Army Recruiting – again
Seems like just last month Christine Wormouth, the Secretary of the Army, said the Army might be a few thousand short of its new recruiting goals. Actually, they are signing up about 50,000 of their goal of 65,000, even with the added pre-Basic programs to help underachievers pass the ASVAB and pre-enlistment PT standards.
From the 9 September post:
The service previously refused to release detailed in-progress recruiting numbers, though Wormuth said she believes the service will bring in between 50,000 and 55,000 new active duty soldiers out of a goal of 65,000, according to Stars and Stripes. Army Times
But as of Tuesday it became more clear:
“We have not been recruiting very well for many more years than one would think from just looking at the headlines in the last 18 months,” Wormuth said, adding that the Army hasn’t met its annual goal for new enlistment contracts since 2014. PBS
There are changes in sight, though.
“The vast majority of people who are out there making employment decisions are people who have more than a high school education,” Wormuth said. “We need to figure out how to talk to that much broader labor market.”
She said that as more students go on to college, high school graduates now make up just 15 percent to 20 percent of the labor market. And the Army gets about half of its recruits from that shrinking population.
“We are not abandoning the high school market by any means,” Wormuth said, but by 2028 she wants the Army to have one-third of its recruits to have more than a high school diploma, rather than the current one-fifth,.
The other major change, which will begin to form in the coming months, is the transition to a professional recruiting workforce. Rather than using soldiers who are “voluntold” to take on a special assignment as recruiters, the Army is establishing a new permanent and specialized enlistment workforce.
There are currently about 8,000 Army recruiters, and only a bit more than a third have recruiting as their actual job classification.
The change will mirror how private companies work and will take several years. But Wormuth said the Army will quickly start a pilot program to begin identifying and training the new force. As part of the process, the Army will use a new aptitude test designed to identify soldiers who have a higher potential for being successful recruiters. PBS
“Wait, I signed up for XXX – whaddya mean you think I can sell? I signed up for XXX.”
Sounds like the recruiting CMF will expand – oh, and Recruiting head will be a three-star on a four-year assignment. Because we need another three-star slot, right?
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Army, None
So making 5k more professional recruiters takes that many NCOs straight out of the pool of available squad leaders and section sergeants right now and out of the pool of future platoon sergeants and 1SGs. And, by the way, the ones who can pass the screening to become recruiters are also the ones line units need for all the other jobs that need screening. Thus lowering the overall level of moral/ethical standard in those line units. AND, guess which population the drill sergeants come from? Uh oh.
Recruiting and leading are two different things. Recruiting is sales. I’ve seen people that were outstanding recruiters they couldn’t lead their way out of a paper bag. I have seen hardest woodpecker lips combat leaders fall to pieces under the stress of recruiting, because they are completely lost.
Not tp mention:
It is sales but that’s not my point. My point is line units struggle when you pull their NCOs out to do other stuff. And this permanency means those line units are not getting those NCOs back. Ever. As the rare person who has more than 20 years in line units at brigade and below I will say this doesn’t bode well for the training readiness of the force.
Just tossing this out there, but if FJB wants to forgive/cancel student dept after the Supreme said he couldn’t, why not make it a requirement to do a 4 year hitch in the branch of their choice in exchange for loan forgiveness.
Anything less than 4 years and an honorable discharge, the amount due, without fees, penalties or accrued interest reverts back to the day they enlisted.
Will that give us lots of 2nd LT’s lost in the woods somewhere? Probably, but they have a college degree and should be able to figure it out without some from the sticks private pointing out the direction that the sun rises from.
They already have such a program. It actually only requires 3 years of service plus training. You don’t have to become an officer. Every year that you serve after training they pay off 1/3 of your student loan. The problem is the maximum amount is $65,000 and a lot of these kids are running around with six figures in loans. If they extended it to 4 years plus training and increase the amount to 100 grand they would probably get more takers.
Getting some job experience and knocking out $100,000 in student loans would really be worthwhile for a lot of people.
