FormerRecruitingGuru
Making Recruiting Great Again
Lessons Learned: SWO Professional Recommendation Board 11-15 APR 2016
BOARD NUGGETS
1) Order of designation choices held weight.
2) Letters of recommendation (LOR) – something from an employer or someone in a leadership role fairs better over something from college peers.
3) Personal statements – some statements only read to a desire to be an officer, some read to other designations, but only a handful actually mentioned SWO.
4) Leadership experience is desired. Whether at place of employment, during college/high school, or extracurricular activities (sports, political societies, Greek societies, etc.), leadership experience matters.
5) Written skills – a few spelling and grammatical errors in personal statements. Simply using the technology available does not show the thoroughness sought in officers. Attention to detail matters.
6) If an applicant previously dropped from OCS, do not try to hide it. Provide the reason instead of letting board members assume adverse circumstances.
7) Honesty of using the Navy as a stepping stone for plans after commitment is satisfied. When the competition is healthy, a candidate would do well with stating their long-term desire to serve in the Navy as opposed to writing about their plans after the Navy.
8) Fleet sailors – commands should realize their sailor wishes to apply for a commissioning program and evaluations should recommend them for at least one of the options. If the sailor does not break out in the peer group or is below SGA, then how will he or she be competitive on the board? They will not.
BOARD STATS
AVG GPA AVG OAR Select Rate
219 total records reviewed for the board 3.30 52.10 NA
86 were professionally recommended 3.31 52.36 39.3%
133 were not professionally recommended 3.26 51.88 NA
NOTE: as you can see by the averages of those selected, the SWO board did not jump on those with necessarily the best score or best GPA. There was an effort to look at the whole person of the applicant.
BOARD NUGGETS
1) Order of designation choices held weight.
2) Letters of recommendation (LOR) – something from an employer or someone in a leadership role fairs better over something from college peers.
3) Personal statements – some statements only read to a desire to be an officer, some read to other designations, but only a handful actually mentioned SWO.
4) Leadership experience is desired. Whether at place of employment, during college/high school, or extracurricular activities (sports, political societies, Greek societies, etc.), leadership experience matters.
5) Written skills – a few spelling and grammatical errors in personal statements. Simply using the technology available does not show the thoroughness sought in officers. Attention to detail matters.
6) If an applicant previously dropped from OCS, do not try to hide it. Provide the reason instead of letting board members assume adverse circumstances.
7) Honesty of using the Navy as a stepping stone for plans after commitment is satisfied. When the competition is healthy, a candidate would do well with stating their long-term desire to serve in the Navy as opposed to writing about their plans after the Navy.
8) Fleet sailors – commands should realize their sailor wishes to apply for a commissioning program and evaluations should recommend them for at least one of the options. If the sailor does not break out in the peer group or is below SGA, then how will he or she be competitive on the board? They will not.
BOARD STATS
AVG GPA AVG OAR Select Rate
219 total records reviewed for the board 3.30 52.10 NA
86 were professionally recommended 3.31 52.36 39.3%
133 were not professionally recommended 3.26 51.88 NA
NOTE: as you can see by the averages of those selected, the SWO board did not jump on those with necessarily the best score or best GPA. There was an effort to look at the whole person of the applicant.
