Recruitment

Why are the ACO so behind the curve in its policy and action regards recruitment? The RAF spend £000’s on recruitment and have dedicated teams across the country with a centralised policy even though they are significantly smaller than the ACO. I am not asking for a dedicated staff of thousands but there surely must be action from above to lead this critical function.
The way we recruit is no longer working, attending shows and fairs does not attract the demographic age range, speaking and presenting at schools no longer works to great effect, word of mouth is dying out in this new technilogical age.
I was speaking with my Parent Unit CO (i’m with a DF) last night at a Civ Com meeting and he is trying to map what the ACO can offer with regards to the new Cirriculam for Exellence, Leadership, Teamwork, Communication etc within the framework and highlight to the Head of the schools where the ACO can pick up the slack that schools are expected to deliver.
This must be the way forward, parents are pushing kids even further these days and there must be tangible evidence of where the ACO can fit in delivering life skills.

One word answer:

Money.

It costs money to run recruitment, which we have precious little of.

Why can’t we tack on to the Regular /reserve campaign

Oddly enough, this was actually done in most press advertising for the RAuxAF/RAFVR during the 1950s and '60s (I can post examples).

The standard counter against doing this (in the modern era) would of course be the nearly-contemporary statement “we are not a recruiting mechanism for the RAF”. However, such a position of genuine separacy has always been difficult to maintain. Especially so nowadays, with the advent of the formal “RAF Air Cadets” branding…I strongly predict that the original protestation of “we aren’t recruiters” will be quietly (and rightly) dropped, and will pay double dues to RAFA this year if I’m proven wrong.

There could be some mainstream joint recruiting within the mainstream media corporate comms. Not within the existing binary regulars/reserves television adverts (muddy messages and all that), but at a level far beyond the mutual link referrals within RAF/RAF Air Cadets websites.

And I totally reject the self-propelled excuse that advertising would be too expensive. Our target demographic ( be it potential Cadets, or parents thereof) simply doesn’t read printed papers or watch core television channels anything like the extent of the 1980s/90s.

There are skills/ideas/abilities and mechanisms out there in the Corps, along with willingness…a cheap effective viral modern media campaign could be stated as an Air Cadets Staff Target Requirement (Invitation To Submit Content), lightly coached, formally selected, authorised to deploy, and then…bingo.

The flaws in this idea would be…what?

wilf_san

[quote=“wilf_san” post=26316]There are skills/ideas/abilities and mechanisms out there in the Corps, along with willingness…a cheap effective viral modern media campaign could be stated as an Air Cadets Staff Target Requirement (Invitation To Submit Content), lightly coached, formally selected, authorised to deploy, and then…bingo.

The flaws in this idea would be…what?

wilf_san[/quote]

Careful now, You might give us cause to hit the “Independent Thought Alarm”

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At that time the Air Training Corps; along with the other cadet forces; was a pre-service training organisation. In 1961/62, with the end of National Service, they became service sponsored youth organisations. Therefore concurrent recruitment with the (diminishing) reserves when the move was to voluntary full time forces would have been inappropriate.

exmpa

A full-time “Regional Development Officer” for each Rgn (preferably
CS or Crown Servant / VR(T), so as to widen the scope for applications) …would be a very good idea.

Could be deployed around the Rgn as required, recruiting staff and cadets, engaging with community organisations etc.

The sticking problem of course, is money…

Cheers
BTI

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[quote=“kilobravo” post=26312]I was speaking with my Parent Unit CO (i’m with a DF) last night at a Civ Com meeting and he is trying to map what the ACO can offer with regards to the new Cirriculam for Exellence, Leadership, Teamwork, Communication etc within the framework and highlight to the Head of the schools where the ACO can pick up the slack that schools are expected to deliver.
This must be the way forward, parents are pushing kids even further these days and there must be tangible evidence of where the ACO can fit in delivering life skills.[/quote]
The problem with head masters/mistresses is that (in the experience of our kids school) achievement in the cadet forces and a whole raft of other extra-curricular activities counts for nowt. There were lots of pictures of pupils who were sports teams, especially where they are winners / successful etc, but knew of pupils who were in accomplished musicians in youth orchestras, dancers and they didn’t get a look in. I had cadets who represented at Corps level in football and athletics, a LLC (after leaving secondary) and a Best Wing Cadet (again after leaving), and despite advising the head of their school not a sous. The problem we have is that our potential headline grabbers don’t invariably happen until they’ve left secondary, get missed by the schools and unless the heads are on the ball don’t see the relevance.

