Recruiters Gone AWOL

[w4nt2baDDS]

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I'm currently applying to dental school and believe a HPSP would be the best fit for my wife and I. The idea of serving my country and possibly entering a residency program within the military sounds great. I've read quite a few threads and definitely understand the pros and cons.

Wanting to get the application process started I decided I would call the health/medical/officer profession recruiter in my area for each branch to get the ball rolling. All three branches are supposed to be open until 5pm on Friday so I figured calling between 1-2pm should be fine. I ended up receiving the voice mail for the Army and the Air Force and a "sorry, the message box is currently full" for the Navy. Determined to get in contact with someone, I drove to both the Army and Navy recruitment offices (which are about 30-40 min from each other) and reached them between 2:30-3:30pm. Sure enough, both of the offices were empty... not a soul to be seen. The Air Force branch is an hour and a half drive away so I just left them a phone message with my intent to find out more information about starting the HPSP process. I live in Los Angeles, I just figured that with the quantity of prospective dental and medical students in the area the recruiting offices would want to stay open for their scheduled hours. Is there some kind of military holiday going on?

I work full time, Monday-Friday, and the opportunity to go to the recruitment offices in person isn't the easiest for me. I am honestly a little bummed out, but I'm definitely going to stay persistent. It would have been kind of nice to get the application process started this weekend though. From what I have read, it's rather crucial to get Air Force HPSP paperwork and physical out of the way ASAP.

I was hoping the recruiters would guide me on my initial steps, but maybe SDN is the more reliable source. Can anyone tell me what processes, documents, or steps I should get started? Is it even logical to start any of these steps prior to talking with a recruiter?

 

[chill45]

Unfortunately thats just the way it goes sometimes...and don't expect each branch's recruiter to treat you the same...not to bash the Army in any way but my initial recruiter for them was pretty much a dud. He started out great by driving 2 hours to my house to start my paperwork and when he realized something on my app might get me a dq he pretty much said there was no way I could even get into MEPS and disappeared with the wind, despite numerous phone calls. My Navy recruiter bent over backwards to get me my MEPS physical where I passed without any issue. It's all relative though and the same situation could happen with any recruiter, but the point is don't give up because some recruiters may just not want to talk to you and you need to move on to another one. Sometimes the recruiters do have to leave the office though to do some kind of field training or meetings or whatever, and a Friday afternoon is not a good time to catch one in the office (in my experience lol).

Also you are calling the health recruiters correct? Because there are different recruiters for enlisted and officers and you need to make sure you are contacting the officer ones. I think for the army it didn't list him on their site so the enlisted recruiter had him call me. If you don't have any luck in a week search for another one further away and maybe they can help you out. One thing I learned in that process is that you need to stay on top of them constantly to make sure your stuff is going through. I was a little unfortunate in that my Navy recruiter retired about 2 months before I got my acceptance into dental school because he was always the one calling me to make sure I was good to go, but once his replacement took over I was the one always having to stop and check in with him to make sure things were still rolling.

And to answer your last question I'm pretty sure is a no. I would think you would have to have a recruiter to start the process. There wasn't really anything he did though that couldn't be done over the phone and with a lot of mailing paperwork back and forth, so like I said earlier a recruiter further away might be a viable option.

 

[deleted480308]

call the national number and say you aren't getting your phone calls returned by (insert name) and you want the contact number for a different recruiter.....

 

[w4nt2baDDS]

If you don't have any luck in a week search for another one further away and maybe they can help you out. One thing I learned in that process is that you need to stay on top of them constantly to make sure your stuff is going through.

Thanks for the helpful information chill45 and sharing your experience with the HPSP processes. Yeah, I definitely made sure I was contacting the health recruiters only, had to call the national number to get an updated health recruiter phone number for the AF -- the number listed online was "we're sorry, that number is no longer in service". I'll definitely stay vigilant and hope my luck turns around next week. Seems like mornings and Monday-Thursday will be my best bet. Now that I know what it takes, I'll have to really push to make this happen!

call the national number and say you aren't getting your phone calls returned by (insert name) and you want the contact number for a different recruiter.....

I'm going to vigorously attempt to contact the recruiters next week and hope the HPSP process can get under way. If I somehow get completely ignored for a week without any legitimate reason or explanation (which I'm still hoping will not be likely) then I'll definitely seek out other recruiters.


Also, I have a question about MEPS. Growing up I was very athletic and still have an athletic build but I am currently overweight and will need to cut 30lbs or so to pass the physical (I'm 6'2'' - 235lbs) . If I start the HPSP early August and get MEPS done early to mid October, will I still be able to submit everything in time for the first board decisions? (which are usually in January? -- February for AF?)

Lastly, if I don't get a 4 year HPSP can I be granted a 3 year before my first year of dental school?

