Ladies, Gents. The squadron is moving me into the Recruiting Office from early May and I've not had a great deal to do with it in the past. What I have heard is that my unit currently converts one out of fifteen potential recruits that come through the door into trained and traded soldiers. This statistic I find astonishing. Does anyone out there have similar statistics? If not, how do your figures compare?

If the statistics are that bad, what are we doing wrong? Just as importantly, what do we do to improve them?

On another note, there appears to be no pro-active recruiting done by the unit. Who is doing what out there, and how successful have your efforts been? I would much appreciate any usefull suggestions. It seems to me that if 25% of the 18 to 25 year old section of the population of this country is currently unemployed, and we are on a recruiting drive, then we should be on a winner, so why arn't they queuing at the door?

Can we get a good thread going and bounce some ideas around?

Many thanks.

Sadly, 1 in 15 is probably there or there abouts.

I would expect my sub unit to get around 20 or so initial epressions of interest (phone call, email application or PM on Arrse!) per month. Of these, 10 to 15 will get to an insight briefing having passed the initial filter of being legally able to join.

2 recruit cadres per year, therefore an average of 120 expressions of interest leading to 90 attending insight evenings. All good so far; now the trouble starts. Getting paperwork completed, RG8s filled in, medicals done and TARS attended (and passed) can knock that down to at best 30, at worst less than 10, average 20 or so recruits starting the training cadre. We would do very well to get 5 pass first time from 20 starting - that gives 1 in 24 as a hit rate!

Of course, the physical demands of PPS add significantly to the attrition rate, so 1 in 10 or 15 seems pretty fair.

What do we do to improve them? Simplify the application procedures so people that start out keen and enthusiastic don't jack because they have lost the will to live after being messed about for 2 or 3 months before they can start doing any form of training. We live in the "click to buy it now" age, and the stone age processes we have to abide by are not helping us to convince people that we actually want them to join us.

1 in 15 sounds about right. I think 2 of us out of the 12 that attended the open evening made it through phase 1. Of those that didnt, a half never got to attestation and the other half chinned it off during phase 1 for various reasons. The other 'survivor' had to drop out before phase 2 due to work commitments.

Getting through initial training if you have a job/partner/family can be challenging. Essentially you need to be able to take 4 weeks off work within a short space of time (2 for CMS, 2 for trade training). This and the 6 weekend system for phase 1 means that you are not going to be in the missus or bosses good books for a few months. I can see why people dont make it through.

On the other hand, the fact that it is not exactly easy means that anyone who makes it through probably wants to be there and is of a reasonable standard (in most cases).

The TA 'lifestyle choice' - sorry Sir, it already is, try and explain otherwise to my other half - is best suited to the single, unemployed, self employed person or those with charitable employers such as civil servants. A quick vox pop of my sub unit shows only 2 ORs who are both in relationships and full time employment, out of 20. Which is why I think we are already beginning to see an influx from the 18-25 "NEETS" you mention. Judging by how things are going the target of 30,000 trained bodies by 2018 (did you notice how the Army side stepped their initial target of 2015?) is achievable. Whether stocking the ranks with 'dole scum', sorry young britains failed by society, will make for the capable TA ready to step up and fill the regular's shoes is another question.

How can we do it better? Well, the training pipeline we have is fixed meaning if you miss certain courses, you can be back to square one or marking time for months/years which I imagine is quite demoralizing. I have not seen much evidence of them widening the pipe to account for a greater/faster inflow. I expect to see this shortly.

Originally Posted by ancient

I would much appreciate any usefull suggestions. It seems to me that if 25% of the 18 to 25 year old section of the population of this country is currently unemployed, and we are on a recruiting drive, then we should be on a winner, so why arn't they queuing at the door?

Recruiting Toolbox - ARRSEpedia

Ask yourself what keeps "YOU" there? Then you have an idea of what motivates people to stay. As for recruiting I'd go with open days, local radio and get your lads out handing out flyers.

I went through the training cadre previously described by The Duke. From walking in the door to trained bod took 3 months. PPS was my stumbling block so I moved onto pastures new but still the same arm. What a difference. Some lads have taken the best part of 20 months to go from full time civvy to part time soldier. This I find disgusting. The problem here lies within how they're trained. I was trained 'in house' rather than at an RTC which, is apparent to me, a longer way to do it. This is then the start of lads losing interest or not being able to move work around. But recruit training is decided to be run this way at a level far above my pay grade so we just suck it up.

