Struggling Army to change who and how it recruits

WASHINGTON — The Army is launching a sweeping overhaul of its recruiting to focus more on young people who have spent time in college or are job hunting early in their careers, as it scrambles to reverse years of enlistment shortfalls.

A major part of this is the formation of a new professional force of recruiters instead of relying on soldiers randomly assigned to the task.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said some of the changes will begin in the next 90 days but a wholesale transformation will take years.

“We have not been recruiting very well for many more years than one would think from just looking at the headlines in the last 18 months,” Wormuth said, adding that the Army hasn’t met its annual goal for new enlistment contracts since 2014.

Last year, the Army fell 15,000 short of its enlistment goal of 60,000 while competing with higher-paying companies in a tight job market and trying to overcome two years of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the fiscal year that ended Saturday, the Army brought just over 50,000 recruits, falling short of the publicly stated “stretch goal” of 65,000.

Army officials, however, said that number still allows the service to meet its required total strength of 452,000.

In testimony before Congress during his confirmation hearing, Gen. Randy George, who is now chief of staff of the Army, called recruiting “the No. 1 challenge that we face and the one thing that we have to be focused on.”

The Navy and the Air Force also fell short of their recruitment goals for the fiscal year.

The Army’s recruiting increase this year is considered a shortterm victory made possible by a number of new and upgraded programs and benefits. But Wormuth said it will take systemic changes in how the Army approaches the labor market and sells the service as a career to turn things around.

While recruiters have long relied heavily on high school seniors or graduates to fill the ranks, Wormuth said they need to reach beyond that pool and seek applicants on job sites such as Ziprecruiter, Indeed or Glassdoor.

“The vast majority of people who are out there making employment decisions are people who have more than a high school education,” Wormuth said. “We need to figure out how to talk to that much broader labor market.”

By 2028, the Army wants onethird of its recruits to have more than a high school diploma, rather than the current one-fifth, Wormuth said.

Part of that is showcasing the Army’s higher-tech jobs with computers, satellites and artificial intelligence to lure those who may still think of the service as just infantry troops.

The other major change is the transition to a professional recruiting workforce. Rather than using soldiers who are “voluntold” to take on a special assignment as recruiters, the Army is establishing a new permanent and specialized enlistment workforce.