The Army is not short lieutenants in any case. But with a degree you can start off as an E4. An E4 has a compensation package of around $42,000 a year. That isn’t bad at all. If you pay back $100,000 in student loans that adds an extra $25,000 a year.
When I enlisted (’78) I had a 2 yr Associates of Applied Science (yes, AAS, not ASS) Degree, and started off as an E3.
I worked with a guy that enlisted under a similar program. One stipulation was he couldn’t get any tuition assistance, and there may have been GI Bill restrictions as far as tuition assistance as well.
And, if you join with a Master’s, TA rules apply to G.I. Bill too– won’t pay for another degree at the same level you already have or a PhD.
24 years of service I only ran across three enlisted with a bona fide master’s degree and none with a doctorate. Normally if they have a master’s they’re a shoe in for OCS, unless they already flunked OCS.
I had a Masters, but I didn’t wanna go the O route. Thought about WO but was having too much fun as a Gunny. At one point, my OIC was signing my TA form, “Gunny are you smarter than me?”
“Sir if you have to ask that you already know the answer…”
Lots of Navy fields have college debt repayment plans. Enlisted nukes, for example, get ENLISTMENT bonuses of up to $75k, PLUS college loan repayment of up to $65k.
Consider my enlistment bonus was $2k. They can also reup for an additional $100k. I reenlisted twice and made a total of $40k.
But they still can’t make goal. Take from that what you will.
The reason it’s a three-star slot now is because they have to report directly to Wormmouth. She seems to believe that my emulating more what civilian recruiters do they can have more success. When I joined, my recruiter was an airborne ranger would served in Vietnam with the 101st. I guess that no longer appeals to the kids today. Maybe he can impress them with all the MSMs for making mission every quarter.
As one of those “voluntold” Recruiters, I have mixed emotions on a “professional recruiting workforce”. I went through Recruiter School in late 2008, and many of my classmates would read the instructors’ bios and comment on how they’d avoided the wars. I’d fend for those 79Rs, reminding my fellow students that most of the cadre at the school probably converted prior to 2003, getting their Station Commander time in, maybe a little staff time, then getting selected to teach. I experienced my first failures as a Recruiter and had decided to go Drill Sergeant when selected for it and deciding to just go where the Army sent me. Recruiting is also (in my experience, backed up by selection board statistics) a career-staller for Infantrymen. There were a lot of older E-6 dual-badge Drill Sergeants on Sand Hill in 2016-2018, and most (me included) made E-7 after a year on the Trail. It seems like year after year, SQI “4” (Non-Career Recruiter) has a lower selection rate than even those lacking any SQI. Even so, the Detailed Recruiter force has a lot of value in projecting fresh and motivated blood into a career field where it’s easy to become fat, lazy, and corrupt. A Ranger-qualified SSG in his mid-20s, an E-5 Cook looking for a break from the DFAC and something to set her apart from her peers, or a SFC with 16 years (I think they sharply reduced the numbers of E-7s selected for recruiting, though) and looking to make one last difference before retiring in four years, are all going to bring a unique take that a Career Recruiter can’t.
As for the education dilemma, it should be expected when we tell the kids from day one of kindergarten that they need to get a degree to be successful. Little Johnny does his K-12 time, starts a General Studies degree at the community college, and drops out a year later with 30 semester hours and now aged 19-20. My dad’s generation was one where you finished high school, served a few years in the military, then moved on to start a family and career. Instilling that mindset in today’s youth, or perhaps even “selling” the in-service educational and occupational opportunities might help.
My 25-year-old decided she wanted to join the FBI years ago. She was on-track to graduate at 17, so I mapped it out for her: join the Air Guard or another part-time branch, go to college full-time, and at 21 she’d have had the four years’ work experience, bachelor’s degree, and have reached the minimum age to apply. She took a different path, though, having lost interest in any sort of federal service before she finished high school. Probably a good thing.