Over the last 12 months I've seen my location grow from a section of lads to a working plt (yes a good chunk are recruits but 80% are weeks away from CIC). At the rate we're recruiting we'll have another one within 8-12 months. What do we offer? Nothing special. But we had a massive influx of lads after a successful open day and 3 months of lads out in shopping centres basing leaflets out. Try it, it may work.

Thank you gentlemen, It is reassuring to know that my unit's figures are no more appalling than some others. It seems then that there is little if anything we can do to improve the conversion rate , therefore we have to increase the numbers that come through the door . We are based in a university city with a functioning UOTC. Has anyone had any luck recruiting for TA rather than UOTC in universities? I understand that OTC get first dibs on their students, but is there anyway way we can get in the back door ? Can we recruit directly in Job Centres? I shall take a good hard look at the recruiter's toolbox over the weekend and I am grateful to MSR for that. The situation in the unit is pretty dire, down as we are to one officer and some sixty more or less active ORs. Perhaps the wording used on the leaflets could be PMd to me, I would rather work with something tried and tested.

Speak to your OTC as they will have way more applicants than places. If you can write to those who were not selected for the OTC (bearing in mind they have expressed an interest in reserve service) and make then an 'offer', you should be quids in.

Also, they will get people coming in all year round, but can only recruit in September - I am sure they would be only too glad to send those people your way.

Ultimately it's all about building relationships with your local OTC and ACIO.

m-s-r

Recruiting is the TA main effort at the moment and hopefully a nice sized budget hitting us in April!!To get the TA up to strength for 2015.

Yes, you can go into the Job Centre, what you really need is to have at least 3 soldiers on an ADC one processing all the enquiries, and paper work, the big problem is the amount of time it takes to get guys booked on courses as soon as possible i.e well in advance for their course to get them trough the sausage factory this way it gives them plenty of time to book the time off of work and also make sure they get a place on said course. Depends on who quick you are is they key, you will need to get on to your local BRAT Outreach course and TRHJ course.

The other two doing Outreach i.e Job Centre and other events at the weekends and one in the ACIO for up to 4 days a week you need to have a good relationship with the ACA and TALO.

STILTS

Originally Posted by ancient

Thank you gentlemen, It is reassuring to know that my unit's figures are no more appalling than some others. It seems then that there is little if anything we can do to improve the conversion rate , therefore we have to increase the numbers that come through the door . We are based in a university city with a functioning UOTC. Has anyone had any luck recruiting for TA rather than UOTC in universities? I understand that OTC get first dibs on their students, but is there anyway way we can get in the back door ? Can we recruit directly in Job Centres? I shall take a good hard look at the recruiter's toolbox over the weekend and I am grateful to MSR for that. The situation in the unit is pretty dire, down as we are to one officer and some sixty more or less active ORs. Perhaps the wording used on the leaflets could be PMd to me, I would rather work with something tried and tested.

ancient,

With all due respect, I think that the moment you start chasing quotas and percentages you will guarantee yourself tears of pain and misery. ACIOs reckon a rate of 10 walk-ins to one candidate completing CIC (or other arms equivalent) and my current ratio is about the same. That makes me happy, but I know that I will come across a bad spell where every other walk-in turns out to be illegible or unsuitable.

The most important aide to assist retention for recruits that a TA unit can affect to some degree or other, is the expeditious booking of candidates on recruit training courses. A bod who has been waiting months to jump on a course, but for one admin foul-up or other, is still waiting around in limbo, becomes closer to sacking it with each passing drill night. Even if all the courses available are a while down the road, simply giving each bod the forecast of the training cycle so that they can aim off their lives for the next 6 months, is a big help.

I startedthe process of joining the TA around the start of December. Still waiting for Glasgow to sort my paperwork out. Maybe the ammount of time it takes ex Regs to join has some effect on these statistics? I've been along to a few Tuesday nights to try and keep involved and show I'm keen, but it's a ball ache when you have nearly a three hour round trip, you're not getting paid, wearing civvies and not allowed to participate in a lot of the training.

I've decided to wait out and just train on my own or work on Tuesdays instead until I'm squared away. I bet a lot of people give up and move on to other things.