Who were you the night before you started your internship? Who are you as you walk off site at the end of your last day? What’s changed? If you could go back in time to talk to the you you were the night before it all started, what would you say to your past self? Would your past self be impressed with / proud of your future self? How come/why not?
Before I started my internship I was just another student looking forward to embarking on a great oppurtunity. As i started my first few weeks of the internship I noticed that I was loving the work that I was doing. Nearing the end of my Internship I knew that I had changed and changed for the better. The reason was because I got to spend time with my recruiter who is a role model citizen. By this I mean Always doing good and keeping people in line. If I could talk to my past self about the internship I would say to myself "to keep an open mind and do your work". I know that my past self would be impressed with my future self because I am definitely a changed man. I changed in obedience and work ethic in only a couple months of doing an internship. Im glad I did this internship and became a better man because of it.
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How would the world be different if your industry didn’t exist, or if it were to somehow disappear? Speculate and ponder.
Well if the industry of recruiting in general not just Marines but all branches didn't exist then I think our armed forces would be a lot smaller. Because without recruiting offices there is no one you can reach out to get information from. If you wanted to join there would probably just be one place to sign up and that's it. It reminds me of the time when there were drafts and when you were 18 you had to sign up. Because without a recruiting station and recruiters they would probably still have the draft and not everyone would appreciate that. One story that really stuck out to me when I was on the job was when my recruiter and I were in the office with his Sgt major. The reason this story stuck out to me was that I had never really seen him being yelled at before. We were in the office with other poolees such as myself and one kid did not bring a belt like he was supposed to. So Sgt major saw this and then gave my recruiter a stern talking to. Even though it wasn't his fault that the kid didn't bring a belt. It was the fact that he was in charge of him and that looks bad on the recruiter. This was when I realized how strict the rank structure was and the fact that everyone has a superior.
Sometimes there can be a rather fine line between work and play. How does your industry attempt to play? Is it productive? Should it (does it have to) be?
I like this question because the Marines in general or atleast the ones Ive been around have two different modes that they are in. At one point they can be very strict and have unbelievable bearing and yell at the top of their lungs. The next time you see them they can be completely laid back and the funniest guys you know. This has happened to me alot because my recruiter usually talked to me in a formal voice but when we are with other recruits it catches me off guard when he starts to yell. There are times when I know I have to have bearing and there are times when I can be relaxed. We always laugh and have a good time and play but at the same time we are productive. The only time we really don't play around is when there are multiple recruits that need to learn something. Week five was a big week for my recruiter and I because we had a couple meetings with students from Waltham and one student from North. For these meetings I had to brush up on what my recruiter taught me i.e all the opportunities the Marines have to offer. Not only that but what I went through when I joined so that I could offer them a first hand experience of what they might go through. When the meetings actually took place they went fairly well. The student from Newton did not end up committing to the Marines but it was fine because we got all the information out to him in case at another point he would want to join. He wanted to go to college first which is understandable but said when he gets there he might join the reserves. On the other hand the Waltham kids were motivated and joined on the spot.
What is the goal of your industry? Customer satisfaction? Expansion? Profit? Research? How do you know? Is it static, or does it change?
The goal of my industry is to find motivated individuals to join the United States Marines. Out of the millions of people in Massachusetts there are only about 100 individuals who are signed up and enlisted in the Marines. There are several recruiting stations in the greater Boston area that cover Massachusetts. These stations are pretty set in stone so I dont believe that expansion is necessary. Also there is no profit if anything they are paying the people who join. There is never big change in the Industry except for chain of command. For example my recruiter was in the Waltham office for about a year. Then recently while I was with him he had just been promoted to take over the Boston office. It is such a large jump because in the Waltham office it was just one recruiter being him but now he is in control of 5 recruiters in the Boston office. Now he doesnt go out and talk to kids, he oversees paperwork and other recruiters. The general attitude at my internship is pretty positive. The whole building is shared between the Army, Navy, and Marines. The branches all have offices next to each other and most of the time when they are bored they will go in another respected office and make jokes. There definitely isn't gossiping at the work place and most of the recruiters for each branch are evaluated sometimes by higher rankings. They are driven by their work though because they want to keep their jobs as recruiters. They also want to get promoted as fast as possible so they don't screw around. I don't think that they think of their jobs as just a "job" its pretty much a lifestyle for them because I know for my recruiter he gets up at 5 every morning and doesn't leave the office until about 8. Half of his life is recruiting so it seems that hes pretty consumed by it. This is definitely a job where the people make you want to be apart of it because their whole job is trying to recruit people into the military so they have to make you want it.
Loving my internship and I feel that spending more time around marines will help me get into the environment I need to be in. My last week at the internship we did a lot of traveling around and I realized that its not a very easy job. Your constantly looking for people and driving people around getting them to where they need to be. For example my recruiter had to get up at 4:30 to pick someone up at 5 to bring them to Boston so that they could swear in. Although since there is a lot of socializing I wouldn't mind doing this job later in my career for the Marines
The industry of Marine recruiting sustains itself economically through the government. Since it is a government organization they fund themselves to stay afloat. I did just find out recently that all the Marine recruiters get paid through their respective rank salaries. In the military the amount of pay you get depends on your rank and it doesn't matter what job you have anyone at a specific rank is going to have the same monthly pay. Unless a certain job is offering bonuses because of a need for men at that job they might get an extra bonus when signing for that job. Knowing how the business sustains itself doesn't affect my perspective on it. One thing though is that recruiters work hard because they want it to look good on their record to possibly get promoted. My recruiter told me that if someone cant talk to high school kids for a job how are they going to lead Marines.
For my industry there really is not a competition between branches. Why? Because everyone is aimed towards the same goal and that is recruiting. Having seen and been in the industry for 2 weeks I have noticed that recruiters like to get together and help each other out. For an example if a recruiter from the Boston area finds a a motivated individual but that individual lives in Newton then he will have to hand the kid over because hes out of district. Generally though there are about 3 recruiters per office if its a big office. Each recruiter has to meet a quota which is around 2 or 3 people a month but on top of that to make the office look good the team will need about 8 people a month. So they will all work together to create a efficient recruiting environment.
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AuthorI am Noah Decaille and I'm 18 years old. In June I will be shipping off to Marine corps boot camp Archives
June 2015
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