Report: CF Hard Pressed to Recruit 8K

[Donut]

Hmmm, Cyr, I've never heard of ANY municipal forces that will take someone without a PC background and allow them to bypass their assessment center. And don't try to tell me that corrections is the same, because it isn't.

Besides that, there are lots of things you can get away with in joining a muni/provincial or federal LEO force that you can't have in a soldier, from health conditions to background checks.  And that's what you want to be, right? A soldier, who happens to be an MP?  Not someone who wants to be a cop, and decides that the army is one way to get in to that?

I won't argue that CFRETS needs a little kick in the bum, but don't go around saying "I'm so damn good, the army should just let me walk in because I've held a job that's kinda like what I want to do in the army."

DF

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Quote from Cyr,
Oh yeah did I mention to that I have been in corrections for the past 3 years and am on the centre emergency response team and looking to get a slot on the provincial tatical team? So I ask you what exactly is the problem and why is the recruiting process taking so long when you have someone like myself that has more training more experience that perhaps half of the people applying to be an MP get in. Oh yeah by the way from the MP's I've also talked to and my interviewer and other recruits they have told me that I am over qualified with all my training

Well Cyr, I have over 16 years Corrections and 10 on the ICIT teams and I don't think for a second, nor should anyone, that I would be over qualified to do MP work.

 

[jmnavy]

I agree that a lot of the application process is too slow.  I submitted my component transfer to go from nav res to air force reg about 2 weeks ago.  I was told that the paper work isn't going to go through in time for me to make the october board so I won't be able to do botc until september 06.  I've been told they won't let a deo onto the summer botc.  I'm totally sticking it out but this kind of thing can turn off a lot of applicants.  On the other hand, I'm guessing there's more of a need for ncms than officers.  How many times have I heard someone comment 'too many chiefs, not enough indians'?

I do agree with one point that ThatsLife made; word of mouth seems to be much more effective for recruiting than commercials, posters or anything else.  Ever notice how easy it is to get someone interested in the cf when you start telling them stories about what it's actually like?

 

[Pte_Martin]

i agree that word of   mouth is one of the best tools for recruiting, I know that when   a couple of guys and i go out after training for a beer and some food, we always get asked at least a couple of times why were in uniform and questions about the army. If we got paid a percentage of people we get to join th CF i think I'd be doing alright

 

[blacktriangle]

You know what? That article is full of it. There's a message that people are getting when it comes to the Canadian military. The message is "America is better than Canada." Everytime I talk to somebody about our army, they ALWAYS say "yeah, but America has better guns, but america has better tanks, but america this and that."

I've conviced 11 of my friends to join the army, my girlfriend doesn't like the idea that i'm joining so she's says "are you recruiting the whole school!? it's not bad enough you're joining the army, you have to take everyone in the school down with you?" She was just joking around but I noticed something. The friends that I talked about the army too..they thought we still used the old olive camo..they thought everything we used was really old, they thought you had to be 18 to join the army reserves, and they thought that Canadas military sucked. I told them about that team of Canadian snipers (yes yes the whole world record shot), I told them about how we developed CADPAT and that the U.S. Marines liked our idea and made their own version of it called MARPAT. When they heard this, they had opened eyes and said "Really?"   I showed them pictures of our soldiers in action, our soldiers training...This is what sent them to the recruiting office. I took some of my friends there, sometimes 1-2 times a week   and the recruiter there said "Don't you have a home? (as a joke)"  

What we need is to make a new recruiting video...not that cheesy one recruiters are showing people who are interested in joining the army a video from the dark ages. We need a recruiting video that shows pride, strength, technology, training, action. Kicking down doors, explosions, pushups, sit ups,   shooting, team work...we need a video that will actually make people quit their job flipping burgers for $6.50 and do something with their lives.

I swear i've watched that recruiting video at the regiment with my friends atleast 4 times...and everytime I watched it, I noticed that everyone was kind of just sitting there sitting with blank faces.

Everyone at schools knows about me joining the army and they all ask me why, they ask "doesn't our army suck?" and I tell them everything that I tell everyone. And they end up wanting to join...so if there's any recruiters here...maybe you should bring something up about making a new recruiting video.

People always tell me that I can do better then the army.

Funny, I don't see to many things giving me the same opportunity. The attitude is alot different when I talk to teachers and cops, firefighters etc..

One police officer was talking to me outside a chinese food place and mentioned how the police chopper pilots had military backgrounds. He then mentioned that his department will happily give time off so one can train with the militia...

