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Conversation with Marylene Delbourg-Delphis
Caleb Fullhart
has been in recruiting for 14 years and specializes in candidate generation,
social media and advanced sourcing techniques. He loves everything about HR,
especially technologies that power the intrinsic human dimension of HR. He went
into our industry on almost day one of his career and was inspired to do so
thanks to an Army recruiter.
How did an Army recruiter ended up defining your career path?
I joined the army when an army recruiter came
to my high school, Fridley in Minnesota. I was interested
in hearing what he had to say. I was 17 and I didn't really have huge plans at the
time. I said to myself "Sure, why not?" First what I had to do was to
take an ASVAB, which stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and is basically a test that
tells you what you are good at. From there I had a couple of options for my MOS
(Military Occupational Specialties).
Initially I was to be going to be an 11 BRAVO, which was Infantry but after the
ASVAB,
I ended up going as a 35 Foxtrot, which was an intelligence analyst. I did not
stay in the Army and moved to College to study International Business and
Political Sciences, but this Army recruiter did influence my life forever.
Basically, he taught me what recruiting was about, or better, I showed to me
what recruiting done right looks like and that I will never forget that. If I
look at how the army recruiter interacted with me when I initially expressed
interest, I am still impressed. He called my parents and built a very personal
relationship with me until he handed me off. I would say that that approach was
a logical approach and still is in my eyes. To this day, I like his
interpersonal skills. I didn't
know what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. But he trusted me, helped me to
grow and built my confidence. In many ways, the best part of sourcing and
recruiting is to help people discover who they really want to become.
Now, how do you give back to the Army?
Each time I come across a Veteran, I listen. Veterans do
not like the civilian transactional logic — or maybe, I should say
transactional habits. They like to build relationships and they are all about
the best way to create and consolidate relationships. I am very excited to be
part of the Bazaarvoice's program for Veterans. The company is passionate
about putting a solid plan, with relevant metrics and targets.
There is a lot of room for
growth when transitioning from military to civilian but
we need to help Veterans translate their skill set into civilian terms. In the
old days, Veterans represented a significant part of the population and when
they wanted to move into civilian life, they could often find a Veteran in the
hiring process capable of translating their skills into lay people words.
Today, the Veteran population is much smaller. So it's important to implement
MOS translators showing how the code signs that Veterans had during their
service translates into civilian jobs. It's not rocket science. But it must be
done. This helps both recruiters and Veterans better and faster assess how a
resume matches a job opening and it's obvious that this improves the ability of
recruiters and Veterans to relate. We are very excited to be implementing a MOS
translator within our TalentCircles network. Our hope is that this tool will
help bridge the communication gap between veterans and recruiters.
That is really a heartfelt article. It is sometime the less well-known material becomes the most dissertation interesting one. It is one of the best material I have analysis. Wish this will have a second place.
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