Pipeline Recruiting

[NIN]

Your first sentence basically describes my unit, minus a few cadets.  I'm willing to try pipelining, and I'd appreciate some answers to the following questions:

1) What months do you recommend starting pipelines in?

Generally, we do our New Member Period (kicked off by a unit Open House) in mid-to-late September and mid-March-ish.  Gives us enough time to recruit in the school after things start up in the Fall, and enough time for cadets to pin on their Curry before the encampment deadline in the Spring.

2) What are some of the hidden and ancillary benefits to pipelining that you've hinted at in this thread?

There are a bunch.

- Concentrates "new member" activities. Your staff (personnel, logistics, administration, membership boards, commander) are doing "new member" stuff  just 1 or 2 nights every 5-6 months (with trickle in, every time a new member shows up, your personnel officer moves into "new member mode," your logistics officer has to go get uniforms and setup the new member order, you have to sit the membership board, etc. With pipelining, all of this happens on one night, sometimes you have some pickup issues, logistics in particular, a week or two later)

- Creates an interesting "cohort" .  You get this interesting dynamic of new cadets that identify with their basic training cycle as well as with the unit.  So down the road, cadets who were in basic training together have all progressed more or less thru the ranks together and they almost form a little bit of their own auxiliary support group.   If a cadet lags, his buddies advancing can help motivate him to "step it up" and they help with "We just did this, here, man, we can help."  If a cadet stops coming, his "cohort" group tend to be the folks who help bring him back into the fold. When these cadets become flight commanders or flight sergeants, they do so around the same time and there is an interesting dynamic there.  Yes, the cadet is part of his flight, but he also has "cohorts" over in the other flight, maybe they're element leaders, maybe it is the other flight sergeant.   This brings along an interesting "group within the group" dynamic. Its not a bad thing, its just different. (we honestly didn't notice this until one day we overheard some cadets talking about when they came into the program and one was like "Well, I was in the spring of 06 with you and Smith, remember?" and I thought "Whoa, of COURSE they remember who they went thru basic with..")

- Concentrates your training resources. Honestly, this is probably the biggest thing behind our move to pipelining. My old DCC wasn't doing a good job of managing the training and progression of our trickle-ins, and we spent a LOT more time than we should have chasing down people and figuring out what they'd been taught, teaching things again, etc. I finally put my foot down and said "This is crap. We don't have the staff depth to be dealing with 10 cadets who all haven't been here from the same first week.." and pipelining was born!

- Retention. The cohort effect, I think, helps with this. We didn't see that coming, either.  We were retaining 55% or more for a long time.

- Filters out the tire kickers.  This one probably pisses a lot of people off, but I'm here to tell you its the key to making your unit stronger.  NOT EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO WALKS IN YOUR SQUADRON'S DOOR IS A GOOD POTENTIAL MEMBER. There, I said it.  The cadets I've seen who were highly motivated to join and continued on in CAP, were long time cadets and did well?  Yeah, they're the ones who waited until the next basic training cycle and were STILL THERE when it was time to join.   The pipelining process filters out some folks.  I think it filters out the people who want that "immediate gratification."  If you're not willing to wait for it, how bad do you really want to do it?  Strangely, this seems to work.

(side note: after my first stint as squadron commander, it was probably fall 2005 and I was doing my gig for the new CO and running an inprocessing night for new members. We had a young lady and her mom show up without a member packet. Why? Cuz her first night was THAT NIGHT.  Didn't make it to the Open House or the 2 meetings after that.  That was always a "Hi, lets get your info and give you the nickle tour, see you in the Spring!" situation.  Mom & the young lady talked with the commander and the girl seemed very motivated to join (she was 16, so she was late in the game and didn't want to lose ground. I get that!), and the commander said to me "I'd be inclined to let her join. She says she can catch up on the missed material. What do you think?"  I said "Three meetings, Mark. Thats our policy.  This is her first night. I'd say 'Come back in the spring' but thats me."  Commander relented, and let her sign up that night.  I did her data entry, darn near shaking my head the entire time. This young lady didn't understand what she was undertaking. She really didn't.   Off went her membership with everybody else, we ordered up her supplies, you know, nametags and such. *poof* She was gone before the nametag orders even came back from National. I looked at the commander and said "I don't wanna say 'I told you so', Mark, but darn it, I told you so!! Thats why we have these rules and procedures!")