I don't need to do any better then that. ;D

 

[Cyr]

What I was saying is that the recruiting process takes way way too long and needs to be revamped. But at the sametime the CF is looking for qualified people to do the job and that alot of people do give up and move on due to the fact that the recruiting process takes so darn long. Or your mistakes get made in the process on the part of the CF. Just wondering why they don't have it together ? Also yes I am going in to become a soilder first and for most. Sorry if I rustled some feather in my comments.  Just trying to figure out why the process is so lonf when everything gets done in about 2 months or so?

 

[Haggis]

Just trying to figure out why the process is so long when everything gets done in about 2 months or so?

One of the reasons that the process is so long is staff shortages.  There's not enough recruiters/clerks/military career counsellors to go around.  To increase these numbers you have to rape the battalions, squadrons, ships etc.  To attract good quality applicants you need high quality recruiters, people who talk the talk and walk the walk and look like professionals.

Likewise, once people are recruiited, they have to be properly trained.  Again it comes to staff shortages. They have to come from somewhere and if you want good quality recruits coming out of St. Jean, you need good quality trainers. That means you should take the fittest, keenest and most skilled members from the line units to train the new recruiits.

Got any ideas of how to get around this?

 

[Bert]

And it wouldn't stop there.  The training system would require additional
instructors and resources for post-BMQ members from QL3 to QL5.  The
problem isn't specific to BMQ/QL2.

Haggis, your second paragraph makes sense to find the creme de la creme
of front line units to perform instructor duties.  However, not all would want
to instruct and those you do will fall out of their unit for a time.

The creme de la creme you do pull out have to go through instructor courses
and spend a period of time posted to a training centre.  Remembering back to
my BMQ, the instructors ranged from highly experienced to the
not-so-experienced.  Yet they all performed their jobs and each one was able
to impart, forcibly or not, their own professionalism and necessities of the
course material.  The learning experience not only comes from the instructors, but
the course content and what the platoon does to overcome their challenges.
Looking back I have great respect for my instructors... all of them.

In my view, refinements to the BMQ course material focusing on "soldier first"
content, creating a core group of experienced front-line NCOs dispersed into
the platoons with other instructors, dispersing training centres, considering
a separate training streams for combat arms and support trades, refinements to the
post-BMQ process where members are quickly loaded on QL3 and later posted to
their gaining units.

 

[nd.07]

Back in elementary and even now in my 10th grade, the Canadian Armed Forces are presented as peace keepers handing candy to children. The last CF commercial I remember is the '' Strong. Proud. Today's Canadian Forces.'' with sailors in a sub or a craft of some sort, and that was 3 years ago. I became interested in the military a few years back and seriously considered joining this year, however I intend to finish my grade 12. I speak of it to my friends and many of them have no idea of the what the CF actualy does. All this to say that the message has to get across especialy to young people such as myself that the CF is more than what the media portray it as, that it is a serious career and a challenging one. Just my 2cents.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Haggis:  On the paperwork lag, would it be sacreligious to suggest, wait for it....

privatizing JUST the paper processing elements of the process.  You need warriors to train warriors, but there might be a case to be made that you don't need a bayonet to process paper, no?

Thoughts?

 

[WannaBeFlyer]

On the other hand of recruiting, I heard on the news this morning that once again, Recruiters south of the border are going to meet with parents because the parents are P.O.'d about how aggressively they are targeting high school students. I have to remember to watch that tonight.

Please understand that I am not suggesting that Canadian recruiting efforts are timid nor am I suggesting they should examine the US practices by any means (before I get slammed).  I am just pointing out what can happen if recruiting drives seem over aggressive and the attitudes of a percentage of the general public toward their son or daughter joining the Military.

 

[kincanucks]

privatizing JUST the paper processing elements of the process.

Interested to hear just what part(s) of the "paper processing elements"  you think should be privatized.

 

[Part-Timer]

On the other hand of recruiting, I heard on the news this morning that once again, Recruiters south of the border are going to meet with parents because the parents are P.O.'d about how aggressively they are targeting high school students. I have to remember to watch that tonight.

There's a story in Vanity Fair called "The Recruiter's War" that talks a lot about this sort of recruiting practice (esp the USMC and Army). I'll try to find it and post the link.

