Transportation Supervisor
Northeast
US Army, O-3
I learned of Orion International through a friend who went through Orion and successfully landed a job as a construction project manager. My recruiter was Chris Hurst, and he was very helpful throughout the process. Due to the short time I had to prepare for the job conference, I had many questions and was frequently calling him to find answers. He was always willing to take time out of his day to make sure I was taken care of. I had very little time to get a job, which concerned me greatly. Orion provided me with the forum to get a great job within my limited time.
Once I contacted Orion, I filled out the application and set up a phone interview conference, which helped me understand what to expect during the hiring conference in Baltimore I was going to attend. Once I got to the conference in Baltimore, the day prior to the job interviews was a preparation day. The prep day helped me to prepare for the job interviews. Thanks to the prep day, the actual interview day went just fine. I felt I was fully prepared for all interviews, and I did well because of the things I learned during the prep day.
I will initially be a transportation supervisor with Linde Gas. This was exactly the type of job I was looking for. The best part about this job was that it is part of the Leadership Development Program that Linde has developed to train young employees to develop them into managers and possibly one of the top 10% executives at the company.
Along with utilizing Orion, I considered another recruiting firm, but found upon going to their initial conference that you had to be accepted into their program. I thought that was very strange. A good recruitment agency is able to train any candidate, and get him/her a job.
To anyone that is about to transition from the military, the most important thing in the hiring process is the interview. It does not, however, have to take that long to prepare for, and it is not that hard. There are only a certain number of questions any interviewer will ask. The most important question I was asked was, "Tell me a little about yourself.” Once you get through this one, half your interview time is over with.
Concentrate on the difficult questions, which for me was the negative ones like, "Tell me a failure you have had." or "Tell me your three weaknesses." Once you have these questions down, the positive ones are cake. I learned all this from the prep day during Orion's hiring conference.
I interviewed with five companies that next day and was asked by all five companies to do follow-up interviews. The bottom line is that it is not that hard, and the foundation that you need to do well will be laid out by Orion. However, you cannot be lazy during the prep time. You need to practice on your own to feel comfortable. I got everything I needed through Orion's prep day and conference.