3) How do you define critical mass, and how does pipelining help achieve it?

Critical mass, in the nuclear sense, brings along a "self-sustaining reaction."   Remember the old David Lee Roth video for the song "Yankee Rose?" The guy in the convenience store "Hey, I always travel with two of 'em, that way, if there's any conversation, I don't have to be involved."   The unit has to run irrespective of the guy in charge, and critical mass, to me, means you have people doing things that they're supposed to be doing without prompting, and you have enough people that the same guy isn't "Senior Training/Personnel/Finance/Public Affairs/DDR/CDI/Safety" and doing none of them well. 

In the sense of pipelining & recruiting,  critical mass is two fold:
- Cadets beget cadets.  Using some round-number examples: If you have 15 cadets and everybody gets 5 people to come to the open house, you wind up with 75 people there. Great. You might get 7 recruits (if you're lucky). Not bad, take what you can get, right?  Now you have 20 cadets when the next Open House rolls around, and if they each get 5 people to come, thats 100 people. You might get 10 recruits!  Time for that next Open House, this time your 25 cadets (attrition, don't you know?) bring you 125 people and you get 11 new recruits.  You can see where this is going.   (all of this is a long-ball game, by the way. You will not go from 10 cadets to 75 overnight...)  Eventually, since "many hands make light work" you have 60 cadets and they all just have to get 3 people to come to the open house and you've got 180 in your drill hall...

- With more cadets comes more opportunities for leadership, advancement, activities, excitement, etc.  Think of the 10 cadet squadron: Cadet commander, flight commander, flight sergeant and two element leaders.  For 6 cadets in ranks?  Man, thats an exciting place to be (That was sarcasm. I've been there: its not)  You start to get around 25-30 cadets and it starts to be a serious critical mass situation. 

4) What pipelining myth are you referring to in your reply to Eclipse's first post?

"I don't have enough people to do pipelining."
"I don't have enough recruits to do pipelining"

a) if you're doing it, you're concentrating your resources. Small squadron, dedicate one cadet to shepherd the basic cadets thru. This cadet should be your MOST SQUARED AWAY TROOP.  Just one, for now.  That one guy is going to be  force multiplier in a little while.  If you don't have enough people to do pipelining, you [darn] sure don't have enough to waste time and effort with trickle-in recruiting.

b) You need 4 recruits to do pipelining. Hell, you don't even need 4. ONE recruit. And he's going to get some very detailed and personalized training (although, I submit to you that if you get ONE recruit from your efforts, we're doing something wrong  here and that is not a good use of your resources!).  The thing to remember is that with pipelining, you're not sitting new members on a bench for four months while they wait for a new basic training cycle to start. You're asking prospective members to come back and become new members in 4 months.   When you can devote the time, attention and care to them and give them the best new member introduction to CAP possible. 

Pipelining is about resource management, when you get right down to it.

[NIN]

[Maybe - or the kid who could Spaatz never joins because he finds something else that grabs his attention, or maybe just the couch.

I'm here to tell you that you're 100% wrong.

There are things to grab kid's attention these days left right and center.  "If we don't grab them, something else will."

Thats going to happen to a fair percentage of cadets no matter what.

And if this particular kid is so motivated to join CAP that waiting four months causes him to lose interest or not get his fat ass off the couch, well, I probably didn't want him anyway.

Seriously, it goes back to my thing about filtering out the tire-kickers.   You ultimately get a higher quality recruit out of it.  The people who want to commit will, the ones who are wishy-washy and aren't all that interested won't.

