New Recruiting Blog Post

[NIN]

http://www.capmembers.com/cap_national_hq/recruiting_and_retention/?stop_selling_the_5&show=entry&blogID=1600

[Paul_AK]

Solid points.

[TheSkyHornet]

The points are very well made; however, my disagreement with that is, from a recruiting standpoint, you look at nearly all major recruiting efforts, especially in the military arena, and they market the "most fun" or greatest adventure as the norm. That's what gets people to sign up. That's what gets the particularly younger, not so in-the-know, crowd excited about something they have no idea about and are willing to do what it takes to get there. Of course, that's on the recruiting side.

Then you have the retention side. Here is where the newer cadets get in and think "Wow, this is kinda boring, and I can't do a lot of the 'cool' stuff for a long time, so why bother..."

This is where you see people leave, and the word-of-mouth that goes around is that only a select few get to do the "rare" opportunities. The recruiting process needs to be a balance between the two---bringing to light some of the really great opportunities while not throwing them in every potential recruit's face as if it's right around the corner. They have to work for it, and that's part of the cadet program: improving your personal character so you can excel and get great opportunities. Everything needs to be earned.

I feel that a lot of the recruiting problems comes immediately from the squadron leadership on the senior side. Some seniors have a really bad habit of immediately showing the recruit the Cadet Super Chart, explain all the stuff that needs to be done to promote, using a bunch of terminology they aren't familiar with. They start rambling on about "Once he/she gets his/her Curry..." The recruit is lost. The parents are lost. It sounds immediately like a lot of work and confusing information. Retention can be influenced by a number of things---the cadet's person wants/needs, leadership, activities, schedule, etc. Retention, although intertwined, is a separate matter once the person is actually in and is trying to decide if they should continue or not.

That's just for cadets. Recruiting Seniors is a whole different ballpark...........

[NIN]

Ryan, no disagreement on your post. You certainly need to balance "this is all the cool stuff we have" with "this is what you're likely to do in your first year."

Matter of fact, that might be something we need to add to our recruiting pitch: a description of what the cadet's first year in CAP will look like.

In the online member application, we ask a recruit to attest they will give CAP one full year. Give it an honest try.

So, maybe we should be describing what that year entails in our pitch.

Something like "Your first year in CAP will look like this:  x months of initial training, orientation flights, weekend activities, leadership & aerospace training, progression in the cadet program and encampment.  At the end of your first year, you should be wearing three or four stripes ...." 


A predominant theme in the exit surveys, at least for cadets, is that CAP "wasn't what they expected." (working on specific data.. The exit surveys are pretty chopped up by quarter and there are some inconsistencies)

I read between the lines a little bit on this and (me personally) I think that its likely that they were being sold a CAP experience that wasn't what they actually experienced at the unit once they joined.

How much of that is the unit "selling" things that either a cadet won't see for two-three years (IACE, NCSAs, advanced stuff) or that is not done in their wing, or the cadet mis-understanding what they thought they were going to be doing?  Not sure, exactly.

But as the leadership text teaches our cadets about the communication process: (paraphrasing) "If the receiver misunderstands the message, it is the fault of the sender for not sending the appropriate message."

If we're not being concrete enough, prospective members get lost in the abstraction. 

You nailed it that sometimes we're shoving some pretty high level info that we "get" at them without considering that non-CAP folks "don't get" it: "Cadets can go to encampment as a basic cadet once they get their Curry..."

Parents are like "What is encampment? Who is a basic cadet? Whats a Curry?"  Prospective cadets, too.

Perhaps a better way to spell that out (unfortunately not as streamlined) might be to say "A new cadet can go to the week-long summer camp, called summer encampment, once they have completed the first step in the cadet program."

"Summer encampment is a gateway for a lot of other activities that cadets could eventually participate in after the first year. So it is important that cadets get to that summer encampment in that first year.."

Now you just explained what encampment is, why its important to cadets, and what it takes to get there all in two sentences.

(I hear this all the time "Well, cadets should go to encampment so they can get their Mitchell, of course!"  (and prospective cadets & parents know diddly about this "Mitchell" thing, yet..)

