As the number of recruits for the Coast Guards increases, recruiters say the agency needs more applicants who can work with the system, not less.
“It’s not like we’re cutting corners,” said David M. Guglielmi, the Coast Commander for the California Guard.
“We’re not doing this to make people unhappy.”
Gugliilmi said the agency has a lot of training programs to help recruits find work.
He said the Coast’s recruitment system has more than 2,000 employees, including recruiters and recruiters’ assistants.
Guglie’s recruitment chief, Brig. Gen. Tom C. Fagundes, said in an interview that Coast officials will continue to focus on recruiting as many people as possible to serve.
Fagunde, who has been the agency’s recruiting director since 2016, said the recruitment process has evolved since the Coast launched its new website in July 2016.
The website launched with a promise to help recruiters navigate the recruitment system, which requires applicants to complete a questionnaire and take a test to be placed in the program.
But Fagunes said the new website does not give recruiters enough information to make an informed decision.
The recruitment process requires applicants have experience in the military, which Fagune said does not necessarily guarantee a job.
The recruitment site was not designed to help applicants with a “credibility gap,” he said.
Instead, it allows applicants to fill out a questionnaire, and then submit that questionnaire to the Coast.
Fagsens website says the information is provided by recruiters.
Criminals can also apply to the agency by filling out a background check.
But applicants are also required to answer a series of questions on the website, such as how long they’ve been in the country and how much money they make.
“What’s important is that the person we’re trying to hire is a qualified person and has a high-level of responsibility and has an ability to work with people,” Fagunda said.
Fagunda has been working with recruiters since the beginning of the recruitment campaign, and he said he is aware of the difficulty applicants face.
“It can be difficult for applicants to understand what we’re doing,” Fagan said.
The Coast says it is increasing its workforce in the recruiting field, with about 2,700 positions open this year.
The Coast said in the last fiscal year, nearly 1,100 positions were filled.
Faggundes said recruiters are also working on ways to make the process more efficient, such a “scaled down” recruitment process, or “safer-net” recruiting.
That system allows applicants who are more experienced and who are working with the agency to apply for a job in a group rather than one person.
However, recruitings in the past have been slower than expected, Fagunia said.
Fagan said he does not have an answer as to why recruiters have been slow to fill positions.
Last month, the National Academy of Sciences reported that recruiting has become a “profoundly understaffed and underfunded” profession.
The academy said in its report that it will continue working to improve recruitment, including creating incentives for applicants and improving recruitment processes.
In response to the academy report, the U.S. Coast Guard launched a new recruiting website and added a recruiting tool to help people find jobs.
The agency said it has also improved its processes for hiring and training recruits and is making recruiting more streamlined.
Fogundes and other Coast officials said that the agency is making changes to improve the process.
But the Coast will not change its process because it is “the best way to fill the jobs in the system,” Faggundas said.
“We are not going to change that,” he added.