We need to get beyond this "We'll take any warm body, as long as he's still warm. Or a body. Or something." concept. If a unit is that desperate, maybe there is a reason why.  Maybe its really time for the "unit reboot by deactivation."  But nobody wants to say that, now, do we?



Two things about "making people wait":

1) We seldom had a lot of people who had to "wait."  Usually it was a couple three people. I just got an email yesterday from a parent who missed the Open House but their son or daughter wants to join.  Today.  We're 4 weeks into our training cycle. 

"If you'd like to come down and check out the unit, you're more than welcome to and see what we've got going on. Matter of fact, its often a much better window into what the unit does than our Open House event, because you get to see what we're actually doing on a week to week basis. Unfortunately, were far enough into the training cycle that we're not taking anymore new cadets for this round.  We'll put you on the list for the Fall Open House."  Thats the answer.

2) If you're doing your Open House correctly, you're collecting the maximum number of "people interested in CAP at this particular moment in this particular geographic area" into your recruiting net and into your pipeline at that time.  You only get a few "leakers."

I just don't see how it works in the current state of CAP.

I know you know the words.

It's also not just the cadets, you really need a separate pipeline staff

Really? 

Bob, I've been doing this now for 13 years like this.  Two cadets.  A flight commander and a flight sergeant.  Thats it.

Versus chasing trickle-in cadets, none of whom are all at the same level at the same time. 

From the senior side of the house my PDO *loved* that he wasn't doing Level I classes *constantly* too.  We recruit 3-4 seniors, he has the benefit of economies of scale.

I think it's a worthwhile experiment way to do things if you can gin up the people stop coming up with BS reasons not to

FTFY.

[Eclipse]

Bob, I've been doing this now for 13 years like this.  Two cadets.  A flight commander and a flight sergeant.  Thats it.

That's all a lot of units have, total.  With one senior who generally shows up.

I've already said this is a good idea and how CAP should probably be doing things as a whole, but the climate right now
is "warm bodies are better then no bodies".

I'll say this.  I'm currently entertaining some discussions about my next "CAP Adventure".  As I've said before, I think
CAP as a whole needs to do an "all-stop" and spend a year recruiting and normalizing (i.e. erasing empty shirts).
If I get the opportunity to wear the CC's pin again, or influence unit ops in a meaningful way, I'll give it a try.

This actually >is< a wheel that could use some reinvention.

Have you considered a white paper to NHQ on this?

[Майор Хаткевич]

+1 on WP.

I know great start encourages pipelining. Its still a drag to get people on board. NIN, any chance of picking your brain on this more in a phone call or similar?

[lordmonar]

Bob, I've been doing this now for 13 years like this.  Two cadets.  A flight commander and a flight sergeant.  Thats it.

That's all a lot of units have, total.  With one senior who generally shows up.

I've already said this is a good idea and how CAP should probably be doing things as a whole, but the climate right now
is "warm bodies are better then no bodies".

I'll say this.  I'm currently entertaining some discussions about my next "CAP Adventure".  As I've said before, I think
CAP as a whole needs to do an "all-stop" and spend a year recruiting and normalizing (i.e. erasing empty shirts).
If I get the opportunity to wear the CC's pin again, or influence unit ops in a meaningful way, I'll give it a try.

This actually >is< a wheel that could use some reinvention.

Have you considered a white paper to NHQ on this?

Eclipse........I don't understand your heart burn with what NIN is doing.

Sure.....not everyone can do it his way.......but no one is suggesting that you MUST do it his way (unless I missed something).

If it is stupid but works........it is not stupid.

[Eclipse]

I think I"m actually agreeing with him?  I think?

Yep, pretty sure.

[NIN]

I think I"m actually agreeing with him?  I think?

Yep, pretty sure.

Actually, I noticed that. 

I think there needs to be more than just a whitepaper, but yeah.

[NIN]

BTW, I'm still curious if anybody's unit _is_ pipelining.