I had outstanding Station Commanders (SC) who were both excellent leaders and Recruiters, and mediocre ones who lied their way through their career and were eventually fired for sexual harassment or other issues. In my opinion, there should continue to be a small number of Detailed Recruiters (perhaps 25-33% total), including some who continue to get DA Select like I was. However, rather than make it a career-killer to refuse the assignment, let
naivededicated NCOs like I was accept the challenge and do our best. If you refuse, you do some other broadening assignment like Drill Sergeant or Instructor. If you accept and fail to excel in the job, you’re given non-production duties like I was as Future Soldier Leader, allowing me to focus on leading the DEP pool in lieu of making mission each month. I brought unique experience to the table as a Combat Infantryman and TOG Soldier. Few 79Rs shared that experience.I took my kidnapping to sales as an opportunity to protect the general public.
No punches pulled by this guy when ‘the kids’ asked questions about Infantry-ing.
The mirror was more important than the judgments, admonishments, or even punishments by a 79Reaper.
I have a completely different take on this. I say get rid of completely, soldiers who recruit. Instead have a workforce that is completely civilian except that they are all veterans, or even National Guard and Reserve. Then do what they do in the civilian world and make compensation all commission based. Pay them a lot of money, so much money, that it only draws qualified, motivated people. Money similar to what civilian recruiters make. It will still be cheaper than the money they are throwing away right now, and I believe more effective.
Next put the leadership in place as all military. But don’t have them on numbers. Instead they would serve as gatekeepers to keep the civilian recruiters from doing crazy s*** that is illegal. They would be evaluated on how well the recruits did when they arrived at their training base.
I could see this working. I still think that there should be some quasi-Recruiters in uniform, but why not make it more of a WWII-era war bond type thing? Take MOH and other valor award recipients, maybe some well-known Soldiers (when I joined, someone like Michael Steele might have been a good choice, having become a bit of a celebrity due to Blackhawk Down, though he stepped on his own dingle dangle after he assumed command of 3rd BDE, 101st), and “Hometown Heroes”–younger Soldiers who were prominent in their communities as football players or outstanding students, and send them to their hometowns or across the US to motivate young men and women to join?
Leadership would have to be military, but doing this would require GS and SES employees to perform oversight of the civilian workforce. A good SJA lawyer, effective O-3 through O-6 officers, and a dedicated cadre of NCOs who proved effective as Recruiters to offer training and “maintain the standard” could provide overwatch of the veteran-based civilian Recruiters, while the civilian supervisors handle the day-to-day admin stuff to keep DOD happy.
A few of the Captain America types around would definitely spruce things up. It would require very careful selection.
Some good ideas tossed around here. Too bad nobody is listening. In order to sell a product you gotta have a product worth selling to someone that can see the value in it. Low pay, long hours, bad living conditions (food, housing,medical care, separation from family, the never ending foreign wars that have little to do with defending OUR country) the list goes on. You have a smaller pool of “customers” for your product. A different work ethic and folks like many of us that are not sending our kids and neighbors kids to the recruiting office. Even civilian counter parts are having difficulty filling their ranks with qualified recruits. Every skilled trade out there is screaming for help. Good thing there’s no shortage of underwater basket weavers or lesbian interpretive dancers. I thought that opening the ranks to the LBTQ/LSMFT crowd was going to fix the recruiting problem? Guess not, huh.
Good luck recruiters…you’re going to need it.
I think encouraging your kids not to join is stupid.
My son just picked up E5 after 3 years, has almost completed his undergrad degree, has mid-five figures in the bank, has his graduate schooling paid for, That’s even assuming he wants to go back to school because with all of his certs He’s looking at stepping right into $100k+ Job as soon as he gets out. He will have served his country honorably and put up with the normal amount of bullshit. If there’s something wrong with that picture please tell me what it is? Serving right now makes even more sense because for the first time in 21 years we’re not at war.
I don’t know where certain idiots got the idea that because they don’t agree with the politics of whoever, service suddenly has no value. If the person is a veteran, sounds to me like either sour grapes because they didn’t get what they wanted out of their service, or they just didn’t get it. Sounds like they didn’t understand the part about being a part of something greater than yourself.
