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Tapping into the next generation successful for ADF recruitment

dimsum

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I'm actually surprised the separation rate (I'm assuming this means people leaving the military) is higher in Australia than Canada or the UK

Recruiting for the Australian Defence Force's has become more complex as the Commonwealth commits to new, sophisticated equipment.

And it is because of the high levels of skills required for the running of a modern military, that the ADF is actively trying to expand the quality of its candidate pool by encouraging women, Indigenous Australians and people of diverse culture and linguistic backgrounds, to apply.

"We recruit around 8000 people each year," says the head of People Capability, Rear Admiral Brett Wolski. "In the fulltime ADF, there are 59,000 people and the Defence white paper of 2016 gave us the target of 62,400 full time over 10 years."

Wolski says the new ships, submarines, planes and land vehicles that are being bought and built for the Australian Defence Force are complex and require higher skill levels to operate and maintain.

The equation means the ADF is on the lookout for young people who have either been studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at school, or slightly older applicants who have applicable work skills.

"We can't recruit 'off the street' for the modern ADF," says Wolski. "We need people with the right attributes so we can train them up to the standard we need."

He says the roles that are expanding as the ADF becomes more technology driven include communications, intelligence, maintenance, cyber and the support areas such as clerical, administration and medical.

"Our big focus at the moment is on medical officers," says Wolski. "We're also looking for engineers and submariners."

He says in to recruit 8,000 Australians each year, the ADF takes 70,000 to 80,000 applications.

He says that the ADF has a recruitment rate of 98 per cent (of targets being met) and the "separation rate" is 9.4 per cent, compared with 8.5 per cent in Canada's armed forces and 9.3 per cent in Britain.

The ADF is actively seeking women and Indigenous Australians to ensure the applicants each year are of the highest quality, Wolski says.

"We want to ensure that we have the best selection of people we can get, knowing that we compete against a lot of other employers."

[More at link]

https://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/afr-focus-defence/tapping-into-the-next-generation-successful-for-adf-recruitment-20180619-h11lad
 
COVID is helping fill the ranks

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/30/australian-military-recruiting-soars-as-coronavirus-hits-job-market/


 
Spencer100 said:
COVID is helping fill the ranks

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/30/australian-military-recruiting-soars-as-coronavirus-hits-job-market/

Breitbart...
 
OceanBonfire said:
Breitbart...

I normally dismiss it too, but this time it's actually in line with what the MSM is reporting.

Defence Force applications through the roof as job market crumbles

Unemployed and career-nervous Australians are turning to the Defence Force in droves through the COVID-19 pandemic, with year-on-year applications up close to 40 per cent in April alone.

The decimation of the aviation industry amid global travel restrictions has been one of the factors behind the influx, according to recruiters, as people look to stable employment in a crumbling job market

Director of military recruiting Captain Jan Noonan (RAN) said there had been applications spikes before, but the "acceleration" in the 2020 period was something new.

During the global financial crisis, for example, the impact on applications was not seen until about four months after the job crunch began, she said.

Applications to join the ADF were up by close to 4300 from December through March, an increase of 18 per cent on the same period in 2018-19. The figures continued ratcheting up to April, by which time Defence was processing a total of 39,000 prospective recruits, the highest number in at least four years, Captain Noonan said.

Victoria and NSW recorded respective 24 per cent and 14 per cent increases in applications for the December-March period, while the biggest spikes were in the Northern Territory (48 per cent) and Western Australia (38 per cent).

Captain Noonan said the interest from former airline employees had comprised the gamut of professions, including pilots, engineers and hospitality staff.

[More on link]

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/defence-force-applications-through-the-roof-as-job-market-crumbles-20200627-p556rv.html
 
Dimsum said:
I normally dismiss it too, but this time it's actually in line with what the MSM is reporting.

...

Then there's no point to cite/reference from a crappy source.
 
OceanBonfire said:
Then there's no point to cite/reference from a crappy source.

What's the point in attacking the source of an article that's corroborated by 2 other unrelated publications?
 
OceanBonfire said:
Breitbart...

Sorry that is where I saw it first.  If I had saw it at the Tyee I would post from that. 

I would think discussing the content is more important.  I think it is very interesting that they can get their numbers up in a time like this.  Maybe we should do something the same?
 
Spencer100 said:
Sorry that is where I saw it first.  If I had saw it at the Tyee I would post from that. 

I would think discussing the content is more important.  I think it is very interesting that they can get their numbers up in a time like this.  Maybe we should do something the same?
Doing the same of...what? Since I started looking at the recruiting dashboard 4-5 years ago there has never been a problem with having an abundance of applicants for the vast majority of positions in the CAF.  The problems lie in other areas that have nothing to do with people walking through the door and, unfortunately, COVID is just making those issues worse.
 
Ok I have been on this forum for over a decade.  The mil points are flying.  I really don't care.  But even if I getting old I still like to learn.  I know recruiting is not in my lane.  I mean no harm.  Over the years I have heard that we don't enough people.  My point was with covid can we staff up? 
 
Absolutely we can. Look at the demographics in the CAF. Why are there so many East Coasters? Unemployment rate in Atlantic Canada is at minimum 1% above the national average (NS) and up to double the national average (Nfld). CAF is a great paying job for a relatively low-skill floor and is always attractive in a poor labour market because we're always hiring.

That being said, we don't have a shortage of recruits. Look at the amount of people coming on here and on CAF Reddit. We have a problem with throughput getting someone from the street to OFP quick enough to not lose their interest, as well as a problem with wasting a prospective recruit's time for 18 months navigating the bureaucracy.
 
Spencer100 said:
Ok I have been on this forum for over a decade.  The mil points are flying.  I really don't care.  But even if I getting old I still like to learn.  I know recruiting is not in my lane.  I mean no harm.  Over the years I have heard that we don't enough people.  My point was with covid can we staff up?
You are right, we perenially don't have enough people but it's trained and experienced people where we are hurting the most and that's not a recruting issue.

We tried the massive surge in recruting during the height of Afghanistan. Ramped up the numbers we brought in, set up a bunch of satellite  locations to run those extra people through BMQ/BMOQ and then...realized that we had zero capacity to put those people through their QL3s and phase training. As a result we ended up with hundreds of people sitting around in places like Borden, Wainwright, Gagetown etc for years and years; many of those people ended up releasing at the end of their initial engagement or being given COTs to other occupations. Our training capacity as an organization has not changed since then and, in some cases, has actually shrunk, so we'd just repeat the same mistake.

COVID is just making that limited training capacity worse. We can't keep running basic like we used to. Recruits and staff need to maintain physical distancing, that means classrooms at maybe 1/2 capacity, drill classes requring additional space which limits how many people you can have on the parade square, modifications to PT to ensure people aren't cross contaminating via sharing equipment or getting too close, not running people through the kitchen as a herd of cattle and giving them time to properly wash and santize their hands at multiple points throughout the day...and that extends to the follow on training as well.  We have already accumulated a huge training deficit at the most basic levels during the initial shutdown, it is only going to get worse over the next several months and I think we will be lucky to see us even make 1/2 of the CAF SIP this year.

What we should be trying to leverage during this time is making sure we grab the best possible candidates out of that increased pool because I do think we are going to have people showing an interest in us simply because we are hiring and we are seen as a stable employer. That's a double edged sword though, because the best and brightest who just join for the job because they are out of work may very well end up walking out the door when the opportunities pick back up on the outside.
 
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