It was my understanding there were a couple units in Texas doing it.

[Tim Day]

Our unit takes a modified pipeline approach in that we start a training pipeline every month. We consider every visitor under 18 a potential new cadet and welcome them to join our Great Start Flight, where they participate in classes. The pipeline consists of the Great Start syllabus fitted to a rolling 8 week cycle such that when a cadet joins, within approximately 8 weeks he or she will have experienced each of the modules.

This avoids the pitfalls of the trickle-in or the Cadet Basic Training models that are discussed in the Great Start pamphlet while providing much of the advantages of the pipeline method and avoiding the "you have to wait six months to join us" issue. However, it does require sufficient existing structure and senior member oversight to keep a pipeline going on a regular basis.

I haven't yet been part of a small (1 SM + 2 cadet as described earlier) squadron but would imagine the pipeline method is the only way to go in that scenario - including deferral of applications, open house, and mass start. The 2 cadets should prepare themselves to become Great Start cadre. The open house may need to borrow cadets from other squadrons to talk about all the great things a vibrant squadron does.

[isuhawkeye]

Feel free to dive into the archives of Captalk to research it, but the entire Iowa Wing pipelined senior members (Offiers) for a few yesrs.  You can argue about how that ended up, but at the time the pipelineing benefits were just as described. 

[LSThiker]

It is interesting some people's comments on this.  The concept of pipelining recruitment for both seniors and cadets has been around since the 1950s.  In fact, for my wing it was the most effective method during the 60s and 70s according to old articles.  Squadrons would get 10-20 new members from them and they would follow it usually with level 1 weekend training.  It is nothing new and it has its own advantages and disadvantages.

[NIN]

Our unit takes a modified pipeline approach in that we start a training pipeline every month. We consider every visitor under 18 a potential new cadet and welcome them to join our Great Start Flight, where they participate in classes. The pipeline consists of the Great Start syllabus fitted to a rolling 8 week cycle such that when a cadet joins, within approximately 8 weeks he or she will have experienced each of the modules.

This sounds great.  If you hear the grinding of gears, that's me trying to make a (mental) paradigm shift in figuring out how to start a new training pipeline each month.  But thats minor. This addresses the cyclical nature of "priming the pump" if you're only doing 2x a year with structured in-processing.

This avoids the pitfalls of the trickle-in or the Cadet Basic Training models that are discussed in the Great Start pamphlet while providing much of the advantages of the pipeline method and avoiding the "you have to wait six months to join us" issue. However, it does require sufficient existing structure and senior member oversight to keep a pipeline going on a regular basis.

I think there is a balance in there, because I'm not 100% sure I'd be cool with managing 6-10 repeating "great start" or BCT flights a year.   You lose a lot of the economies of scale that you pick up with only doing "new member" activities (membership paperwork, membership boards, uniform issue & insignia, etc) a couple times a year.  But I like the concept.

Also, a point here about how we're pipelining: In the 13 years we've been doing this, and the 11 since we went to a "drop dead inprocessing night" model, there have been *maybe* 13 or 15 who have shown up after the fact and wanted to join.  We're pretty big on the full-court press of " This is the recruiting night!" in our flyers and advertisements so we get folks *at* the Open House almost completely.  And then we have a pretty good follow up program where we maintain an interested party's info and contact them again.

If I had to put a ballpark number on it, I'd say that your average wait time between squadron contact and that point where they can join is in the vicinity of 60 days.

I haven't yet been part of a small (1 SM + 2 cadet as described earlier) squadron but would imagine the pipeline method is the only way to go in that scenario - including deferral of applications, open house, and mass start. The 2 cadets should prepare themselves to become Great Start cadre. The open house may need to borrow cadets from other squadrons to talk about all the great things a vibrant squadron does.

