Title: Options to Increase Recruiter Proficiency Through Human Networking

Date Originally Written: November 20, 2024.

Date: Originally Published: November 25, 2024.

Author and / or Article Point of View: The article is written from the point of view of the Chief of Staff of the Army to the U.S. Secretary of the Army.

Summary: DoD might consider adopting a policy of assigning military recruiters based largely on the recruiter’s potential to develop human networks. Two options to accomplish this are to either make recruiter assignments based on their hometown or to institute a Potential to Network Screener which identifies a series of holistic indicators including hometown location, previous experience, and needs of the service.

Background: Recruiting is a difficult task which requires three critical capabilities: first, recruiters and their leadership must establish robust human networks; second, recruiting stations must be funded and manned; and third, the recruiting environment must be saturated by a coherent, synchronized service-level marketing plan. Establishing a functional human network is critical. The “walk-in” market, or the propensity of a subject of recruiting effort (SRE) to seek out a recruiter, comprises the vast minority of applicants and eventual enlistments. Successful recruiting requires the recruiter and echelons of recruiting headquarters to develop networks of secondary and post-secondary educators and administrators, community organizers, business leaders, veterans’ groups, and local media. One method to develop better human networks faster is to send new recruiters and recruiting commanders to their hometown for recruiting duty.

Significance: In 2022, the United States armed services broadly failed their recruitment and accessions mission. The U.S. Army achieved 74.8% and 62.1% of its Regular Army and Army Reserve mission requirements, respectively. Prolonged failure to meet recruitment goals impacts the readiness of the force and constitutes a failure of the services to fulfill 10 USC 7013 responsibilities to organize, train, and equip the U.S. Army.

Option #1: The U.S. Army makes recruiter and recruiting officer assignments based on their hometown. Recruiters can then develop robust networks within the recruiting area based on their pre-existing knowledge to successfully conduct recruiting operations. The relationships that recruiters build with individuals, who can shape the SRE’s preferences, sometimes referred to as influencers, is at least as important as the relationship the recruiter builds with the SRE. Recruiters often find long-term success by building strong relationships with secondary school counselors and coaches, local business leaders, and community organizers. These individuals refer potential SRE to a trusted recruiter and reinforce an SRE’s decision to serve in the military. Conversely, these community contacts may advise against enlisting in the military when they do not trust the local military recruiter. The average age of a newly assigned recruiter is 24 years old, meaning that they may have been out of their hometown for less than six years, are positioned to engage community leaders, understand the local culture, and have established connections to develop a network of trusted influencers. Recruiting officers must also develop human networks. They are charged with not only managing their assigned stations and recruiters, but leveraging their rank, position, and education to develop higher level, more impactful relationships. As opposed to local guidance counselors and educators, recruiting company commanders and battalion commanders should build relationships with state level politicians, regional and national business brands, and large-scale event coordinators.

Gain: The benefits of assigning recruiters and recruiting officers to recruiting stations, companies, and battalions based on their home town would become immediately and drastically apparent. Recruiters and recruiting officers equipped with an intimate knowledge of the area and its unique culture, and potentially with existing relationships with influencers, will rapidly build human networks.

Risk: The benefits of rapidly developing human networks may come at a long-term cost. Option #1 assumes that recruiters come proportionately and evenly from across the country. However, most Soldiers enlist from the American south, and in communities near large military installations. For instance, in 2022, 44.4% of all Regular Army recruits came from only six states: Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia[1]. Additionally, 79.1% of individuals with family members in the military or all friends in the military reported having a view that Americans look up to the military, a strong indicator of propensity to enlist[2].

Assigning Soldiers to recruiting stations strictly based on their hometown yields two suboptimal results. First, recruiters returning to their hometowns provide disproportionately more recruiting force to areas with a higher propensity, that do not require a higher recruiter force. E.g. Texas does not require disproportionately more recruiters. Second, recruiters will be diverted from areas that need more recruiters, e.g. the northern Midwest. Over time, this option will result in chronically under-developed networks in low propensity areas and over saturated high propensity areas. This creates two potential problems: suboptimal recruiting and a less diverse military force.

First, if potential SRE in low propensity areas are not recruited, and high propensity areas are carrying extra recruiting force without achieving commensurate enlistments, the solution is suboptimal for enlisting the most SRE. Second, even if the first potential problem does not materialize, and the solution yields greater enlistments, the effect may be for a less diverse military force; a future military comprised nearly exclusively or primarily of white American males from the south. This may present significant civilian-military relations issues[3][4].

Option #2:  Institute a Potential to Network Screener (PTNS). U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC) could develop and institute a robust screener for soldiers and officers selected for recruiting duty. This PTNS would consider not only their hometown, but also attempt to match previous experiences with aligned areas. The experiences fall into categories including previous employment, education, extracurricular activities, language, and culture. For instance, if a recruiter was an eagle scout, they may be matched with regions with a strong Boy Scouts of America community. A native Spanish speaking recruiter could develop a stronger network faster in a region with a high Spanish speaking population than a non-Spanish speaker. In support of this option, the DoD already resources extensive business analytics with databases and enterprise resource management firms such as Oracle which can facilitate PTNS analysis.

Risk: Developing a survey-based screener requires a developed and tested back end algorithm to align the potentially flawed human responses with business analytics data. Survey response efficacy is heavily dependent on survey design and execution, to include wording, understandability, and implicit biases. Additionally, perfecting this algorithmic process will likely require several iterations of assignment cycles of recruiters.

Gain: A Potential to Network Screener could identify indicators of a recruiter’s propensity to develop human networks without constraining assignment selection to the service member’s hometown. Further, hometown knowledge may not be the most highly correlated criterion to indicate propensity to develop human networks; a recruiter may develop stronger connections in a community other than their hometown if the characteristics of that community align with other experiences, values, and characteristics of the recruiter.

Recommendation: None.

Endnotes:

[1] United States Army Recruiting Command, “Facts and Figures.” Accessed May 02, 2024. https://recruiting.army.mil/pao/facts_figures/

[2] Meredith Klamwig, Daniel Schwam, Gilad Wenig, “What Americans Think About Veterans and Military Service,” 2023. http://www.rand.org/t/RRA1363-7

[3] Nathalie Grogan, “The All-Volunteer Force: Civil Military Relations Hit Home – and Abroad,” The Center for New American Security, September 17, 2020. http://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/the-all-volunteer-force-civil-military-relations-hit-home-and-abroad

[4] Peter Feaver, Richard Kohn, “Civil-Military Relations in the United States: What Senior Leaders Need to Know (And Usually Don’t),” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Summer 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27032894