RiflesChattie
Old Salt
Hi All,
I am relatively new here but after browsing for a few days, I noticed that a lot of the questions new potential recruits are asking are about small details to the recruiting process of which the answers cannot be directly found within the pinned posts.
I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread where new applicants (applied after April process change) could post there stories about there Army Recruitment journey so far. This way, any people that have recently applied or are interested in applying can read through these stories to find there answers as to what happens next, get rough timeframes for instances that are straight forward and for instances that involve applications being delayed.
Please feel free to post your stories below and if you have any questions simply quote this post! I will update my story as I go.
My story so far.....
Initial Application
Unlike a lot of people here, I did not actually visit an AFCO to start my application, my working hours did not allow me to get down there during the week and I had already used my time off. Instead, I went through the online application process on the British Army Website. I am going in as a Regular Soldier in the Infantry (Rifles Regiment), the application was very straight forward, didn't take me too long to complete at all but naturally I took my time to make sure everything was filled in correctly and to the best of my knowledge. I needed a few documents to get me through the application form (Exam Results/Grades etc) as not everything you will know off the top of your head. After a while filling in everything I had successfully sent off my application on 22nd June 2014 and my journey begun.
Online Medical Questionnaire/CSM Interview Arrangements
On the 26th June I received a call from my newly appointed Candidate Support Manager at the National Recruiting Centre. During the call the got me to confirm some of my personal details as well as confirming the 3 job roles for my application. Initially I only put down 2 Infantry roles (Rifles and Mercian) as this is where my heart lies but my CSM strongly suggested I had a third so after a bit of research I decided my third choice would be the Light Dragoons RAC. Once I had confirmed all the information they needed, my CSM gave me a choice of interview dates for me to choose the suitable for me. I chose the soonest possible as I was very eager and so my interview was booked for 18th July.
A few minutes after speaking to my CSM I received an email from the NRC with links to a Online Medical Questionnaire for me to complete. This questionnaire is very simple and is basically for you to declare any medical conditions you have or have had, I believe this is mostly to make it easier for them to separate the straight forward applicants and the applicants with issues that need investigating. Luckily for me, I have no medical conditions and have perfect eyesight (except being colourblind). This questionnaire took me no longer than 5 minutes and was sent off the same day.
Interview Documents/Preparation
On the 30th June my CSM emailed me my confirmed interview times and locations along with some documents to help me prepare for my interview and a PDF showing my predicted application targets/process. On the PDF my target assessment date was December 2014 and my target Phase 1 Training date was January 2015, along with information about the stages of application I can expect. The Interview Preparation document my CSM sent me was very helpful, it gives loads of vital information such as the Army values and standards, behaviour standards, ADSC information such as what you will do there and information about a career in the Army. Along with all this vital information there are loads of questions that you can expect to be asked in the interview and I recommend doing your research and writing the answer/information you found under the questions to help revise. TRUST ME when i say revision for this really helps!
The Interview
The day had arrived, July 18th and as expected I was bricking myself whilst at the same time being extremely confident from the 6 hours of revision I had done the night before. My interview was at the London AFCO at 11:30am, I was dressed extremely smart (suit, tie and everything). I woke up nice and early to give myself a lot of time to get ready, eat and nip in some last minute revision on the train with my girlfriend who had kindly chosen to come with me for support. I arrived at the door of the AFCO, nervous having never been there before. You simply ring the buzzer, give them your name and the reason you are there. My advice, stand up straight, be focused, loud and clear when speaking and very polite as you can imagine the officers inside will take notes of your attitude and how you carry yourself in a military environment. I went in, signed in and was asked to take a seat in the waiting room. There were 2 other applicants in the room who clearly also had interviews, one boy one girl. Remember I said to stay focused? I was sat up straight the entire time, hand on my lap waiting to be called to an interview room, the other guy in the room sat slouched with his head in his phone which I can only imagine isn't the best thing to be doing with a Corporal sat watching you at the desk.
Finally, 11:30 came and a Colour Sergeant came down the stairs and called my name out, I shook his hand as he welcome me to the AFCO and we started heading towards the interview room. The entire time he was making small talk, commenting about the extreme weather outside etc all to help make me feel more comfortable which really did help. Despite them making you feel more comfortable make sure you stay focused as when we entered the room mid conversation about the weekend he darted straight into the questions (I am sure it is an attempt to catch you out to see if you can stay focused and pay attention) asking about my job choice, regiment and why I wanted to join that specific regiment. During the interview they will ask you to confirm who you are, where you live, about your family, your job and then go into more detail about your job choices and regiments as well as asking you about your fitness.