Similarly tangible evidence is anecdotal for schools. I’ve known a large number of cadets where their cadet experience has been a major contributory factor to getting jobs, some getting jobs despite not having the right qualifications (not so good for a school, perhaps!!) as the employers recognise the relevance of ‘soft skills’ we imbue youngsters with. Maybe Corps needs to try and get employers to make more of this and push the other way to get the interest from school and parents, ie “you can have all the GCSEs and A Levels, BUT being in something like the ATC can be the factor that sets you apart” and get the recruitment coming from that angle.

Seeing the number of ads in local papers since the end of June with local outdoor centres offering adventurous activities, I can’t see that being the recruitment draw it maybe once was. We maybe able to do it cheaper etc but given that you need to get enough qualified staff together in the right place, with the right kit to do it, and that it’s not easy to deliver. What we need to stand out is guaranteed FLYING opportunities and alternatives lined up ready to kick in if there are problems with normal delivery. This has been an extremely notable failure over the last 16 months.

TBH we should abandon any sort of recruitment campaign for cadets until we can deliver our USPs at a level before the gliding suspension and when for those affected when 5 AEF are sorted out.

In London at the weekend and saw LASER adult recruitment poster on back of several London buses. That can’t be cheap!

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What needs to happen is a proper study into the real life world of the adults we want to join as volunteers, not some half-baked Sharepoint questionnaire. This isn’t just about motivation to join or stay but the biggest single barriers to people volunteering anywhere … available time / working patterns and how you are treated when you do volunteer. Whenever you ask someone to get involved in anything involving volunteering the first question is how much time will it take up. They’re not interested in training, uniforms etc.
There seems to be a mindset in HQAC that joining the Corps as staff is some sort of privileged position and people should be grateful they’re allowed to join and even more so if you put on a uniform, but it isn’t, it’s personal time consuming volunteering and this has to be fully recognised, as such understanding working patterns is crucial.
How many people today work a 9-5, 5 day week job?
How many have ever worked like that?
How many have a short commute to work?
These questions could be asked of current staff to get feel for it.
Today employers want more than their pound of flesh and people are now much more wary about job security than they were before the problems of 8 years ago. One of our neighbours now has an 80 mile round trip to work, as their company closed the local office 5 years ago and being nearly 50 at the time, decided it was better than trying to get a new job locally.
HQAC gettiing a grasp of this sort of thing would I feel, better serve any adult staff recruitment campaign. We not unless all we want as staff are ex-cadets and it seems one of the things the cadet convention delivered was a way of perpetuating that. I wonder what came out of the CI convention?
In terms of how you are treated the Corps is at times very demanding that you do this and that and I wonder how much this wears people down to the point where they think, I don’t need this and leave. How many staff go NEP or on extended LOA and decide not to come back? We must all know of people who have done this and not returned and those that do return are not the same they were before.

I read a report in last Sunday’s Telegraph that the armed forces lifestyle doesn’t appeal to many younger people as a result they are struggling to recruit, and many older experienced personnel are leaving for better pay and conditions in civvie street. You have to wonder if people seeing our adverts/flyers see the connection to the RAF and wonder what they might be letting themselves in for.
I get a sense that many of the retirees in our senior management regard the ATC as the last bastion of the life they know and aren’t keen to let it go, as you don’t ever feel the policies and decisions they make are in the actual best interests of a volunteer youth organisation, they seem more about keeping jobs going. You don’t see many not hanging around for years and years, when you might think they’d like to retire properly. I personally can’t wait until I’m old enough to retire and if my lottery tickets come up, in the meantime so much the better. But I feel the ATC allows them to revel in a rank structure that if they left altogether would mean they would become ordinary and disappear into the background noise of the real world, as no one really cares if you were a senior military rank.

Well, the Scouts have managed it again. They’ve been awarded £2million to work with the Guides on improving their Adult Recruitment processes.

What could we do if we found £1million down the back of the sofa or in a friendly trust’s account?

Well done the Scouts and Guides for getting £2m funding! Someone has obviously put an impressive bid together.

They’re expecting a digital recruitment system by 2023. With all the good work being done on Bader at the moment, we might even get there sooner?

Oooh. Oooh. I know… Time for a rebrand!
That’ll really get the recruitment flowing :stuck_out_tongue:.

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Are we talking cadet or staff recruitment? Personally, I don’t find Cadet recruitment an issue at all. I plastered every village Facebook group in our range with recruitment information last Monday and already have 15 cadets on the list to attend the next recruitment evening a week later, I’ve always had success doing it that way. Staff recruitment is a different issue however…

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The Royal Youth Air Force Air Cadets Organisation
RYAFACO

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Lolz,

The Scouts/Guides are looking at Staff recruitment.
That’s certainly what we need to do as well.

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Nah, needs at least 3 'air’s if we’re going to rebrand!

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Royal Air Force Youth Club And Baby Sitters

RAFYCABS

thats-funny

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