 

[deleted480308]

Thanks for the helpful information chill45 and sharing your experience with the HPSP processes. Yeah, I definitely made sure I was contacting the health recruiters only, had to call the national number to get an updated health recruiter phone number for the AF -- the number listed online was "we're sorry, that number is no longer in service". I'll definitely stay vigilant and hope my luck turns around next week. Seems like mornings and Monday-Thursday will be my best bet. Now that I know what it takes, I'll have to really push to make this happen!


I'm going to vigorously attempt to contact the recruiters next week and hope the HPSP process can get under way. If I somehow get completely ignored for a week without any legitimate reason or explanation (which I'm still hoping will not be likely) then I'll definitely seek out other recruiters.


Also, I have a question about MEPS. Growing up I was very athletic and still have an athletic build but I am currently overweight and will need to cut 30lbs or so to pass the physical (I'm 6'2'' - 235lbs) . If I start the HPSP early August and get MEPS done early to mid October, will I still be able to submit everything in time for the first board decisions? (which are usually in January? -- February for AF?)

Lastly, if I don't get a 4 year HPSP can I be granted a 3 year before my first year of dental school?

I went guard and had to make weight when I signed...I don't know if hpsp lets you slide on that

 

[Greyangel6]

Did you make sure that it's a medical recruiting place? Coz the first time I went to the wrong recruiting office (regular one for enlistment, not HPSP) and wasted 2 hours lol. Also, if its the right office, just go there, get their card, and call.

 

[w4nt2baDDS]

Did you make sure that it's a medical recruiting place? Coz the first time I went to the wrong recruiting office (regular one for enlistment, not HPSP) and wasted 2 hours lol. Also, if its the right office, just go there, get their card, and call.

My first phone call was to a regular enlistment recruiter who explained I had to make sure to contact only the health profession/medical recruitment offices. After that advice, I made sure I was calling only medical recruiting centers. I also drove to the Army and Navy recruiting centers (the ones specifically for health profession / medical recruitment) and the door was locked for both of them. Knocked on the doors a few times but no luck. It was around 3pm on Friday so I'm just thinking they all got an early jump on their weekend, I just thought they would stay open until 5pm because that's what their hours stated. I now know their hours are not as fixed as I thought and that I'll have to stay persistent if I want to make this happen.

I really appreciate everyone's feed back, lets me know I'm not running into some kind of weird anomaly and that recruiters can be a bit tricky to get a hold of.

 

[vellnueve]

Medical recruiters work out of the main recruiting offices (NRDs) in most cases - those are generally much more administrative than the recruiting offices you see in the malls/etc. Thus, Fridays are days they're more likely to leave early.

Call them on Monday, there's no need to drive out this early in the process...

 

[deleted480308]

And just know that even you find an honest one....medical stuff is such a niche that they often have no idea what they are talking about even though it's their job. Verify everything in writing. Their own words in an email don't count

 

[MaxAnn]

Sadly, this is a common problem.I've heard similar from all the branches. Recruiters have a great deal of autonomy, and some people cannot work effectively without constant supervision. This leads to scenarios like the one you described. I would call the 1800 USA NAVY and ask for information of another recruiter or insert name as was directed by someone previously.

 

[w4nt2baDDS]

Was able to get in touch with the recruiters today! I tried yesterday and had no luck. I was going to call the national numbers on Thursday is things didn't turn around. Thanks for the help guys! Feel like a few gears are starting to turn now -- woot! Now I just need to lose a few lbs for MEPS haha

 

[deleted480308]

Was able to get in touch with the recruiters today! I tried yesterday and had no luck. I was going to call the national numbers on Thursday is things didn't turn around. Thanks for the help guys! Feel like a few gears are starting to turn now -- woot! Now I just need to lose a few lbs for MEPS haha

If your recruiter can get you sent to dodmerb for a physical it will be an easier process (go to an actual doctors office instead of meps)

 

[w4nt2baDDS]

If your recruiter can get you sent to dodmerb for a physical it will be an easier process (go to an actual doctors office instead of meps)

This is exactly why SDN is awesome, you get helpful information that you typically would be oblivious to! This would also be really help for me too, because I have some scoliosis. It has never hindered me but they're going to have to measure the curvature (via a Cobb angle method) and make sure it's within reason. Going to dodmerb could really speed this process up for me.. Would suck if this disqualified me!

 

[willwash]

Yeah things aren't like they were 10 years ago. With the sh***y economy the bonuses are all drying up and people are banging down the door trying to get in.

Makes a recruiter's job really, really easy (at least in terms of "making numbers"), so a lot of them barely even come to work anymore.

 

[Army Healthcare Recruiter]

Hey I'm at work everyday 🙁 lol if you need additional help UCLA I am here. I just started my membership on SDN so I will be a permanent fixture here. Also we have a facebook page Army healthcare recruiting center morrow please share and like us.