No Responses!

jbrichmond22

5-Year Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2012
Messages
99
These Naval Recruiters won't email back and I really need to get my interview done so that I can move on in the NROTC Scholarship application. Should I call the local office again and ask for another officer? The current one I've spoken to told me to email him on Monday, and I haven't heard another word since then; he told me he would get back to me and set up an interview next week... Is three-four days a common response time? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
These Naval Recruiters won't email back and I really need to get my interview done so that I can move on in the NROTC Scholarship application. Should I call the local office again and ask for another officer? The current one I've spoken to told me to email him on Monday, and I haven't heard another word since then; he told me he would get back to me and set up an interview next week... Is three-four days a common response time? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Calm down. You have plenty of time. I would email him again just to try to confirm if he got the first email. You might also consider calling the office and making sure you got the email address correctly.
 
Follow Kinnem's advice. I think most posters are not responding to you because there are too many what ifs?

He could be on leave

He could have 25 other applicants

He said next week for interviews. He may have not responded because they are setting the schedule for next weeks interviews, and will send you the time and date.

This is not a sprint, it is a marathon.
 
These Naval Recruiters won't email back and I really need to get my interview done so that I can move on in the NROTC Scholarship application. Should I call the local office again and ask for another officer? The current one I've spoken to told me to email him on Monday, and I haven't heard another word since then; he told me he would get back to me and set up an interview next week... Is three-four days a common response time? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I don't want to sound insulting, so please don't get me wrong. I've just seen a lot of this problem during my time before, during and after ROTC.

You need to step up and not be passive with this stuff. Emails are a passive form of communication and you're going to learn that they will often go unread. If you need to get in touch with them, call. And keep calling every day and leaving messages until they respond. Don't worry about whether or not you're bothering them. ITS THEIR JOB. It sucks but you just have to make yourself annoying sometimes to be heard.

I personally hate email when it comes to this stuff. The best way to get someone to know you're serious is fact-to-face. Second best is calling.
 
Nick, I understand your position, but I don't think 3 days to respond is an OMG way too long to respond. Yes, this is his job, but I highly doubt he has only the OP to deal with, it could be that the recruiter is trying to do a schedule de-confliction for the interviews, and that is not always easy to work out. It takes time, especially if the interviews are occurring over days, and as we all know it can also be done a queue scenario.

I would be with you if it was the week he thought he would have the interview, but not at this current moment.

As far as the squeaky wheel gets greased, yes, you are right, but remember sometimes the person greasing the wheel resents hearing that squeak! This is an interview and you don't want to enter with the thought they say hear comes PIMA (yes, if you can do anagrams you figured out my moniker :shake:) candidate Smith!

First impressions matter.

IMPO, I would not request another officer. By asking so quickly for another officer, because the 1st did not answer in 3-4 days, you accomplish nothing positive. Don't fool yourself those 2 will talk about you. They are peers. To assume that one will not support the other when it has been only 3 days is not a road I would go down now. As I stated earlier you don't know, how many candidates they are working with, what is going on behind the scenes, in essence you are assuming they are sitting at their desks talking about how the NL trounced the AL during the All Stars game and not working on your file.

Be honest, that is not what you believe, correct? You believe they are working on it, but you are so excited to move forward with your future you want an answer. Welcome to the military! HURRY UP AND WAIT!

This will be your entire yr. Hurry up get papers in...wait, wait, and wait some more. Hurry up and submit more papers, and than wait, wait, and wait some more. G forbid you need to change the school, it is more Hurry up and wait.

Sorry to tell you, but that will also be 4 yrs in ROTC and also your AD life.
 
I disagree Pima. Business protocol in every business I have been in requires 24 hour turnaround in email. More than 24 hours to respond means either: 1) the person is not in and forgot to set up the "out of office" notification, or 2) can't get through all their emails.

Either way, it is unprofessional.
 
Great, but the military is a bureaucracy, with lots of chains up the pipeline and back down again. The recruiter is not in charge of how fast it goes. He is also there to meet, greet and answer questions from candidates that walk through their door like jbrichmond22.

Would you want him to not give your child undivided attention for that hr or two? Suppose he has 30 candidates, does he respond via email to the 30 candidates with "I have no answer" and let your child sit there for 2 hrs as he answers every email? Should he come in 2 hrs early, and stay 2 hrs late?

Tell me what is his option? If he had an answer, wouldn't he contact them ASAP?

Or are you stating this AD recruiter is resting on his laurels, collecting a paycheck and doesn't give a flying fig?

It has to be one of these options... demand he works 12 hrs a day so he can come in early, stay late to answer emails, and give your child their attention when they enter the office, or was so lazy not to care enough about his career or the military to ignore.

Granted there are those that are the latter. Typically known as "short" meaning they are leaving the military, but they are not the majority.

I am someone who believes in every member is working at the highest degree of integrity, and even when they are short, their pride in their branch would never allow them to be lazy.

I feel that although the OP didn't realize in his post he insinuated this idea with should I ask to have a new recruiter assigned.
 
PIMA,

the "bureaucracy" needs to have (maybe does have) protocols about turnaround time on voicemail and email. Your post leaves out the most obvious and reasonable option: organize a job function such that there is time to answer emails (and phone voicemails) within 24 hours. There is no law that mandates a worker schedule him/herself back to back to back so that they have no time to respond to emails (voicemails). Both email and voicemail have the capability to alert a sender that the person is on vacation, on leave, out of the country on business, etc., with a backup person to contact.