Agree.  the unit I took over in 1999 had 10-12 active cadets (more on the books, but not showing up) and like 3 active seniors.  The first year was a lot of training, re-training, running around and setting things up, "getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats" so to speak.  From November of 1999 to the end of 2000, I went thru two DCCs and our trickle-in recruiting was taking up more resources than it was creating.  We were in a "three steps forward, two or three back" kind of mode.

[lordmonar]

The only thing I have against pipe lining......is how it coordinates with our membership age....(i.e. it does not).

Instead of 12 years of age........we should change it to 11 and completed the 5th grade.

That way you can do your recruiting drives tied to school years......less making the cadets wait until they are actually 12 and your next pipe line comes along.

So....if you are on a 3 month schedule....you recruit in May and start your first pipeline in June.   2d run in Aug/Sep, 3d in Nov/Dec, $th Feb/Mar and start again.

If you are on a 4 month schedule May/June-Sep/Oct-Jan/Feb......rinse and repeat.

If you are a 6 month schedule  May/Jun-Nov/Dec.

Nice and easy.....poised to get your cadets trained enough to get them to encampment the first summer.  Nice cohort progression.  Allows you to recruit from schools....as a class.   Dovetails easily with getting into the schools during assemblies.

Also helps tie it into Middle School squadrons.....and we still have the "minimum age" to keep the home schoolers or kid geniuses from joining too early.

[NIN]

Whether they're 11 or 12 is kind of immaterial. Most of the prospective cadets we get are 12-13.

Our flyers even say so.

If you go 11 and completed the 5th grade, why not just leave it at 12 and attending 6th?  I don't know that I want a bunch of 11 year olds at encampment.  This speaks to a larger CP issue that is out of scope for the purposes of this discussion.

12 years old is our lower limit, and thus they're either 12 in the fall, or 12 in the spring.  Thats the way it is.  The age limit is the age limit.

Also, we tend to back our spring recruiting up into March because of the encampment deadlines for applications. We want them graduated with Curry in hand before the deadline. 

(no, we're not doing the full Great Start. Yet.  If I can get the cadets to understand that I don't need highly trained operators high-speed, low-drag cadets, just @#$% garden variety Cadet Airmen, I might be able to ratchet back the time wasting and stupid crap they keep layering on.  I keep reiterating: "Get 'em signed up, get 'em thru the pain of eServices, OPSEC, NDA, Intro to Safety and (now) Ground Handling, and get them in a uniform and in a plane eventually"  They need to be able to pass the Curry leadership test, wear a uniform, recite the cadet oath, attend character devleopment, pass the Curry PT test and drill exam, not do a @#$% Queen Anne Salute or find an ELT in the woods. [Do. Not. Get. Me. Started])

[NIN]

BTW, our open house was March 13th, and following our inprocessing night on March 27th, we managed 9 new cadets and one new senior.

Little light on the cadets this time around (best one we ever did was 22 or 23, as I recall). We got goofed up by the weather on the 13th (big storm the night before)

[Tim Day]

Our unit takes a modified pipeline approach in that we start a training pipeline every month. We consider every visitor under 18 a potential new cadet and welcome them to join our Great Start Flight, where they participate in classes. The pipeline consists of the Great Start syllabus fitted to a rolling 8 week cycle such that when a cadet joins, within approximately 8 weeks he or she will have experienced each of the modules.

This sounds great.  If you hear the grinding of gears, that's me trying to make a (mental) paradigm shift in figuring out how to start a new training pipeline each month.  But thats minor. This addresses the cyclical nature of "priming the pump" if you're only doing 2x a year with structured in-processing.

It's not hard with the number of cadets we have (as of today, 67 on the books with >40 actively attending). We have a Great Start Flight Commander, Great Start Flight Sergeant, and a couple of other cadet NCOs assigned as Great Start Cadre (instructors). We had a cadet project officer take the Great Start pamphlet and place the modules into a syllabus.

We turn over the entire leadership slate every 4 months (Cadet Commander on down).

