I Want You After The U.S. Army

HR Magazine, April, 2001 by Andrea C. Poe

Imagine a recruiting program that lets someone else find your prospective employees, match them to your job descriptions and train them in skills you want, while simultaneously helping these young recruits mature and learn about reliability.

Now imagine that in exchange for using this one-stop recruitment and training shop, you have to wait at least three years to get the employee through your door.

That's the tradeoff in a new recruiting program the U.S. Army hopes will meet its need for new soldiers while helping private-sector employees meet their needs for employees a few years down the road.

The program, called the Partnership for Youth Success (PaYS), is a departure from the way the military services usually bring employers and military members together.

Rather than waiting until a soldier is meaning the end of his enlistment, then linking the soldier with various employers at that time. PaYS connects the soldier with one specific employer far earlier--at the time the soldier initially enlists. Throughout the three to six-year enlistment, the solider knows how his prospective employer is and what specific job awaits him. While the Army's focus not on providing job training for the private sector, the soldier can choose military occupations that will help him prepare for his private-sector job. At the same time, the employer can build a reltionship with the future employee.

According to the Army and participating employers, PaYS takes planning and patience on the part of employers. They are promising jobs to people that won't be available to work for several years. And the program is so new that no employer yet has seen a soldier walk through its doors as an employee; the soldiers who have signed up so far are still in the first year of their Army careers. But participating employers say they believe the Army could be a good source of diverse, qualified candidates.

How PaYS Works

The program was born last summer in response to the need to boost recruitment, according to the program director, Col. Robert Qualls at Fort Knox in Knoxville, Tenn.

For the Army, the program also serves another purpose: increasing the military's visibility among civilians like those working for the employers PaYS serves. "A lot of people in civilian life have no contact with the military," Qualls says. "If you discount the World War II veterans, only 6 percent of the population of the U.S. has served in the military. We see [PaYS] as a way to sell a positive image of the Army."

Five months into the program, PaYS had signed up 22 recruits and had seven employers participating. But Qualls says the program is designed to enlist up to 5,000 people each year, and he expects to have that many total participants by 2002 as word spreads among recruits and as the numbers of employers increase.

PaYS is targeted at new recruits, who generally are between the ages of 17 and 21. When the recruits choose from among nearly 100 Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) for which they will train, they also can troll the Army's PaYS database for a similar, specific job with a company that agrees to hire them after they've completed their military service. The database includes participating employers' detailed job descriptions. The Army links each job description to an MOS.

For example, a new recruit who signs up for MOS 81L--namely, lithography--can look through the PaYS jobs to see which openings match the experience she'll gain in the Army as a lithographer. If she finds a match, she signs a letter of intent indicating that she'll take the job when her stint in the Army is completed.

The letter of intent is not legally binding, so there is no penalty imposed on employers that renege on their promise of a job. Qualls notes that the Army is well aware that economic vagaries such as a recession could eliminate the jobs employers predict will exist in several years. The soldier's letter of intent gives her preferred hiring status, not a guaranteed job, Qualls says. If an employer reneges, the Army helps soldiers find other jobs.

But the letter of intent also is not legally binding on the soldier. If a soldier agrees to take a job but later decides to re-enlist, the Army says it will help the employer find a qualified replacement through other channels, such as its more traditional job programs for departing service members, according to Qualls.

Qualls adds that most participating employers plan to give PaYS participants work credit for their military experience, even though the Army does not require employers to do so. "Generally, [PaYS participants will] start out where someone who had comparable experience in the workforce would rather than at entry level," says Qualls.

No Chance to Check Candidates

Employers do not have an opportunity to meet with or screen PaYS participants before the recruit signs up for employers' jobs. Army guidance counselors handle recruits' questions and help recruits decide on jobs.

The lack of any chance to check out recruits before they accept a PaYS job doesn't disturb State Farm Insurance, one of the seven employers currently participating. "We're not hiring the person enlisting in the Army," says Tracey Anderson, State Farm superintendent of corporate human resources in Bloomington, Ill. "We're hiring the person they'll be when they come out."