How Does the Army Recruit New Members?
Other People Are Reading
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Unable to count on parents to encourage young adults to enlist in the Army, recruiters are forced to pick up the slack. Recruiters have come up with more innovative ways to reach the Army's 80,000 annual enlistment goal by becoming more visual in shopping malls, at high schools, and other hangouts for young adults.
According to the Department of Defense budget materials, the Army spends $854,146,000 on advertising and recruiting each year. So especially when the country is at war, young adults can expect recruiters to find them wherever they go.
Recruiting in Schools
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Schools that receive federal funding are required to release the names of students to Army recruiters. The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 permitted recruiters access to the names, addresses and other personal contact information of prospective high school graduates. If schools refuse, they risk losing federal funding. However, a student can withhold his own information.
Recruiters can reach more students in a high school. This allows them a platform to answer questions or clear up any misconceptions concerning recruitment. Before the No Child Left Behind Act, recruiters would only participate in a career day or job fair at high schools. -
Targeting Certain Schools
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The Army will target schools that "maximize return on the recruiting dollar [because] the advertising and marketing research people tell us to go where the low-hanging fruit is. In other words, we fish where the fish are," says Kurt Gilroy, director of recruiting policy for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. For this reason, recruiters have a heavier presence in urban schools. Affluent neighborhoods have less recruiter presence because students there are more likely to have an opportunity to go to college and access to funding for college.
ROTC
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An ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) program is a military program run by military personnel in both private and public high schools. The curriculum consists of courses approved by the Department of the Army.
ROTC programs teach young men and women leadership skills that will benefit them in military and civilian life. The program also teaches the importance of giving back and many ROTC programs require participating in a community project.
The participants of the ROTC program are required to dress in military dress one day a week. Most ROTC programs have between 100 to 150 students enrolled per year, but less than 10 percent of the students who participate in the program actually enlist in the military.
The Media
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The new "Army Strong" campaign targets American children, between the ages of 17 to 24, on the information highway and television, to describe the benefits of an Army career. It is thought to be communicating on a more personal level.
The campaign also focuses on the emotional, physical, and mental strength gained by becoming a member of the Army. Potential recruits can visit the website and actually experience virtual Iraq deployment through a series of webcast videos.
The new 30- to 60-second television advertisements shows the camaraderie between recruits, in addition, to the physical training they will receive. However, the television ads make a cognizant effort to stay clear of any war messages.
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