 

[S McKee]

This whole recruiting drive is a Liberal shell game to make it look like they're doing something for the military. It'll take years to get numbers we want. I'm a firm believer that we should focus on quality rather than quantity. If I had my way, the days of the grade 10 high school dropout would be over.

 

[RCD]

If they get the equipment first , then it will make recruiting easier.
An  re-look at the service contracts that we sign or re-up.

 

[S McKee]

It's not a matter of getting new equipment, after all if your not trained on it you can't use it right? It all boils down to inadequate staffing for both recruiting and training cadres. TOS have already been changed for new recruits.

 

[PJ D-Dog]

On the other hand of recruiting, I heard on the news this morning that once again, Recruiters south of the border are going to meet with parents because the parents are P.O.'d about how aggressively they are targeting high school students. I have to remember to watch that tonight.

Please understand that I am not suggesting that Canadian recruiting efforts are timid nor am I suggesting they should examine the US practices by any means (before I get slammed).   I am just pointing out what can happen if recruiting drives seem over aggressive and the attitudes of a percentage of the general public toward their son or daughter joining the Military.

Meeting with parents of potential recruits is part of the recuiting philosophy (winning of hearts and minds), practice and policy in the US.  It has been going on for years.  If the applicant has the support of their family when joining the military, it makes it easier on the recruit when going through boot camp.

Canada should adopt a more aggressive recruiting approach.  One of the many problems with CF recruiting is that is it designed to attract applicants as opposed to finding applicants.  The CF will never get all the numbers they need if they continue to promote the CF in the way that it does.  They need to take a few good lessons from the Marines in how to go out there and FIND the recruits needed.

When I worked at CFRC we waited around all day for people to call or walk into the office.  Attraction efforts were aimed at showing off the colors as opposed to actually walking up to people and asking them about their interest in a military career.  When I recruited for the reserves, I used a more aggressive approach since our budget was directly tied to the numbers we could produce.

In the Marines, the number of recruits you get is directly tied to job performance and career advancement.  Most of the recruiters I have spoken too tell me how many young people want to join the military but their parents are generally opposed to it and try and convince them otherwise.  So the selling job shifts from selling the idea of a military career to the applicant to selling the idea of having a son or daughter in the military to the prospective recruit's parents.  This changes the dynamic and makes the recruiter's job that much more challenging.

PJ D-Dog

 

[enfield]

Some ideas, all of which have been mentioned before on previous threads.

-Install quotas for recruiters and recruiting centers.

-Make a stint at Recruiting (and instructing) a requirement for promotion past a certain rank.

-Slim down the process, so that not as much is required and the bottlenecks are opened up. The medical screening at Borden is one that comes to mind.

-Institute a short (3-5) day "Potential Soldiers Course" (or Sailor, or whatever). Take potential recruits away for a bit, and run them through everything - interview, medical, etc - while giving them a taste of the real thing.

-Change the recruiting advertisements -- this is the fault of the government and the civilian federal department that oversees such things, not the military itself. The ads, I believe, are ineffectual in content, and do not achieve sufficient coverage - I'm an average young male in a fair sized city, and I can count on my hand the number of recruiting ads I've seen in the past few months.

-Fix the Component Transfer process, and make it easier for people to re-enter the Forces. Why does going from Res to Reg mean you have to re-join the army?


It has to be possible to recruit soldiers faster, we've done it in the past (before the age of information technology) and other countries are doing it today. 

The other bottleneck is, of course, the training side - even if CFRC pushes through the bodies, can we train them?

 

[AcornsRus]

I would agree we have to be more aggressive in regards to finding instead of attracting recruits.  We need to be more visible to the public - get out to the Malls, Schools, etc. Definitely part of "winning the hearts and minds" of our own country folk.

That being said, there is a fine line to toe. Aggressive, but not in-your-face.  I saw a show following a couple of US Marine recruiters. They stood outside a Wal Mart and really got in people's faces. In one instance they lied to a guy - telling him he had to give his name and phone number so they could take him off the recruiting list!  .... but .... they ... ran into him in the parking lot.

 

[Jaxson]

"Institute a short (3-5) day "Potential Soldiers Course" (or Sailor, or whatever). Take potential recruits away for a bit, and run them through everything - interview, medical, etc - while giving them a taste of the real thing"

Tell me, Would you like to front the bill for all those people? exspecially if someone gets hurt, or if during the 3-4 day course they turn up medically unfit, and problems arise from it, lets think about saving the money (or increasing) the CF gets instead of throwing it into a burning pile of ****.