At some point during this interview they will ask you for your current run time, mine was not great at the time (13:30) but I had knocked it down from 16 minutes in only a month which he seem to be impressed by. Although my run time was great he told me that he wanted me to attend ADSC in a month as my knowledge of regiments, about the army and the determination and focus I showed during the interview proved to him that I was ready. You can imagine this was quite a shock to me considering my target ADSC date was December! Never the less, I was very pleased and excited knowing that I could easily achieve a run time of 10:30 by then considering the time I had given him wasn't my 100% (didn't want to get injured during training). In case you are curious, he advised me the minimum for Infantry was 12:45 but getting 10:30 will give you a good chance of an A grade at ADSC should you do well in everything else. After receiving some more praise that I wont go into and having a small talk about experiences and him asking my to join the Para's (another shock for me) which I respectfully declined, the interview had finished. The colours congratulated me and walked me down the stairs to the door where I signed out and departed. I travelled home with the biggest smile on my face that day knowing I had absolutely smashed the interview. Believe me when I said the revision will really pay off in your interview, he was extremely impressed with my knowledge considering I had pretty much learnt the entire Rifles Section of the BA website word for word off by heart!
Interview feedback
21st July, Monday morning whilst I was at work my CSM called to give me my feedback from my interview. She asked how I felt I had done and after telling her I thought I had done well she simply confirmed it, reading out the Sergeants comments on me and telling me I scored 6 out of 6 on all sections of the Interview passing with flyings colours! She then notified me of the next stage of application (the Medical Forms) and advised that I would receive my RGMD's within two weeks as she had already requested them (they can only request them on Saturday's). Now it was simply a waiting game for the next stage.
RGMD forms
24th July, much to my surprise today I received my RGMD's from the Army Medical Teams. Of course I read through everything and shot straight down my doctor's after filling out the sections I needed to. I was in luck today, my Doctors were very helpful and took the RGMD from me and advised that the forms will be filled out tomorrow and sent off on Monday morning. I know some people tend to have a lot of problems at this stage with their doctors so I guess I got lucky but I find if you are just extremely polite to them and explain everything thoroughly they don't mind helping you (especially when the have been your doctor all your life). I found it also helped smooth things out by explaining that at the back of the RGMD forms was an invoice for them to fill in confirming that the MOD would pay up to £65 worth of fees for them filling out these forms. Now I am just waiting for my doctor to send my forms and the NRC to receive them and review them which I don't think will take that long as I have never had any medical problems throughout my life (haven't actually been doctors in about 10 years haha).
I will update my story as I get to the next stage. Hope this has been of some use to new recruits and please leave any questions or your stories below! Thanks for reading.
I am relatively new here but after browsing for a few days, I noticed that a lot of the questions new potential recruits are asking are about small details to the recruiting process of which the answers cannot be directly found within the pinned posts.
I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread where new applicants (applied after April process change) could post there stories about there Army Recruitment journey so far. This way, any people that have recently applied or are interested in applying can read through these stories to find there answers as to what happens next, get rough timeframes for instances that are straight forward and for instances that involve applications being delayed.
Please feel free to post your stories below and if you have any questions simply quote this post! I will update my story as I go.
My story so far.....
Initial Application
Unlike a lot of people here, I did not actually visit an AFCO to start my application, my working hours did not allow me to get down there during the week and I had already used my time off. Instead, I went through the online application process on the British Army Website. I am going in as a Regular Soldier in the Infantry (Rifles Regiment), the application was very straight forward, didn't take me too long to complete at all but naturally I took my time to make sure everything was filled in correctly and to the best of my knowledge. I needed a few documents to get me through the application form (Exam Results/Grades etc) as not everything you will know off the top of your head. After a while filling in everything I had successfully sent off my application on 22nd June 2014 and my journey begun.
Online Medical Questionnaire/CSM Interview Arrangements
On the 26th June I received a call from my newly appointed Candidate Support Manager at the National Recruiting Centre. During the call the got me to confirm some of my personal details as well as confirming the 3 job roles for my application. Initially I only put down 2 Infantry roles (Rifles and Mercian) as this is where my heart lies but my CSM strongly suggested I had a third so after a bit of research I decided my third choice would be the Light Dragoons RAC. Once I had confirmed all the information they needed, my CSM gave me a choice of interview dates for me to choose the suitable for me. I chose the soonest possible as I was very eager and so my interview was booked for 18th July.
A few minutes after speaking to my CSM I received an email from the NRC with links to a Online Medical Questionnaire for me to complete. This questionnaire is very simple and is basically for you to declare any medical conditions you have or have had, I believe this is mostly to make it easier for them to separate the straight forward applicants and the applicants with issues that need investigating. Luckily for me, I have no medical conditions and have perfect eyesight (except being colourblind). This questionnaire took me no longer than 5 minutes and was sent off the same day.
