Coronavirus Impacts on Recruiting Process etc

[dapaterson]

ACISS is the product of a three-way shotgun marriage.  It is currently being reconstituted as a bunch of sub-occupations (as I recall).

Further amalgamation is not the answer in this instance, in my opinion.

 

[mariomike]

To be fair, there are still quite a few undergoing the release process.

With the uncertain economic and employment situation, I wonder if quite a few might be having second thoughts?

 

[Mirin]

The CDS in his latest letter from 17 April says the following:

"We are doing detailed planning to re-open, and I expect we may have to expand our intake and individual training capacity in the months to come so we can continue to grow the CAF as we have been directed to do."

I can't make sense of if he means increasing the number of people loaded on each course to ameliorate the bottleneck this is causing on training throughput, or increase recruiting targets CAF wide, or both, or something different altogether.  It's still early days and until further direction is pushed out, I'm sure not too many people are privy as to what's being planned.  Still, I'm interested.

 

[blacktriangle]

With the uncertain economic and employment situation, I wonder if quite a few might be having second thoughts?

Well, some are of a medical nature and may only be able to delay the inevitable. Others may be releasing to public positions or have skills that are always going to be in-demand in the private sector.

There will definitely be some that reconsider, but I wonder if perhaps these are the people that hadn't really thought release out correctly/overestimated their chances of employment on the outside.

 

[PuckChaser]

The CDS in his latest letter from 17 April says the following:

I can't make sense of if he means increasing the number of people loaded on each course to ameliorate the bottleneck this is causing on training throughput, or increase recruiting targets CAF wide, or both, or something different altogether.  It's still early days and until further direction is pushed out, I'm sure not too many people are privy as to what's being planned.  Still, I'm interested.

School throughputs are always the bottleneck, not recruiting quotas. If we can't train someone, there's no point in putting them in PAT Platoon for 2 years (unless you're a Pilot or Comm Rsch apparently). Looking at my crystal ball, I could see pers pulled from line units attach posted to schools to run the courses.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=PuckChaser]I could see pers pulled from line units attach posted to schools to run the courses.
[/quote]

Or run recruit courses out of line units.

 

[Slater35]

Use it as an opportunity to train physically

Already on it

 

[mariomike]

There will definitely be some that reconsider, but I wonder if perhaps these are the people that hadn't really thought release out correctly/overestimated their chances of employment on the outside.

Unless I was married to the boss's daughter, I would not be in a rush to hit civvy street these days. 

 

[m9322]

Not entirely sure where to ask this -

Since training / schools are expected to be closed through the summer, does anyone know how that might affect the Seneca CEOTP program? The first phase of flight training is supposed to be completed before starting at Seneca, but a bunch of us obviously haven't completed or even started phase one because of the pandemic. No idea if we'll still be attending Seneca in September.

 

[PuckChaser]

Not entirely sure where to ask this -

Since training / schools are expected to be closed through the summer, does anyone know how that might affect the Seneca CEOTP program? The first phase of flight training is supposed to be completed before starting at Seneca, but a bunch of us obviously haven't completed or even started phase one because of the pandemic. No idea if we'll still be attending Seneca in September.

Once the CAF has it figured out, rest assured they'll give all the folks who have accepted offers for CEOTP at Seneca a personal phone call to let you know the way forward. Looking quickly at the Seneca website, you do not need a PPL to start their program so they may have some flexibility to move Phase 1 flight training until after your first year of school is completed.

 

[PuckChaser]

Wow, that's crazy. Would they leave the vacancies at the top or the bottom of the trade?

At the bottom, MCpl and below. Boomers are leaving, we can't retain MCpl and below, and we can't train new DP1 Ptes.

 

[BDTyre]

Or run recruit courses out of line units.

Or both. Lots of class C reservists to draw upon once (or if) the pandemic dies down.

 

[BeyondTheNow]

It will for a while.  Possibly into the next election cycle.

But after the recession in the early 90s a few years later we saw deep cuts to the CAF, the PS and the provinces followed suit a few years after since they cut transfer payments and ownloaded programs to them.

In 2008 after the recession we saw big cuts again.  Half the Class Bs in the CAF were cut 2 years after and the PS went through the deficit reduction action plan. 

I think the LPC might win the next election in say 2years maybe given the circumstances.  They won’t campaign on austerity.  The CPC will.

Several provincial governments are Conservative.  I expect they will also win their next cycle.  They already campaigned on fiscal prudence and will likely double down.