Fire Mission!
Fuse “Straw man”, quick!
Fire for effect!
Allow me to retort:
I guess it’s contingent on one’s “definition of what
isConstitution is”.We have lost an ever-compounding notion of Lex Rex. Some worse than others….
With swollen hearts, the enemies (or used “idiots”, ymmv) of this nation will somnambulate into a lawless future, one of their own creation for not standing up to foul suspensions of the very thing they swore to pay allegiance.
Perhaps it is you that “just don’t get it”.
I see your ‘grapes’ and raise you a GFY.
I always suspect that you were a sock puppet for KoB, But now we know for sure. By accusing me of presenting a straw man argument, and then presenting one yourself, You look really dumb. Because, “KOB” didn’t say a word about the Constitution, He talked about the challenges and difficulties of serving and possibly the fear that serving will turn his kids gay.
I didn’t accuse you of that shit, I was prepping the battle space (i.e. criticizing my own cutting-up of your little argumentations there).
I don’t mind looking dumb especially if it is a product of the attempt to remain ideologically consistent.
I don’t have to have anyFKingone mention the Constitution to invoke it, doubly so when talking about the USofA, LLP’s henchmen.
And I’m mosdef my own man.
Cannondude is also his own man.
He doesn’t need me to fight his battles for him, I wouldn’t no how, and it’s amusing to think you think I would.
Only calling you out for what you did and what you wrote.
Ditto.
“If the person is a veteran, sounds to me like either sour grapes because they didn’t get what they wanted out of their service, or they just didn’t get it. Sounds like they didn’t understand the part about being a part of something greater than yourself.”
That’s a very Commissarish sounding post. It also sounds like you don’t pay very much attention to the folks who frequent this place. Either way, it’s not exactly the “own” that you thnk it is. Not your best effort, try again.
That guy is the very definition of the sour grapes. That is how it is when you fail at practically everything in life.
I pay a lot of attention to the people that frequent this place. But I don’t always agree with them.
This happens to be one of those things. So I stand by every word I wrote, and if you don’t like it; you come up with a better argument. I’m very proud of my son for serving and I think he’s doing great. If you think he isn’t following the Constitution for some stupid reason, you are wrong.
“Sounds like they didn’t understand the part about being a part of something greater than yourself”.
Yeahhhh I’m pretty sure that group you described right there is a literal Army of One. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against serving. I enjoyed every one of my 24 years, and I’d do it again. BUT, this is no longer the Army we served in. It’s THE MILITARY that no longer has the mindset of being a part of something greater than yourself. It’s more concerned about checking all the diversity boxes and appeasing the proper groups, attempting to be all things to all people. That is an unsustainable model. Focusing on equality in the ranks is a good thing. Focusing on equity is a path to failure. My job supports TRADOC. Bad Soldiers are being passed through the training pipeline that should’ve been shitcanned weeks ago. Why? Because cutting the dead wood will upset the DEI folks, and we can’t very well have that, can we? I might recommend the Army to a son or daughter, but that would be very MOS specific. When I considered enlisting in 1980, an uncle who I greatly respected (who had just retired from the Navy) said “don’t enlist now. Wait about 4 years and then consider it”. Best advice I ever got. I’m happy for your son and you should be proud. The military is still a great place to learn excellent civilian skills and learn who you are.
DaHell? “stupid”? Bitch, please! ‘scuse me if my tested IQ of 160+ makes me a mental midget to a Goliath Sexual Intellectual, Spapos II. At least I have reading comprehension. A rush to throw rocks made you miss the entire point of my post. I’ve sent 100s of youngsters to recruiters the last 50 years, including my (step) son (C 3/15 24th ID DS 1), nephews, nieces, and mentored ones. All served Honorably, some making a career, others getting out and going on to a success in other fields. Some came back with a CMoH (Coffin Metal of Handles) others with bad PTSofD. My (step) daughter pursued a nursing career and my blood daughter became a teacher, which they wanted to do since they were young. Educated with earned scholarships. IDGAF about sexual desires as long as they don’t include kids or kritters. I do GAF that the Military is no longer geared toward defending OUR country but has become a social experiment and “defending” others using my $.