Interview Documents/Preparation
On the 30th June my CSM emailed me my confirmed interview times and locations along with some documents to help me prepare for my interview and a PDF showing my predicted application targets/process. On the PDF my target assessment date was December 2014 and my target Phase 1 Training date was January 2015, along with information about the stages of application I can expect. The Interview Preparation document my CSM sent me was very helpful, it gives loads of vital information such as the Army values and standards, behaviour standards, ADSC information such as what you will do there and information about a career in the Army. Along with all this vital information there are loads of questions that you can expect to be asked in the interview and I recommend doing your research and writing the answer/information you found under the questions to help revise. TRUST ME when i say revision for this really helps!
The Interview
The day had arrived, July 18th and as expected I was bricking myself whilst at the same time being extremely confident from the 6 hours of revision I had done the night before. My interview was at the London AFCO at 11:30am, I was dressed extremely smart (suit, tie and everything). I woke up nice and early to give myself a lot of time to get ready, eat and nip in some last minute revision on the train with my girlfriend who had kindly chosen to come with me for support. I arrived at the door of the AFCO, nervous having never been there before. You simply ring the buzzer, give them your name and the reason you are there. My advice, stand up straight, be focused, loud and clear when speaking and very polite as you can imagine the officers inside will take notes of your attitude and how you carry yourself in a military environment. I went in, signed in and was asked to take a seat in the waiting room. There were 2 other applicants in the room who clearly also had interviews, one boy one girl. Remember I said to stay focused? I was sat up straight the entire time, hand on my lap waiting to be called to an interview room, the other guy in the room sat slouched with his head in his phone which I can only imagine isn't the best thing to be doing with a Corporal sat watching you at the desk.
Finally, 11:30 came and a Colour Sergeant came down the stairs and called my name out, I shook his hand as he welcome me to the AFCO and we started heading towards the interview room. The entire time he was making small talk, commenting about the extreme weather outside etc all to help make me feel more comfortable which really did help. Despite them making you feel more comfortable make sure you stay focused as when we entered the room mid conversation about the weekend he darted straight into the questions (I am sure it is an attempt to catch you out to see if you can stay focused and pay attention) asking about my job choice, regiment and why I wanted to join that specific regiment. During the interview they will ask you to confirm who you are, where you live, about your family, your job and then go into more detail about your job choices and regiments as well as asking you about your fitness.
At some point during this interview they will ask you for your current run time, mine was not great at the time (13:30) but I had knocked it down from 16 minutes in only a month which he seem to be impressed by. Although my run time was great he told me that he wanted me to attend ADSC in a month as my knowledge of regiments, about the army and the determination and focus I showed during the interview proved to him that I was ready. You can imagine this was quite a shock to me considering my target ADSC date was December! Never the less, I was very pleased and excited knowing that I could easily achieve a run time of 10:30 by then considering the time I had given him wasn't my 100% (didn't want to get injured during training). In case you are curious, he advised me the minimum for Infantry was 12:45 but getting 10:30 will give you a good chance of an A grade at ADSC should you do well in everything else. After receiving some more praise that I wont go into and having a small talk about experiences and him asking my to join the Para's (another shock for me) which I respectfully declined, the interview had finished. The colours congratulated me and walked me down the stairs to the door where I signed out and departed. I travelled home with the biggest smile on my face that day knowing I had absolutely smashed the interview. Believe me when I said the revision will really pay off in your interview, he was extremely impressed with my knowledge considering I had pretty much learnt the entire Rifles Section of the BA website word for word off by heart!
Interview feedback
21st July, Monday morning whilst I was at work my CSM called to give me my feedback from my interview. She asked how I felt I had done and after telling her I thought I had done well she simply confirmed it, reading out the Sergeants comments on me and telling me I scored 6 out of 6 on all sections of the Interview passing with flyings colours! She then notified me of the next stage of application (the Medical Forms) and advised that I would receive my RGMD's within two weeks as she had already requested them (they can only request them on Saturday's). Now it was simply a waiting game for the next stage.
RGMD forms
24th July, much to my surprise today I received my RGMD's from the Army Medical Teams. Of course I read through everything and shot straight down my doctor's after filling out the sections I needed to. I was in luck today, my Doctors were very helpful and took the RGMD from me and advised that the forms will be filled out tomorrow and sent off on Monday morning. I know some people tend to have a lot of problems at this stage with their doctors so I guess I got lucky but I find if you are just extremely polite to them and explain everything thoroughly they don't mind helping you (especially when the have been your doctor all your life). I found it also helped smooth things out by explaining that at the back of the RGMD forms was an invoice for them to fill in confirming that the MOD would pay up to £65 worth of fees for them filling out these forms. Now I am just waiting for my doctor to send my forms and the NRC to receive them and review them which I don't think will take that long as I have never had any medical problems throughout my life (haven't actually been doctors in about 10 years haha).
I will update my story as I get to the next stage. Hope this has been of some use to new recruits and please leave any questions or your stories below! Thanks for reading.