[TheSkyHornet]

I think a real issue is that speaking in terms of years to someone 12 years old is like telling them "it's going to take until you're 30." At that age, the concept of time is much greater. I see it even in just the briefs of what we're scheduling in a few months. It's July. Tell them what you have planned in November, and they're like "I don't want to hear about stuff that's going to be that far away."

I agree highly, though, with cadets sticking it out for a year, maybe even at least for the summer for those summer sign-ups. People show up more in the winter because the outdoor activities are less and you have nothing else to do. In the summer, you see a lot of cadets don't show up because they have camp, sports, whatever. It's tough to get those hesitant new recruits to keep at it, but I really advocate just giving it a try. You aren't losing anything by trying it. It's hard to teach kids that sometimes, though.

Really agree with the "here's what your first year will look like" idea. We give them that timeline of what points you hit along the way, but it gets told to them as if they're going to be in the program for 5 years when they leave for college. I think seniors need to quit talking to them that way. It's no disrespect to older senior members, and maybe it just applies to my personal experiences, but the older senior members whose children are all grown up and in their 30s are no longer in touch with the teenage cadets in the program. And cadets comment on it from time to time. They don't want to be treated like they're on a road map. A lot of it is because at that age, they don't understand why we use road mapping to measure performance, so maybe it's the way it's being incorporated verbally that there's an issue.

The "wasn't what we expected" can be taken many ways. But I think for those who decide to drop off the map, it's because they got bored with it and don't want the extra work added to their schedules. As you advance in the program, and as you mature into a young adult, you get more work. But as a brand-new cadet, I don't think they should be getting paperwork shoved down their throat or briefings with in-depth terminology. And again, I blame the senior leadership for not taking the time to address that.

I worked with the Cadet Commander for our squadron, who is going off to military training in August, so he decided to redesign the squadron with his successor. They asked for my input and I think it took really well. We now have a training flight in Beta mode, so we'll see how that plays out to help introduce newer cadets to the program without throwing them to the wolves. I think it's promising at the moment.

A major issue with military morale is that recruiting is built up to be this great experience, and they get in, and see poor leadership and it's just another crappy job at times. And the public puts on this perception that it's your responsibility to not get duped in. I think it applies to CAP as well. New members shouldn't be made out to experience this epic adventure and turn into another head count.

As a potential new senior at 25-years-old with no children and no past experience in CAP, I didn't have a clue as to what they were telling me. They were throwing out acronyms, and having me sit in on a review board. I was so lost. And I didn't feel at home. Every time I showed up I was told "I hope you consider staying with us; we could use the help; we could use such-and-such staffers." In my head, I was going "Folks, I know what you need. Trust me. I'm very observant, and just because I haven't talked much, it doesn't mean I'm not paying attention at what's going on here." I've had my own reservations about the way the unit operated on both the senior and cadet side.

In my honest opinion, I think CAP should drop the whole "named after leaders/pioneers" system. It's an educational tool, but it's not easy to track in conversation. CE1-8, CO1-6. There you go. Grades. Keep the awards and promotions, but don't mix educational topics with structure.

The very first meeting I was in, we had boards, and I watched the squadron commander ask a cadet "What rank are you?" "Curry." "Do you know who Curry was?" "I can't remember." Knowing stuff like that should not be a factor in where your performance is. It would be great for a lesson, but not how you progressed through the program. I find it frustrating as a senior. The new cadets find it frustrating. And their parents find it frustrating. Nobody knows who's talking about what at that point.

CAP is a fantastic program. But it's marketed like a junior military/ROTC type program with real missions and neat training opportunities, then acting like it's a classroom mixed with experts talking to people who have no experience or understanding of the subject matter, encouraging kids to become leaders, go to boot camp, and learn about aerospace. ---- By the end of it, I'm lost myself, and I'm already in.

I'd like to see a rigid structure for ranking and performance measurement, easy-to-understand systems to measure performance, an idea of opportunities and what specifically must be accomplished to participate in or be eligible for these opportunities, all encompassed under a military-esque environment.