I enlisted during the VN Era, 1971, specifically to be in the Artillery, a branch that has history in our family. I served, did well, got out, and moved on having very successful career paths, owning/operating businesses, or working for the man without the responsibility of looking after others.
Main point; a recruiter is a sales person and right now his product sucks. It’s that simple. Good on your son that he has done well, I wish him luck in the future. It’s telling that you didn’t say he was re-enlisting. I can take any bright kid today, hook them up with skilled trades friends of mine and within 3-5 years they’re making 6 figure $ easily and not be subjected to the current, negative aspects of military service.
Shove your arrogance up your ass, it’ll give your head some company.
BTW, my AF enlisted brother has 2 masters he earned before retiring as E-9.
I always take the recruiting shortfall #’s, at least for the Army, with a dump-truck load of salt. CG USAREC is graded on accessions, not recruits: “asses in classes” to fill the training base seats. The recruiting goal is always significantly larger than the training base seat/slot count. This does two things: ensures CG USAREC always makes his mission and gives them the ‘float’ to play games with the DEP pool in the way of re-negotiations. The end-of-fiscal year numbers dance isn’t just done with $, its also done with DEPs, moving the actual accession between fiscal years.
I am guessing you missed some of the articles (the actual articles, not my select quotes) wherein the Army said they have been raiding the DEP pool and encouraging earlier active duty to pad their AD numbers at DEP expense.
I saw the gerrymandering first hand for a number of years as a BN S-3 in recruiting command, and I never said earlier. They would sometimes push DEPs past 1 Oct into the new FY, frontloading certain test category scores into selected MOS.
Accessions always had something called a “QDP’, the quality distribution plan, for each MOS. It lead to crazy situations later in the FY. For example you might not be able to get a seat for a fully qualified 1-3A in a low density tech job, but a seat was open for a CAT IV.
The low end of CAT IV (the CAT IV cutoff) would always float from year to year, generally bouncing in a range from 24 to 28.
Definitions changed from year to year. The Adult Basic Education (ABE ) program credentials counted as HS grads one year, but not the next.
Sometimes, non-grad alphas who didn’t complete the 11th grade found MOS offerings very slim.
Comparing year to year recruiting data always requires a deep dive into the fine print. And at the end of the day accessions, not enlistments, drive the train.
Moron.
First, the Army forbade those who didn’t receive the jab to reenlist, discharged several who refused it, then went as far as suspending re-enlistment bonuses because reenlistments were doing so well…and General Milley said the Army isn’t woke.
Which is it? I’m confused.
The confusing part is that they asked them to return and then didn’t understand why 85% wouldn’t come back. Seems a no-brainer to me. They knew exactly what they were doing and got an GD-UHC, which doesn’t really hurt you in life, although it is of no particular help either.
Alrighty then, floggings will continue until morale improves, next we’ll implement the next crop of bad ideas, so BOHICA everyone!!!
Well, there’s always:
I foresee even more “Travis King”s” in the Army’s future….
I foresee more Bowe Bergdahls, Bradley Mannings, and Timothy McVeighs.
Travis King’s actions, while utterly unforgivable (they’ll be forgiven and I predict a POW medal), actually took a bit of personal risk. We no longer mitigate risk, we outright avoid it.
And you can bet he really didn’t ponder the possible ramifications of his actions before he did it either. Dude is a mental midget.
Warm-body qualifications– score Cat IV and go, baby!
So a permanent Career Recruiter Force?
Nah, this won’t end well either. I always loved hearing a CPO/SCPO who hadn’t seen a ship/squadron in well over a decade as a junior PO2 with no SSDR tell me, fresh off 8 straight years of sea duty and five deployments, what it was like “in the fleet.”
Most soulless automatons I ever met were CRF types.