Sound Familiar

[LSThiker]

[sarcasm]I think this happened before, but just cannot place it.  Can someone help me?[/sarcasm]

http://www.stripes.com/news/us/guard-s-nascar-deal-leads-to-virtually-no-recruits-1.282069

[SunDog]

Uh, Coast Guard, guilty as charged a few years ago. . .better news, though was picking up an Iditarod racer to sponser a few times. That piqued a lot of interest!

[a2capt]

I still can't believe that CAP wasted money on that [mess] and there was not some major ramifications because of it.

[MSG Mac]

I still can't believe that CAP wasted money on that [mess] and there was not some major ramifications because of it.

$3-5,000,000  worth. Completely erased at least two interest bearing accounts. One of the many reasons we now have a BofG.

[Private Investigator]

From the article; "The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard's qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined."

Those numbers are ridiculous. The National Guard should recruit at shooting ranges and gun shows.

CAP with our #64 car did just as bad. Stick to air shows, that is our target audience.   

[LSThiker]

From the article; "The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard's qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined."

Actually, I am curious as to why 24,780 people did not meet the requirements.  That number is just scary.

[Garibaldi]

From the article; "The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard's qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined."

Actually, I am curious as to why 24,780 people did not meet the requirements.  That number is just scary.

Beer swillin', overweight, potbellied, uneducated, obnoxious, afraid of water to the point they avoid bathing rednecks? Are you kidding? 

[Private Investigator]

From the article; "The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard's qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined."

Actually, I am curious as to why 24,780 people did not meet the requirements.  That number is just scary.

One of my daughters was interesting in joining the Army so I went to the processing site with her. Unbelieveable was the room with people attempting to get enlistment waivers. Extremely short people, people with Down's Syndrome, etc, etc. And of course the unemployed, homeless, etc which has always been part of the recruiting pool.   

[Майор Хаткевич]

From the article; "The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard's qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined."

Actually, I am curious as to why 24,780 people did not meet the requirements.  That number is just scary.

Yea, talk about some odd numbers. Either they got some pranksters, or their standards didn't meet their demographic...at all.

[SunDog]

Not sure about the Guard - for some Reserve outfits there is a commute distance limitation.  Anything can be waived, of course. . . accession rates from first contact to walking into boot camp was hovering around 2% or so a while back, for DoD and Coast Guard.

You lose quite a few to obesity, ASVAB score cutoffs, civil actions or credit issues, minor criminal offfenses, pending civil or criminal cases. Itty-bitty medical stuff, even dental.  Bad student loan, identity theft, etc. Not many waivers considered for much of anyhting anymore, of course. . . .

All the services have set the ASVAB threshold pretty high for quite a while; way more applicants than slots, so no room for poor test takers. What is published as the minimum score for a service is just that - a service may say it's a 45 minimum, for example, but if all the candidates from that recruiting office are scoring 80 and above, you're probably not gonna make the cut with a 60, unless you have something else going for you, like female or minority status. Tough even then.

Very common to be a candidate with a picket fence on the physical, decent ASVAB, and clean as a whistle legal/financial. And still get a "Sorry, no room for you".  A tenacious kid in that situation can usually get a hand from the recruiter, if the recruiter thinks the kid is solid - refer him to another service, make a pitch with management for an exception, etc.

Some offices are by appointment only.  DEP for up to a year, and six months or more is common.

Maybe the Guard advertising guys had demos to back up the effort?  Just didn't work out?

ASVAB goes up with age, and so the candidates are getting a little older now; SPD-12 slowed down processing, except for the Army, who would ship without completion of the BI; if they turned up a bad apple after arrival, they just bought them a plane ticket home, no prejudice (except for gross lying).

[Eclipse]

From the article; "The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard's qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined."

Actually, I am curious as to why 24,780 people did not meet the requirements.  That number is just scary.

24,800 people who filled out a form to get a pen, koozie or t-shirt, with a likely large response from the Seria, Hunt, & Dover families.

As someone peripherally involved in the business, I can tell you that qualifying leads is a science, and not one
well-suited to a climbing wall at a NASCAR event.