Pipeline Recruiting

[Pingree1492]

Here's yet another example of why the "pipeline" recruiting method WORKS: We had our semi-annual open house last week, and had a room-full of people show up and about 25 prospective cadet recruits.

Tonight, our first "training" night, we had 27 attend the meeting and take applications.  We'll see how many will turn them in next week. 

Last time we did this in December, we graduated 18 cadets through our Eaglet Training Program, which those of you who read Volunteer saw pictures of our Promotion Ceremony and Parade (yeah, we have enough cadets for that sort of thing  ).

The really interesting part (I'll use interesting because I can't decide between "cool" and "anxiety-driven depression") is that we DIDN'T do any sort of recruiting drive for this.  We had one article in the local paper about our squadron Drill Team winning the Wing Cadet Competition over a month ago, but that was it.  Word of mouth has generated 27 prospective cadets showing up to these meetings!    And this was supposed to be a SMALL run-through (we wanted about 10-15 new members). 

And I'm not the only one with success like this, take a look at some of NIN's posts about his two recent Open Houses.  He's had the same success.

I would strongly recommend to all of you cadet program managers out there to consider and implement a pipeline recruiting program that works for your squadron.  We went with the 2 Open House and join periods a year- one in April and one in September.  That' is just what worked naturally for us, your needs may be different.

[CadetProgramGuy]

I just talked to our new squadorn cadre and we all agreed to the Pipeline method tonight.

We aer bringing on the main staff this May, the prepare for Cadets in the Fall.

[NIN]

Here's yet another example of why the "pipeline" recruiting method WORKS: We had our semi-annual open house last week, and had a room-full of people show up and about 25 prospective cadet recruits.

Tonight, our first "training" night, we had 27 attend the meeting and take applications.  We'll see how many will turn them in next week. 

Last time we did this in December, we graduated 18 cadets through our Eaglet Training Program, which those of you who read Volunteer saw pictures of our Promotion Ceremony and Parade (yeah, we have enough cadets for that sort of thing  ).

The really interesting part (I'll use interesting because I can't decide between "cool" and "anxiety-driven depression") is that we DIDN'T do any sort of recruiting drive for this.  We had one article in the local paper about our squadron Drill Team winning the Wing Cadet Competition over a month ago, but that was it.  Word of mouth has generated 27 prospective cadets showing up to these meetings!    And this was supposed to be a SMALL run-through (we wanted about 10-15 new members). 

And I'm not the only one with success like this, take a look at some of NIN's posts about his two recent Open Houses.  He's had the same success.

I would strongly recommend to all of you cadet program managers out there to consider and implement a pipeline recruiting program that works for your squadron.  We went with the 2 Open House and join periods a year- one in April and one in September.  That' is just what worked naturally for us, your needs may be different.

That just made my day!

[NIN]

The really interesting part (I'll use interesting because I can't decide between "cool" and "anxiety-driven depression") is that we DIDN'T do any sort of recruiting drive for this.  We had one article in the local paper about our squadron Drill Team winning the Wing Cadet Competition over a month ago, but that was it.  Word of mouth has generated 27 prospective cadets showing up to these meetings!    And this was supposed to be a SMALL run-through (we wanted about 10-15 new members). 
different.

BTW, I've seen this work exactly as you describe.  Almost accidentally.  Spring 2008 was a little "off" (we thought we'd only get 5-6 cadets. We got 10+), Fall 2008 was *strong* (19-20, as I recall) and Spring 2009 was even stronger.  We haven't put a blurb in the paper in like *forever*, either.  All of it is flyers and word of mouth.

The funny thing is: As you get more cadets, your word of mouth gets bigger.  So 10 cadets now is, ballpark, a 110-125% increase in your next open house attendance.  (ballpark) If you had 20 people at your last open house and got 10, next time around you'll have 22-24 people and get 12 or 13.  And then 12 or 13 turns into 16 or 18...  Eventually, though, your membership "in" smooths out to whatever the market will bear in your area.  We get between 16 & 20 every time.

[Pingree1492]

The funny thing is: As you get more cadets, your word of mouth gets bigger.  So 10 cadets now is, ballpark, a 110-125% increase in your next open house attendance.  (ballpark) If you had 20 people at your last open house and got 10, next time around you'll have 22-24 people and get 12 or 13.  And then 12 or 13 turns into 16 or 18...  Eventually, though, your membership "in" smooths out to whatever the market will bear in your area.  We get between 16 & 20 every time.

Not sure exactly what you're describing here, are you talking about the cadets that show up to the Open House vs. the ones that actually join?

In my experience, it's never been 50% of those that show up actually join.  We tend to have about the same number (sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less) that showed up on the Open House actually join.  Now, those might be a slightly mix of who joins and who doesn't, but it tends to be about the same.

This time, we had around 25 or so show up to the Open House.  22 of those showed up last night, with 5 new faces.  I'm expecting to send in somewhere between 20-25 apps next week.  Which makes me really wish I didn't have to miss that meeting, I'll be waiting in my hotel room on pins and needles for the after-meeting call from my staff.

This is our 5th Open House cycle, each one seems to be a little bit better (as in quality, not quantity) than the last.  Though our over-all first-year retention seems to be still in the 50-60% range (from Open Houses 1 and 2), which is what we're going to address next.  We're just in the roll-out phase of a program that will hopefully speed the progress through training and advancement in the squadron.  This Quarter is our first real "test period", so we'll see how effective it is and what needs to be tweaked by the end of May.

[NIN]

The funny thing is: As you get more cadets, your word of mouth gets bigger.  So 10 cadets now is, ballpark, a 110-125% increase in your next open house attendance.  (ballpark) If you had 20 people at your last open house and got 10, next time around you'll have 22-24 people and get 12 or 13.  And then 12 or 13 turns into 16 or 18...  Eventually, though, your membership "in" smooths out to whatever the market will bear in your area.  We get between 16 & 20 every time.

Not sure exactly what you're describing here, are you talking about the cadets that show up to the Open House vs. the ones that actually join?

Yeah, I'm spitballing on the actual numbers, but I guess what I was meaning to say there was that it is truly amazing that increasing your unit's cadet corps is nearly a self-fullfilling prophecy:  10 cadets might recruit 3-4 more, but after awhile when you have 25-30 cadets, they're bringing you 15+ each time.  I think that's just a factor of potential contacts (network theory).

This time, we had around 25 or so show up to the Open House.  22 of those showed up last night, with 5 new faces.  I'm expecting to send in somewhere between 20-25 apps next week.  Which makes me really wish I didn't have to miss that meeting, I'll be waiting in my hotel room on pins and needles for the after-meeting call from my staff.

Yeah, I hate that!

This is our 5th Open House cycle, each one seems to be a little bit better (as in quality, not quantity) than the last.  Though our over-all first-year retention seems to be still in the 50-60% range (from Open Houses 1 and 2), which is what we're going to address next.  We're just in the roll-out phase of a program that will hopefully speed the progress through training and advancement in the squadron.  This Quarter is our first real "test period", so we'll see how effective it is and what needs to be tweaked by the end of May.

That's excellent that you're measuring metrics closely and testing and tweaking. We did some "back of the envelope" figuring, but nothing more extensive than that.