is, I think it's really cool.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I wanted to ask one question on the negative aspect. Not that I want to go too negative, but I'm just curious to ask one question on the negative aspect. Not that I want to go too negative, but I'm just curious. I went to sos and, uh, been to some things and I've heard this rumor and so I'm curious on if you can speak on it. I don't know if that's like something you can't, but not only people you know not showing up to to want to join the military, but also having a challenge like physically being able to um. So have you seen that? I know you're now on the O side, but on the E side. Have you heard that it's been more difficult with people being on tablets more and sitting around more and maybe playing more video games or whatever, or more sedentary lifestyle has been? Is it harder to get someone, even if they do want to, but they just don't even physically qualify, or they're getting broken more at basic training, or or have you heard anything like that?
Speaker 2:um, so I mean, this was a common conversation too, and I did in list circuiting where, um, you just I think there's a large portion of the population that has access to health care is knowledgeable about mental health issues, things like that. And at the time and I mean, obviously I can't give a definitive answer on this, but, like, from my experience, what I saw was that there's like an over diagnosis of mental health type issues, whether it's the most common ones are seeing like kids that are diagnosed with ADD, adhd when they're're in like fourth grade and they were prescribed medication they didn't take it and they just kind of moved on with their life and they were fine, right. Like they didn't have to go get an IEP from school, they didn't have to take medication longterm. It was just like a thing that happened when they were a kid and then it just like moved along, right. So seeing that like that is unbelievably tough.
Speaker 2:But then, even as you get into like teenage years, things like that, like once you start looking at anxiety, depression, seeing folks ever put on medication for a short amount of time, like that, those are, those are big hurdles to get past, like on the medical side, if you were taking medication for anything like that, especially like on the medical side. If you were taking medication for anything like that, especially like on the officer side, what you'll see more is it's very common for for folks to take stimulants, like to get through studying and tests and everything else, especially like your doctors. Like, getting through med school is a huge hurdle, and it's not uncommon to see folks that were prescribed stimulants like like adderall or things like that, that, um, now you need to get them medically qualified to do, and kind of have to preface that with like look, they got this prescription because they were trying to help with, like, getting through school, so, dang, a lot of challenges a lot of difficult things right yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean there's your common ones. Like you tore your acl playing football or um you had a surgery or something like that, like those are all pretty common. But but those are kind of when you hear about like people getting disqualified like right off the bat for stuff like that it's. It's a lot of those types of things that you'll see okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes sense. So I'd like to ask you have somebody? They, you know, are in the DSD, they get picked up, they're on like day one of recruiting.
Speaker 2:What's a piece of advice you'd give them? You know, starting on day one, now that you have years of experience in the field, day one, a word of advice. Can you remember back that far? Yeah, it gets better. It really gets better. It's like it's a very common thing in recruiting where, like everybody knows, those first few months are are very hard. They're very hard to get through. Um, you show up. You learn a lot, obviously at recruiting school, but you show up and it's the real world now and you just have to deal with real scenarios and real applicants and real backstories and like trying to navigate through all of it and get them through the process. And I think that's the big piece is like learning how to build the relationship, build trust and then guide them through the process and being able to book them jobs and get them shipped out Like that is. That is that's what you do, like it's, but it's very hard starting out, I will admit. Once you have it down, though, it's super simple.
Speaker 1:So push on, push on through those first couple of months. Yeah, just keep going on through those first couple of months. Yeah, just keep going. Okay. Lastly, looking ahead, what do you see as future trends and opportunities in this AFSC? Are there any emerging areas or developments that individuals considering this path should be aware of? What's the future look like?
Speaker 2:What's the future look like?
Speaker 1:um, what's the future look like? Do you have any more uh insight or anything on development in genesis? You said that's a an issue. It's causing some trouble. Are they doing patches and fixes, or what's that looking like?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I I think realistically, like this is me being hopeful is I'm hoping they pull the data from the past couple years using the system and are able to come up with the justification that they can apply DoD wide for accessions, where they can show like here are the issues that people get medically disqualified for and here's what they end up getting waivers for and gets approved x amount of the time. Right, and they can take that data and update the regulations for what it needs to to come in um on the medical side. So, and they're already doing this, like when they come out to our trainings and they talk about stuff like this and they're trying to show that if we have a medical diagnosis that is approved with a waiver 95% of the time, maybe we just need to update the regulation to show that that is not something that needs to go up to the surgeon general level. That's what I'm hoping for Some more standards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm hopeful that the medical regulations get updated and they're able to use all the pain that recruiters went through during this time period to make it simpler in the future. So there's a lot of other stuff at play too, that we're updating some things constantly. We just started using AI for some of the interviews for line officers, but yeah, there's constantly updates that are coming out.
Speaker 1:Awesome, you're using chat.
Speaker 2:Gpt, yeah, gpt, no they paid a lot of money to do interviews for some of our applicants now.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So we went through the AFSC of recruiting, but this podcast is about mental fitness and so I got to intertwine, so I got to ask you for one tip, trick or personal story that you'd give out to the listeners the tens of listeners out there about mental fitness, something you've overcome, something you put into practice, or or what do you have for tips for mental fitness?
Speaker 2:Mental fitness.
Speaker 2:I mean for me.
Speaker 2:Anytime I've been in a not great situation, whether it's losing a family member or going through a difficult time with something, I kind of always just go back to the basics, which for me are movement, whether that's lifting weights, running things like that.
Speaker 2:If I can move every day, I will my diet, if I am eating primarily whole foods meat, vegetables, fruits and I can keep that in check and I'm not putting poison in my body through soda or alcohol or sugars or other things. And breathing, and outside I would say, like a lot of folks rely on meditation, but for me like a breathing practice, like just being able to sit outside and take those deep breaths and be in the sun, and like, if I can go back to those few things, like anytime I'm in like a very bad space, like as long as I can show up and just do that every day, like I can get through, kind of whatever your life is suffering, you're still paying like you're still it's not going to be good, but as long as you're taking care of yourself and you're doing those things, for me at least I'm going to come out all right.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that. I love that you gave actionable things that someone could take today, this week and actually go and use those. So I'd like to try to summarize some of the points from today. So we talked about recruiting a lot of autonomy to be able to get after and do some stuff Got to be self-motivated. You get to go to some really cool locations. You got the different tiers in the system which I totally didn't know. So once you get in there, you can go on to do other things. So if it is on your DSD, I'd say check it out, Ask some questions. Sounds like a lot of good learning opportunities, locations, a lot of upsides there, Awesome ability to make some relationships and get out to your community, which is amazing. So good stuff there. Encourage listeners to let me know the good, bad and indifferent. Hit me up on social media. Check out the Buzzsprout site for the podcast and the videos that are coming up on YouTube. But, Michael, thank you for coming out. It was a good time.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. Thank you for listening to AFSC's one through nine. Remember, exploring different career fields is an important step in finding the right path for you. Join us next time as we continue to explore different career paths and the opportunities they offer. If you have any questions or want to share your career story, please let me know. We'll see you next time. I love you all. See ya, Thank you.
