For just a moment, forget today’s challenging economy and think back to the last time you participated in a major employee recruitment effort. How much did your effort cost? How’d you like a $12 million recruitment budget?

That’s what the U.S. Army has spent on a facility that, according to a wire service report, looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and a video arcade.

The U.S. Army Experience Center at the Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia has 60 PCs loaded with military video games, 19 Xbox video game controllers, and a real Humvee from which prospective soldiers can fire on enemy encampments.

Another simulator in the facility gives prospective recruits the experience of firing from an Apache or Blackhawk helicopter.

So far, the Army has signed up 33 full-time soldiers and five reservists since it opened in August — roughly the same as the five traditional recruiting centers it replaced.

So far, that’s a cost of $315,789 per recruit.

The wire service story found one opponent of the recruiting center. Former Army staff sergeant Jesse Hamilton, who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, said the use of video games glamorizes war and misleads potential recruits.

Hamilton says the games aren’t realistic. “You can’t simulate the loss when you see people getting killed,” he said. “It’s not very likely you are going to get into a firefight. The only way to simulate the heat is holding a blow dryer to your face.”

Tags: Army, budget, recruiting employees