We also have enough dedicated Senior Members in the cadet program that we can process new cadet applications or monitor tests on any given meeting night, and we hold the foundations CD class every month. Cadets who have graduated from Great Start participate in the normal squadron routine, where we rotate CD/PT, AE, Leadership, and Operations. 

By keeping to a weekly rotating schedule we seem to recruit many parents of cadets and others who are willing to be active cadet program team members.

[Eclipse]

By keeping to a weekly rotating schedule we seem to recruit many parents of cadets and others who are willing to be active cadet program team members.

Huge.   I keep emphasizing this locally muchly to crickets.

Families with adolescents these days are so busy it's somewhat mindboggling, and the very kids who will
make successful cadets are at the top of the "busy" food chain. 

Scouts, sports, other extracurricular, homework, occasionally goofing off. My wife and I live in the calendar to
keep everything straight.  And many times have to make "which one" decisions when things conflict.

If your unit does not have a robust, electronic (so you can subscribe to it), public calendar that
is some variation on the 13-week schedule, you're cooked.  Cadets need to know the expectations
weeks in advance, to do parents, especially if the have to prepare or do "homework", and when
the "which one" decisions have to be made, if there's no indication of what CAP is doing that night,
who do you think will win?

This is doubly true for new members who have no idea what to expect or what is "normal",
but >want< to see an active situation that will make good use of their time.

Ditto for parents, if they know they are needed.  "The night before" is not enough notice.

If you're walking into a unit meeting with no idea what you're going to do, you're doing it wrong.

[NIN]

It's not hard with the number of cadets we have (as of today, 67 on the books with >40 actively attending). We have a Great Start Flight Commander, Great Start Flight Sergeant, and a couple of other cadet NCOs assigned as Great Start Cadre (instructors). We had a cadet project officer take the Great Start pamphlet and place the modules into a syllabus.

Yeah, I'm going to recommend this to our Deputy for Cadets.

I'm tired of watching the cadets re-invent the wheel with a 8-12 week basic cycle, want to cram more junk in the schedule than C/Amn need, and then a week or two before the flight graduation go "Hey, sir, these cadets aren't ready. We need more time!"

(and internally, I'm going "Crikey, what the heck are you doing with your time?")

Time to get a little more directive in nature on this particular issue.

It is really the way we *should* be doing it, but due to a lot of history, we're *not*.

[Eclipse]

(and internally, I'm going "Crikey, what the heck are you doing with your time?")

"Drill" which is code for "I haven't prepared anything for this meeting, Sir."

Used to make me crazy.

[NIN]

If your unit does not have a robust, electronic (so you can subscribe to it), public calendar that
is some variation on the 13-week schedule, you're cooked.  Cadets need to know the expectations
weeks in advance, to do parents, especially if the have to prepare or do "homework", and when
the "which one" decisions have to be made, if there's no indication of what CAP is doing that night,
who do you think will win?

This is becoming more of an issue, and while I think we're doing a good job with the communication piece, I think we're kind of flat on our face (still) with the planning and execution part.

WIWAC (When I Was A Commander) the first time in the unit I got us on a quarterly planning process. Once a quarter, our senior meeting (which was really more of a staff meeting, since the cadet commander and one or two of his staff were usually there) was the "quarterly planning meeting". We did a detailed pin-down for the next quarter and  less detailed scheduling for the following 3. 

So as part of that, we maintained a rolling 12 month calendar (looking ahead 12 months from the quarterly planning meeting), too, with things in the latter two quarters somewhat "hazy" and broad based (ie. "we want to run a bivouac in Q2 2015 to build on the training in Q1 2015" or "how about an aerospace trip in October?"), and then the 2nd quarter was more "we need to start putting things in place for this, and potentially pin down a date" and the next quarter was "This training will occur on this night.."

To use Q2 as an example (April, May, June), this planning took place the first week in February, not the first week in March, at the senior staff meeting.

Now with tools like Google Calendar (and Google Drive/Apps/Site and such) there is really no excuse to not be planning ahead, layering your training schedules with higher HQ, etc.