JULY 16, 2024 — Army recruiting brigades and battalions will soon get new technical experts as the first group of warrant officers graduated today from the final phase of the talent acquisition technician training course.
The class of 25 officers completed two weeks of fundamental data analytics training at the Adjutant General School on Fort Jackson, South Carolina followed by eight weeks of technical training at the Recruiting and Retention College at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
“Through experimentation with new partnerships, and a thriving learning environment, these warrant officers are intended to be the linchpins in their future assignments,” said Col. Christine Rice, officer in charge of the Army’s workforce redesign initiative. “They will be strategic advisers to the commanders on the ground that are recruiting every single day for our nation.”
Army senior leaders created this new military occupational specialty, along with an enlisted talent acquisition specialist MOS, when they announced changes to the recruiting enterprise last fall.
Since then, a team from the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, the Adjutant General School and the Recruiting and Retention College worked with industry and academic partners to create this course.
The Army selected these warrant officers based on past performance and attributes they displayed that best fit the talent acquisition career field.
These Soldiers completed the training program that features 75 lessons designed to teach them how to leverage technology, social media, artificial intelligence and other tools to make an impact at their recruiting commands.
“I think with this MOS coming out, we are one piece of a transformation process for the recruiting environment within the Army, and I think our piece of it is to make our units more efficient,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sasha Adams Gibson, course graduate. “So, the more efficient our recruiting can be, then the more Soldiers that we can get into our actual force command units that make us more ready, agile and prepared to defend the nation.”
The talent acquisition technicians will arrive at either a recruiting brigade or battalion in late August or early September. The course developers will take the feedback they gained from this group and apply it to future classes.
“I think the great thing here is that you have an opportunity to make changes on the fly as we learn from these warrant officers,” Rice said. “The feedback they gave us to develop better training, to change, and to make improvements is going to be extremely beneficial for this occupation in the future.”
The next two groups of Soldiers to attend the training will follow a slightly different path. They are noncommissioned officers who must first attend warrant officer candidate school before going to the Adjutant General School for four weeks.
The next group is scheduled to attend warrant officer school in September, followed by the talent acquisition technician training to close out the calendar year. The third group will follow them in January with the hope of having them at their units by next spring.
These three initial groups will fill approximately half of the talent acquisition technician career field as the Army continues its recruiting enterprise transformation.
“[Recruiting] is ever evolving,” Gibson said. “So, I have to look at how I can make my unit better when I arrive. I also have to take the time to reassess how I can make this job better and [classes] after us better, so that we can become more efficient and actually make that impact that was envisioned for us to make.”
The enlisted talent acquisition specialist course is still being developed and the team plans to use what they learned from this course to help shape that curriculum.
By Christopher Hurd, Army News Service