The United States Air Force is joining thousands of other companies and organizations around the world as they look to find alternatives to recruiting in-person.
Zoom, FaceTime, and other virtual meeting platforms have dominated the communication landscape over the past few months, and the military is no different.
While it may be easy to think that the more complicated nature of recruiting without face-to-face interaction would make it harder for the Air Force to recruit, that’s not the case.
U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Micky Stoner said that he saw a dip in recruiting numbers at first, but they have quickly rebounded.
He also said that a big part of his and other recruiters’ jobs is simply getting the information out about what opportunities are available in the Air Force.
He said that many people think that it’s all about pilots flying planes, but now is the perfect time to educate people that that’s not the case.
“We have plenty of other jobs that have to help support those aircraft, so what happens with everybody sitting at home is everybody’s home to be able to answer the phone and have time to talk and learn a little about the Air Force,” Stoner explained. “So, it’s actually helped us out with informing the public about what the Air Force does and how it can affect your future.”
While The Pentagon has stopped some troop movement around the country and the world, they are not stopping people from attending basic training, but they are being cautious in an effort to keep everyone healthy.
Stoner said that trainees are put into quarantine for 14 days upon their arrival, during which their movement is limited, and their training consists of exercises that can be done without travel.
As for anyone looking to join the Air Force right now, Stoner hopes that people just keep an open mind, even in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s a little bit different, a lot of our (recruiters) job is customer service and face-to-face interaction,” he said. “We’re still the same person as we were when we were meeting face to face, we just have to kind of think outside the box and just be open-minded to the new process, just to keep everybody else safe.”
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