DCO Help & Advice

[JoeAC]

Hello Everyone, I am new to the board and would like any advice/guidance anyone can give. I am interested in the DCO Intel Program. I have been trying to reach a recruiter for over a month now but have had zero luck getting a call back. I don't want to lose any time as I know there is a lot to be done to complete a packet.

I know recruiters are really busy but I really want to get on top of this. What can I do to help the process? Anyone have any links to documents I should start on? Anyone have a list of required docs.

Thank you,

Joe

 

[PenguinGal]

Welcome to AW, Joe. I don't have advice on the Intel side of things, but I was a pro-rec for the CEC DCO board this past cycle. I'm still waiting on my COMDOCs but hoping they come soon! I can hopefully offer some generic advice.

First, have you been trying to reach an officer or enlisted recruiter? Are you close to a recruiting office? Have you tried email? In my experience it is sometimes really difficult to get a recruiters attention if you are not going AD. Keep at it though. You will get through eventually.

Second, when you go make sure that you have everything in order. This means that you have your resume, official transcripts from all colleges (make doubly sure taht they don't do something stupid like my grad school and stamp "Released to Student" across the top of them). Make sure you are within BCA standards and have all medical paperwork for anything that might come up as a red flag on the medical form (PRK/lasik, other surgeries, etc, etc etc). You can also refer to the NRD Houston blog which gives a really nice link to a checklist of documents. http://recruitingcommand.com/wp-con...ist_Reserve-Direct-Commission-Officer-DCO.pdf Some of these documents can be found online but more than likely your recruiter will give you copies.

I'd love to offer more advice but I can't really as your profile is rather bare and I am not sure what else I can add without further information. If you have questions about the DCO application process in general, I'd be glad to help. I know we have some Intel folks hanging around here that can be of more help on that end!

 

[JoeAC]

Thank you, any information/advice from anyone helps.I spoke to an IDC OIC who said I was qualified so he referred me to an officer recruiter. I spoke to a recruiter and sent him an emailed with my details. Since then he hasn't returned my calls. I'm currently living in the UK so don't really know how much of a headache that could be for a recruiter. I have started requesting transcripts and medical records (I don't think I have any red flags).

Thank you for the link!

 

[Bam Bam]

Welcome to AW, Joe. I was also overseas when I started the DCO process. I was stationed with the Army as a civilian in Germany. My recruiter set up phone interviews for me because I couldn’t physically meet with any officers from the community that I was applying for. I’m not sure how long you plan to be in the UK but I can tell you that the process got much easier since we moved back to the states. My recruiter had me do a body composition assessment and weight in before I could submit my kit to the board. I also had to go down to meet with the NRD commander before they could send my kit forward. Neither of these could have been accomplished unless I was near a Navy recruiting station. There might be a liaison of recruiter in the UK that could take care of stuff like that for you but I’m not sure.

This process can take a very long time but as PenguinGal can attest, it is worth it. It has been 16 months since I started the DCO process and I still don’t have results from a board. I’ve been told that I should hear something very soon. If this is really what you want then go for it but be forewarned that it takes a lot of initiative on your part and lots of patience.

Good luck!

 

[yingty01]

Living in the U.K. won't be much of an impediment during the initial stages. You'll mostly be sending digital records to the recruiter, which obviously can be done from anywhere. The problem will occur when you need to do interviews with the OIC as well as the senior officer panel. There is a Reserve Intel unit in the U.K. that might be able to help when that time occurs. In the meantime, I'd continuing pinging the recruiter. If you still don't hear anything, I'd contact the supervisor in the district in which he works.

 

[Fronch]

I'm going up for the September IDC board myself, and I started the process of talking to recruiters, etc. back in November. So I can definitely verify that it's a slow process; it took a couple weeks before I could even get in touch with a Reserve officer recruiter. While a lot of the steps involve paperwork, getting transcripts, etc., you also have to do interviews, and these interviews (as far as I understand) take quite a bit of advance notice to set up. My advice would be to be persistent, though depending on many factors (timing, the budget/sequester, the recruiter's sense of how good of a candidate you are), you may end up having to wait until the next board in March.

Good luck!

 

[exNavyOffRec]

I spoke to an IDC OIC who said I was qualified so he referred me to an officer recruiter.

Qualified and competitive are 2 very different things when it comes to DCO IDC, many of the people picked up have various certifications or some type of experience in the field. If you look at some of the other threads you can see some of the stats of those that were recently picked up and then see how you compare so you can then work toward that if you need to.

 

[JoeAC]

Thanks, I think I'm competitive but if not, i'm willing to put the work in to become competitive.