No, sorry, not responding to email or voicemail within 24 hours (remember that is over parts of two working days) with an automated status message, or an actual response, is just plain...unprofessional. Makes the Service look unresponsive, uncaring, or the worst: incompetent.
 
Last edited:
Okey dokey. Not being facetious, just agreeing to disagree.

I still say, you did not answer my argument.

Would you want him to not give your child undivided attention for that hr or two? Suppose he has 30 candidates, does he respond via email to the 30 candidates with "I have no answer" and let your child sit there for 2 hrs as he answers every email? Should he come in 2 hrs early, and stay 2 hrs late?

Tell me what is his option? If he had an answer, wouldn't he contact them ASAP?

Or are you stating this AD recruiter is resting on his laurels, collecting a paycheck and doesn't give a flying fig?

It has to be one of these options... demand he works 12 hrs a day so he can come in early, stay late to answer emails, and give your child their attention when they enter the office, or was so lazy not to care enough about his career or the military to ignore.

Your answer was organize.

Okay, Organize how?

Remember they work in a recruiting office, that means they RECRUIT people who walk into their office. They don't know if 20 will walk in that day or 0, how do you plan your day with 30 candidates and 20 new recruits without IMPO not organizing, but instead prioritizing?

Honestly, I think our difference here is based on one issue. I give the recruiter the benefit of the doubt, and I fear you have already blamed them. Neither you nor or I know the real facts, our position is opinion only based on the OP's opinion.

I don't want to argue with you. I think arguing only hurts the OP in finding an answer because now he is left with polar opinions.
 
Last edited:
Nice to see things haven't changed much in the last two years. My son hardly ever got a response back from an email, when and if he did, it was usually a few weeks later. The phone was a much better mode of communication. In a conversation my son had with his POC she mentioned that her email box often crashed due to the high volumn of emails she received, she said she tried to sift through the emails to get back to the urgent ones first. I had to laugh once when she relayed to him that her email box was filled with emails asking "When will I hear if I get the scholarship" even though the board was still a month away. I was also surprised at the small number of POC's that handle the thousands of applications, it's a wonder they answer any emails at all.

You think this is bad, wait until the new Lt has to arrange to have their personal belongings shipped to their new Post. For requests that are submitted now, the soonest date for shippment is the end of October, and it's taking up to two plus weeks just to get an appointment to request shippment, Welcome to the military, it doesn't take them long to learn the system, unfortunatly that's about when they change it again.
 
jbrichmond,

Glad to read it worked out.


Jcleppe,

I kind of know about Army TMO (2 tours), but I will say AF does the same thing too, he just has to go to TMO and show orders. This is when you need to be the squeaky wheel. Yes, sometimes you need to be a squeaky wheel, you just have to determine when you should be that wheel and when you shouldn't...i.e. it isn't sounding like a squeak, but a low annoying whine!

It use to be worse yrs and yrs ago. You had to give them 6 days they could choose from, but the kicker was it had to be in the same month. Not a problem when your RNLD is the 15-31st. Big problem when it is the 8th, (remember Sat and Sunday don't count) and you were only allowed 3 days at the Q's out processing and it was a 3 day travel to your station. We actually had to pack up one time almost 2 weeks before leaving because the only way to follow their rules was to have the move selection dates for the prior month, and of course they didn't give us the 6th day, they gave us the 1st day available...the 22nd the month prior! :thumbdown:

Lesson learned...buy air mattresses! Believe it or not it gets worse, because your DS like mine are new commissions, they could pack the majority of it in the car. This happened when we had 2 kids (3 and 1) + a dog! It got even worse when we went to CGSC as a sister school. Army students got their orders 1st, AF last. By the time we got to TMO, we lived in boxes packed around the house (12K pounds) for 3 weeks. 3 kids, 2 dogs and a cat...the phrase shoot me now took on a whole new meaning, the cliche that bud doesn't make enough beer, was a pretty close second! FYI, beds were left on floors, video game systems, and games boxed up, computer boxed up, only boxes left opened were linens, 1 dishpack, washer and dryer were even disconnected and wrapped:unhappy: I can still give you the directions to the laundromat in Leavenworth. It became a social hang out those 3 weeks because we were all in the same boat! Looking for that advil bottle?

Like everyone says, if you can't get accustomed to HURRY UP AND WAIT, than the military might not be a good fit!

As much as I may beaach about those days, they are the days we laugh about now! Plus, I really can tell my kids when they complain' go cry me a river, been there, done that, and I have pictures to prove it!:shake:

Back on topic.

Jcleppe said:
had to laugh once when she relayed to him that her email box was filled with emails asking "When will I hear if I get the scholarship" even though the board was still a month away. I was also surprised at the small number of POC's that handle the thousands of applications, it's a wonder they answer any emails at all.

That was my point. You can't assume you are the only one emailing this person. They can't send a mass email to calm all of your nerves, because than everyone's email address is attached to the mass email. That leaves one option, one by one email. Imagine 1 by 1 and they could have 100 to respond to everyday. How fast can you type and still meet and recruit new candidates.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top