But sometimes it isn’t the recruiters fault. A recruiter can take a busload of high school kids who want to join the army down to be tested. No one will pass. These will be kids who will receive high school diplomas.
For the record, I was a Recruiting Company Commander. The Recruiting BDEs play with the numbers to make themselves look good. I never could understand how we as companies and battalions were failing but the brigades still made their numbers.
The army also has problems with understanding trends, market saturation, like other government agencies. They believe if they spend more money and have more recruiters, they will get more recruits. Remember a few years back when the agency that gives out food stamps had not given out its quota so they started advertising on the radio so people would come get food stamps. The examples are endless.
I understand what you’re saying. I was a Recruiter. It’s shocking how many prospects who try as hard as they can would only score an 18 on the ASVAB. Yes, that’s not the Recruiter’s fault, but it didn’t matter. It just meant we had to increase our outreach to find more prospects. We used to call it “dialing for dollars.”
My specialty was waivers. I would take the prospects other Recruiters didn’t want because of the extra paper work and time involved. It was worth it, because in a large percentage would get their waivers.
Whatever quota we missed would have to be made up in the following month.
I would work with a prospect for 3-4 months to get them qualified. Then my jackass classifier would send them to another branch of service. She didn’t last very long.