An education for your military or civilian goals

00:00 I’d like to invite up Colonel Garland Williams from University of Phoenix and Apollo Group, because veteran recruiting has always been something that’s been so special to me, something that we should be able to solve.
00:13 It should be so much easier to solve.
00:15 I’d like to invite him up, because he’s coming up—he has one of the most unique perspectives to veteran recruitment.
00:21 Apollo Education is committed to 20 percent of their hires being veterans.
00:26 They also have developed military recruiting courses and how-to’s.
00:30 I’d love to invite him up to come and talk about it.
00:32 [Applause, Music]
00:36 Thanks for having me.
00:39 Well, Mark, with your permission, I’m gonna spend about the next five minutes trying to change their mind and be a salesman.
00:44 Is that okay?
00:45 That works perfectly.
00:46 Okay.
00:47 I can’t really see you guys.
00:48 You can be a little bit anonymous.
00:49 How many of you in your open job positions have the word infantryman in there?
00:57 Nobody.
00:58 Okay, how about tank gunner?
01:01 Artillery men, do you want to lob some rounds?
01:02 Red Bull does.
01:03 Red Bull, cool.
01:06 Oh, no, I’m just kidding.
01:07 Well, I know you have a fighter pilot in your midst.
01:08 I know that.
01:09 You might want to think about him.
01:11 You got a combat engineer that blows stuff up, ready?
01:15 They’re not taking it, Mark.
01:16 No.
01:17 All right, I gotta convince you.
01:18 I retired from the Army in 2009.
01:21 For the last five years at the University of Phoenix, I’ve had a chance to work with 45,000 military students.
01:27 We have graduated 100,000 military since 9/11 alone.
01:33 The 28 years before that, I had the opportunity, the honor, and the privilege to work with the most talented and intellectual young men and women that this nation ever has produced.
01:43 Let me describe ‘em to you.
01:45 They are about 18, 19, 20 years old.
01:48 They are high school graduates.
01:50 They’ve come from all walks of America.
01:55 You can’t pinpoint that.
01:57 They have signed up to deploy anywhere to 12 months or extended.
02:02 They never know when they’re going on deployment, when they’re coming back.
02:05 Hopefully they’re coming back.
02:08 When they’re on deployment, they are at a patrol base, they’re on a checkpoint, they’re running missions.
02:15 They probably haven’t seen a shower like you and I took this morning for several months.
02:19 It does not meant they’re not clean.
02:21 They’ve all shaved that morning; at least the men have.
02:25 They’re very, very disciplined.
02:29 At any time during that day, they are making decisions that, if they get wrong, could mean somebody’s life.
02:36 You know something?
02:37 They don’t get it wrong.
02:38 Because if they got it wrong, you would see it on CNN, and you would see it on Fox News within 20, 30 minutes.
02:44 You haven’t seen that.
02:46 Anybody want to hire an infantryman yet?
02:49 Not yet.
02:50 Okay, I got a little more to do for you.
02:51 All right.
02:52 When you look at a resume, resume scares me to death.
02:55 Do you know first time I wrote a resume, I was 50 years old?
02:59 It scared me to death.
03:00 How do you put 28 years of blowing stuff up into two pages that somebody wants to talk to you about?
03:05 Don’t you just talk about what you’ve blown up?
03:07 That would be cool.
03:08 Yeah, yeah.
03:11 Water.
03:12 Yeah.
03:14 Ask that person what they did as an infantryman.
03:18 I boil it down to three things, the three Ms.
03:21 First of all, manpower.
03:23 How many men and women did they lead?
03:25 In what kind of positions?
03:29 How about money?
03:31 Did they bring something under budget?
03:33 Did they operate under an annual operating budget?
03:37 How about materiel?
03:38 How much stuff do they have?
03:39 Our youngest squad leaders in the Army are probably 20, 21 years old, and they’re signed for millions dollars’ worth of equipment.
03:45 They have to upkeep it; they have to make sure it’s accountable.
03:49 If they lose it, they have to pay for it.
03:50 Oh, yeah, if they don’t make sure it’s mission ready, that could cost lives.
03:53 They do it right.
03:56 Am I convincing you now?
03:58 Now, next time you go into an interview, you’re gonna see a soldier, a service member come in.
04:05 They may sit at a modified position of attention even via virtually.
04:10 That’s what they’ve been trained to do.
04:12 They’ve never done business interviews before.
04:14 They may say, “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” “Yes, ma’am,” “No, ma’am,” because that’s what they’ve been doing in the military.
04:19 Unless you’re from Atlanta like me and you were born that way.
04:24 They might not have the latest suit on, because, frankly, they haven’t worn a suit for a while.
04:28 They’ve worn this camouflage stuff that you see up on the screen.
04:32 Go past that.
04:33 When you’re talking to ‘em, again, virtually or in person, ask them, “How many manpower? How many men and women did you lead?”
04:40 I’ll give myself as an example.
04:42 At 22, I led 30 people; 30 men, ‘cause I was an engineer.
04:47 At 45, I led 23,000.
04:52 Are you interested now?
04:54 How about money?
04:56 When I was 22, as a platoon leader, small little bit of money.
05:01 When I was a major as an engineer in Sarajevo, I had a $76 million construction budget.
05:07 Getting interested?
05:09 Materiel, last major command I had was Garrison Command in Japan.
05:13 I had 15 installations, 15 small towns.
05:15 That’s a lot of stuff to keep up with.
05:17 You interested?
05:19 There’s a lot more of that coming.
05:20 There’s a million people coming out of the service over the next three years that are coming to look for you.
05:25 Look past their ill-fitting suits.
05:27 Look past their modified positions of attention.
05:29 Give ‘em a chance.
05:31 At the University of Phoenix, that’s what we’re trying to do.
05:33 We’re working on their education, because we want to make a transition from military to your organizations.
05:39 Did I get ‘em?
05:40 You got ‘em.
05:41 Cool.
05:42 All right.
05:43 Thanks, Mark.
05:44 Thank you.