Cohort Recruiting: Great Idea or Greatest Idea?

Tomorrow night I will be presenting a Recruiting & Retention training "Cohort Recruiting: Great Idea or Greatest Idea?" (kudos to our own dwb for the tag line idea last year).

This presentation starts at 2100 hrs Eastern as a Google Hangout On Air.

During this this presentation we will discuss:

- What cohort recruiting is and is not.
- How cohort recruiting can benefit small & struggling units
- What effect cohort recruiting will have on your program
- How you can implement cohort recruiting in your unit

You can view this presentation live on Google Hangouts On Air at this link starting at 2100 Eastern time on Tuesday, 22 March: http://bit.ly/Mar22_Recruiting.

Google Hangouts On Air is essentially a live broadcast of a Google Hangout session using screen sharing, video and audio. You do not need a Google account to participate or view this presentation. Questions can be submitted via Google Hangouts On Air Q&A function, or via Twitter using the hashtag ‪#‎CAPRecruiting‬.

Please share this with your fellow members via email and other social media. If you can't attend live, the entire recorded presentation will be available immediately afterward at the link above as a YouTube video.

Thanks!

CAP Pals Battalions? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fncUAPkY4ms

Meeting night, but will watch. Should build nicely on the Davalos presentation I saw.

The link currently comes up as bad, presumably because there Hangout isn't running yet, right?

Same issue here with meeting night - can you make a recording available for later?

The link currently comes up as bad, presumably because there Hangout isn't running yet, right?

Same issue here with meeting night - can you make a recording available for later?

Ditto, it would be great to be able to watch later.

If you can't attend live, the entire recorded presentation will be available immediately afterward at the link above as a YouTube video.

If you can't attend live, the entire recorded presentation will be available immediately afterward at the link above as a YouTube video.

You read all the way to the end?! Who does that? 

If you can't attend live, the entire recorded presentation will be available immediately afterward at the link above as a YouTube video.

You read all the way to the end?! Who does that? 

I think there was more after that line, but TL;DR.

You laugh, but it is stunning how many people have emailed me asking me when and where this presentation is. After it says clearly when it is, and that it is going to be held via Google Hangouts on air.

So hahaha, TL;DR all you want

I just got here...Great Food and Live Music in Gulf Shores, AL
thehangout.com, Im a little early so I am going to order some appetizers until some more people show up.

I just got here...Great Food and Live Music in Gulf Shores, AL
thehangout.com, Im a little early so I am going to order some appetizers until some more people show up.

One of my favorite places. Be there in June for a conference.

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Most Bitlinks are 4-6 characters, and only include letters and numbers (and are case sensitive).


:/

Uh oh, Bitly couldn't find a link for the bitly URL you clicked.

Deleting the trailing period in the URL fixes that right up.

Uh oh, Bitly couldn't find a link for the bitly URL you clicked.

Deleting the trailing period in the URL fixes that right up.

I'm so embarrassed.  Rookie mistake on my part.

Was able to watch and the content was excellent!  I have seen this type of recruiting done with volunteers in another orginization. and it works.  Making recruiting. a ,ission and keeping other squadrons members. involved. will definitely. support retention. 

Recruiting is not the problem in CAP. Retention is the problem with one-fourth of Senior members not renewing each year.

Recruiting is not the problem in CAP. Retention is the problem with one-fourth of Senior members not renewing each year.

They are both problems, and I daresay the former is currently in a greater state of stress than the latter.

Recruiting is not the problem in CAP. Retention is the problem with one-fourth of Senior members not renewing each year.

They are both problems, and I daresay the former is currently in a greater state of stress than the latter.

I'm not so sure, but might be inclined to agree.

Historically, CAP was very good at recruiting - that's how it was able to maintain essentially static
numbers for a decade while we watched an increasing number of experienced members leave
or disengage.

It appears the front door is slowing while the back door is still wide open, resulting in a non-trivial
net loss this fiscal year.

