If they don’t have the hard quals then surely they won’t be in the interview in the first place…
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Depends on the job.
Two pence worth time… Firstly, I cannot believe the hostility shown by some of these posts. If it grates you that much that you want all your staff qualified to the hilt and the cadets coursed the same. You are in the wrong voluntary cadet organisation. “When I was a cadet” does not wash anymore, times have changed, the kids are “now smart” they want bits of paper with posh writing on, something tangible that they can use to their benefit, if the ACO cannot provide it then as a mentor surely you would point them in the direction they can get it. As for interviewing, my quickest interview I chaired lasted 4 minutes - engineering position - candidate had HND, gave her a practical task, could not complete it. Just because you have a bit of paper saying you know in theory how to do it, does not mean you actually know how to do it. Job went to a 20 year old with no formal engineering knowledge but smashed the task. Now 18 months on, he has learnt as much as he can with us with the tasks we do so I’m actively encouraging him to move on to somewhere more challenging. The ACO is nothing more than a stepping stone, some you keep and some you lose. My post is no more valid than all of yours on here. I manage people differently than others, I’m sure one way is no better or worse than the next, as long as the workers feel valued, understood, treated fairly and without prejudice. Sign of the times reading these posts, why help each other spread knowledge and experiences when you can spit out venom at someone who does things differently than you, especially when you are obviously the subject matter expert…
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Most kids I know don’t give a hoot about bits of paper and want to actually get the chance to do something, rather than write a big fancy essay on it.
Which is precisely the way this country is going. Tin of beans syndrome, can list off all the ingredients but can’t open the tin.
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350 on site and 6500 nationally and a few thousand more, world wide.
The world has changed. Automation has dramatically reduced the people needed, changing markets, economic downturn etc. When I started here, there were around 1700 on site. When I started here demarcation was rife and became an outmoded way of working within 5 years. I remember being told that this was my job and things got passed to others to do things and if you wanted something done that was whoever’s job.
Unlike HQAC where it seems a little bit of work means they crumple and you get the standard public sector moan. If we moan it has become quite clear as to your options. We do moan, you have to, but we just crack on as we have customers internal and external, and if it means working late or coming in early that’s what happens. No overtime (annual hours contract) but we can have TOIL, if the out of hours working is agreed beforehand.
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We seem to have strayed a long way off topic which was originally an OC’s surprise that two cadets were leaving. It is what happens. In recent years on my squadron we have twice been through a similar experience. The first time there was a mass exodus the most senior (only) NCO was a recently promoted corporal who was 16. She rose to the occasion (cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man) and pretty soon had put together a great team. She left last year having aged out as a CWO and went Uni.
This, and several others a couple of years younger also leaving, led to another gap in the ranks, which again is being filled by very able younger cadets. My advice would be to give the younger ones their chance and you might find some otherwise hidden talent.
As for finding out what cadets are planning to do, a formal interview is the worst possible way. Talk to them, better still get your CIs to talk to them. Good leadership is very much about getting to know people.
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I’ve had several rounds of older cadets leaving en masse, normally groups of mates or groups that have developed as such. One leaves and then the others follow, so you have to promote cadets who might not really be ready, but you have to go with it. A number of these groups still hang around with each other, just got to a point where the ATC wasn’t for them.
I think what I was told seemed more about putting a cadet effectively on a pedestal, giving them lots of responsibility, grooming them for uniform and then they find / decide there are more important things than the ATC and left wondering what to do next. I do wonder if being a ‘cadet’ is the problem as they are adults and not fully treated as such.
I am with you there. For various reasons never fully understood (but probably to do with CCF age limits) it was possible to become a Civilian Gliding Instructor at 18, but not a CI on a squadron until over 20. What this meant was that a staff cadet on a VGS (Ah, remember those days) who was over 18 could decide whether they wanted to stay a cadet or become an “adult”. My recollection was about a 50/50 split. It also neatly solved the boyfriend/girlfriend problem of slightly different ages because they could both become CGIs on the same day having stayed a cadet until that day.
Ah, simple answers to impossible questions, but I can see that the military mind doesn’t really like options.