So yeah, in 5 years or so I see the start of some form of austerity measures.  I expect the CAF to take a hard hit.

What’s your take (or anyone else’s who may be intheknow) on CAFs current recruiting drive of appealing to past members if there’s a possibility of cuts due to recession—Or is that initiative simply in conjunction with standard recruiting drives to keep the numbers up—appealing to everyone they can right now...

 

[ModlrMike]

What’s your take (or anyone else’s who may be intheknow) on CAFs current recruiting drive of appealing to past members if there’s a possibility of cuts due to recession—Or is that initiative simply in conjunction with standard recruiting drives to keep the numbers up—appealing to everyone they can right now...

I think this is a low-cost opportunity for the CF. We get to improve our staffing delta, and we don't actually have to invest much to do it. Consider if we get a 10 year veteran who re-joins, how much money it would cost us to produce the same member from scratch.

 

[Remius]

What’s your take (or anyone else’s who may be intheknow) on CAFs current recruiting drive of appealing to past members if there’s a possibility of cuts due to recession—Or is that initiative simply in conjunction with standard recruiting drives to keep the numbers up—appealing to everyone they can right now...

Depends I guess on the state of the world.  In 2001 we started a big recruitment drive because of the effects of FRP.  Skilled and semi skilled members were sought out but the process to get them back in was ridiculous at the time.  In most cases the VFS took longer than getting someone off the street.

Plus war happened.  That brought a lot of people back. 

It will depend on how much the CAF does to shoot itself in the foot and world events.

Just my take on it.

 

[PuckChaser]

What’s your take (or anyone else’s who may be intheknow) on CAFs current recruiting drive of appealing to past members if there’s a possibility of cuts due to recession—Or is that initiative simply in conjunction with standard recruiting drives to keep the numbers up—appealing to everyone they can right now...

Considering it's taking upwards of 2 years for some people to CT from the PRes, there's nothing that makes me think the CDS is actually serious about fixing the intake issues with former service members. If the CDS really cared, he'd be directing CMP to start prioritizing members from the ISS (CT/trained) instead of Unskilled entries. I'm not saying flip the numbers, but recruiting 200 infantry soldiers unskilled (random number here since I don't have DWAN right now) but having a GGFG Sgt with 7 years of service in the PRes wait a ludicrous amount of time is IMHO stupid. Just the BMQ bypass alone saves us a huge bottleneck. How we went from 2 months NOI to Offer (when I CT'd in 2008) to over 2 years probably requires some sort of high level investigation.

Now before anyone loses their mind that I'm suggesting we poach people from the PRes at a rate that would make it attractive for people to jump in to the PRes for a year so its easier to get into the RegF, that's not it at all. We make the CT/Trained program have a priority for individuals with say around 4+ years PRes service who are DP2 qualified. If someone joins the PRes for their first year of university, graduates with a degree and knows that if they can have a RegF VIE of 4 or 5 years starting at the Cpl rank immediately after school is done, it starts to make the PRes look like a real good option to pay for school and guarantee a headstart on paying back student loans. The PRes also gets 4-5 years of valuable service out of an individual, which is typically the turnover rate of pers (at least when I was in the PRes) anyways so they're not "losing" a member who may just pull pin anyways.

 

[garb811]

...
How we went from 2 months NOI to Offer (when I CT'd in 2008) to over 2 years probably requires some sort of high level investigation.
...

All the Class Bs who were running that process were cut.

FWIW, the MP branch had a significant number of people who got out under FRP re-enroll under the "bring them back for $20k" program.  Any of them I ever dealt with were less than stellar because those who were truly any good had no incentive to come back in, even with the $20k dangle...

 

[Remius]

The sad part is they took that process out of The CFRCs hands and it only got worse lol.

 

[RocketScientist]

Hello all,

Any update on how the recruiting process is going now? I've seen a few posts on Social Media from various Canadian Forces accounts about people being enrolled in "virtually". That was the only step of my process remaining. I've reached out to my recruiter, and awaiting reply. Has anyone here enrolled recently "virtually", and what have you been doing since enrollment?

Thank you.

 

[Blarneystinson]

Hello all,

Any update on how the recruiting process is going now? I've seen a few posts on Social Media from various Canadian Forces accounts about people being enrolled in "virtually". That was the only step of my process remaining. I've reached out to my recruiter, and awaiting reply. Has anyone here enrolled recently "virtually", and what have you been doing since enrollment?

Thank you.

I believe people getting virtually enrolled are people who have been previously given offers and a bmq date.