What is more frightening is that none of the published numbers, nor current accounting, have indicators
of actual participation - how is it CAP still does not have a universal attendance app?

"Participation" is an overt requirement for cadets and an implied requirement for adults, yet there is no
tracking whatsoever.

The other frightening issue is the aging populace in general, which also translates to aging CAP and
loss of knowledge and experience.

When 10+ years active members leave the organization, for whatever reason, it takes 10+ years
to re-grow that person, assuming the seeds are there to begin with. There are simply less financially
successful CFIs and other professionals with the time to fly 200 hours a year, or take days to weeks
off for special activities, encampments, training, etc.

This loss results in significant and demonstrable degradation of mission capability, yet doesn't seem to
even be acknowledged, let alone addressed.

Members with pet projects can make the "that's not all CAP is doing" argument to the nth degree,
but the average member only sees and knows about what is public, and despite rhetoric about recruiting
earlier this year, the attention has been on NCOs, ABUs, and TF.

Meanwhile, the average member is looking around at less people, seeing more non-mission administrative
work, and asking himself "What else could I be doing with my time?"

Recruiting is not the problem in CAP. Retention is the problem with one-fourth of Senior members not renewing each year.

They are both problems, and I daresay the former is currently in a greater state of stress than the latter.

"Participation" is an overt requirement for cadets and an implied requirement for adults, yet there is no
tracking whatsoever.

Tracking participation for senior members, especially those outside the squadron level, can be challenging in itself. My Group HQ, for example, is a virtual one. We don't have weekly meetings, as our staff is spread out across the group and we don't have a dedicated building to meet. Most of our work is done from home, online, through e-mail, phone, video or teleconference, and the occasional face-to-face staff meeting. Because of that, I can track performance much easier than I can participation. Even at the squadron level, there are some members who participate regularly, but are not that productive. So participation alone can't be all we track.

Recruiting is not the problem in CAP. Retention is the problem with one-fourth of Senior members not renewing each year.

They are both problems, and I daresay the former is currently in a greater state of stress than the latter.

"Participation" is an overt requirement for cadets and an implied requirement for adults, yet there is no
tracking whatsoever.

Tracking participation for senior members, especially those outside the squadron level, can be challenging in itself. My Group HQ, for example, is a virtual one. We don't have weekly meetings, as our staff is spread out across the group and we don't have a dedicated building to meet. Most of our work is done from home, online, through e-mail, phone, video or teleconference, and the occasional face-to-face staff meeting. Because of that, I can track performance much easier than I can participation. Even at the squadron level, there are some members who participate regularly, but are not that productive. So participation alone can't be all we track.

CAP doesn't track anything.

The primary area there is a problem with participation is the weekly squadron meeting - that's where all the hands come from
and the majority of the membership resides.  There is zero tracking whatsoever even at that level.  Setting that up is such low-hanging
fruit as to be subterranean.

This number should be at the top of the commander's dashboard, and discussed first anytime there are retention conversations.

CCs could define their own cycles and meetings, and determine what "100%" means, whether that's in-face unit meetings which may
or may not include outside activities, teleconferences, remote work from home, whatever, but at the end of the day,
national staff should be able to look at a roll-up of the temperature of the organization.

As to Group and Wing staff who never go to in-face meetings, BTDT.  In those cases, the successful ones are probably at unit meetings,
large events, and in small-group phone conferences.  If not, then what are they actually doing?

Heck, CAP doesn't even have an annual check-box of active participation, and there isn't actually a requirement to even show up ever to
get promoted. 

Like any metric, the numbers could be manipulated, problematic, or ignored, but for those CCs looking to fix things, the tools aren't even
available beyond another home-grown "solution".

Ask yourself how effective your local PD, FD, or even EMA would be if they didn't know who ever showed up, how many people they
actually had in the organization that would answer the phone, or what level of proficiency anyone is at at a given time.