Good evening
For around 8 years of my 18-year life, I have wanted to enter into Canadian Armed Forces. I have recently completed my application process for officer cadet and it has been sent off to DND for review. I am extremely concern about posting the following but it is something that I feel the military needs to know. I will start with a background so people are familiar with what I have gone through.
I started the recruiting processes in September of 04 by calling my nearest CFRC. At the time of my call, I had already researched and found all the information that I needed to know up to entry into Basic Training. I had extensively research the DND, RMC, and the Navies websites to acquire information. After my research into the Canadian Armed Forces I decided that the best approach and the one that I could make the most changes to the Canadian Armed Forces was to become a Queens officer in Canada. I decide that I unfortunately could not just become an admiral but had to earn the rank and the respects of both the public and the Force. During one of my excursion out to the National Triathlon Centre in Victoria, I stop by a few people that were in the Navy and the CFRC. While I was there, I had the privilege to go on a day sail on a Navy frigate, as soon as we clear the port I new I had to be a an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces which branch did not concern me. Several months later, I was in Ontario where I took a tour of R.M.C. to look at the facility. By the end of the summer I had found mostly everything that I would be able to find out on my own with out going into or talking to an CFRC Recruiter.
The Recruiter that I talk to did not only know the answer to all my question but was able to answer some that I had not even thought of. She sent me all of the paper work that was required along with an information package. After reviewing the paper work, I filled out everything that I was able to do and sent off all of my letters of reference. A few weeks later, I had all of the paper work filled out and headed down to the CFRC recruiting office. After meeting with the recruiter and being assigned a file manger, I headed home floating on clouds. The next day being the nice gentleman I phone my file manager to introduce my self. I was told the previous day that it could be up to 2 weeks till she became available to look at my file. I am a nice guy and I figure it would be nice to but a voice to the name I had been given. After having a nice conversation with my file manager and being told that she would be able to look at my file within a few days. A week and a half later I received a call from my file manager saying that my file looked ok and that my career consular would like to set up a appointment for a prep interview. I was given the option to do it over the phone but decided that since I had to be down in that general area the next week that I would rather do a face to face meeting. Preceding the meeting with the captain I booked a full day of testing 2 weeks from that day.
I still unclear whether this was a mistake or not. I studied my brains out for my aptitude test. Which was what had me worried the most about my full day of testing? After about 45 minutes into the test I new that I had not done very well. I was expecting a SAT test or something similar and that was what I had been training for. The prep sheet that was given to me was accurate but I thought that there would be more to it than what was on the sheet so I had studied my brains out with questions that were way above what was on the test and in doing so I did not remember how to do all the basics. After completing the test I was summon into my career consular office. Since I had already on my own figured out that I had done poorly I knew what it was about. Latter on when I should have been in my medical if I had not royal screw up instead of driving home. I thought the day was going to go great was I wrong. Dreams and expectation do not mix. I phoned my file manager and gave her my 3 months notice, telling her that I wanted to book my second test for when my three month period was up. A few weeks later after requesting a session with someone about the results of my test I learn that about the only thing that I had not qualified for officer the only thing I did qualified for was supply technician and official latrine scrubber.(official latrine scrubber is my term and not what the CFRC said)
During my three-month period wait period, I was able to attend a high-level international military conference. At the conference I met, a large group of people all bent on perfecting militaries around the world. At this conference, I was able to find a lot of different input on what needs to happen in the world of militaries from high ranking officers and NCO. At the end of my three month wait period I went and did another full day of testing. I came out of the testing feeling proud of myself knowing that I had done the best that I was able to. I was also expecting to just leave right after my test since I was sure that I would not qualify. I did not just qualify to become an officer on the aptitude test but increase my score enough that I was able to select any officer trade that I wanted. After finish off that day still being stunned.
Now that I have given you my bare basic background I will get into what I think the problems are and what needs to be change. Some of these issue I know people are attempting to address right now.
1. Time it take to process an application. I am aware of all of the step that must be done for an application and the time and all the hard work that everyone but into to them. The problem is that for people applying for RMC the wait is simply to long. Most standard collage's and university will get back to a prospective student in 4-6 weeks. I could be wrong but it is quiet possible if not a strong possibility that the armed forces are losing people to the collage's and university. What I propose is that they move the board up so that the board sits in around the middle of March so that people will now by the mid of April. The people who do not get in have time to get everything else ready to further a great 9 to 5, 5 days a week civilian life.
2. Aptitude testing: Aptitude testing needs to be reworked my suggestion is to do a real aptitude test instead of a test that is spouse to test your mathematic knowledge. One suggestion is to bringing down the size of the aptitude test and take question that the interviewer was giving and change them into an aptitude test.
3. Recruitment: What people does the military want? Does the military want a academic or does do they want leaders. From everything I have gone through the military is leaning heavily towards the academics side of things. This is right in one aspect the military needs geniuses and people to develop long term plans. This however does not mean that your army can be composed of these people even if they can march and make a maple leaf on the parade ground or square it does not mean that they know a thing about leading. Leading require people skills and the ability to not just know people but be able to get sit down with them and say I have this fancy piece of paper but I have no experience what information do you have that I could use to make an informed decision. There is more to both of these categories. In my opinion, it would be better to have more leaders than academics but the military needs to make a decision on this and correlate it to the recruiting process.
4. Overall the military need to start a ongoing discussion where both civilian and military personal can go and express changes that they think would be beneficial to the Canadian Armed Forces.
I would like apologize to anyone I have offend by this. It was not meant as a rant but theses are my thoughts on the recruiting process and some of the changes I would like to see. This is not all the changes I would like to see but these are the one's that I have been able to come up with solutions for. Yes, the solutions are not complete but it is a start, I would like to see people add there input into the problem's facing recruiting and what can be done to improve it. This is also not an attention grab and I would hope that people look at my file the same they would any other person applying to officer cadet position. I have also not discuss certain details due to security issues. Further information can be obtained from me by my emailing me at skyesmith@hotmail.com. Please do not abuse this email account. I am willing to discus anything that I have posted. If I have made any errors, I will apologize about the error and correct it.
Skye
I do not at present have accesses to a spellchecker and this was a rushed post sorry for all of the grammatical and spelling errors made.
For around 8 years of my 18-year life, I have wanted to enter into Canadian Armed Forces. I have recently completed my application process for officer cadet and it has been sent off to DND for review. I am extremely concern about posting the following but it is something that I feel the military needs to know. I will start with a background so people are familiar with what I have gone through.
I started the recruiting processes in September of 04 by calling my nearest CFRC. At the time of my call, I had already researched and found all the information that I needed to know up to entry into Basic Training. I had extensively research the DND, RMC, and the Navies websites to acquire information. After my research into the Canadian Armed Forces I decided that the best approach and the one that I could make the most changes to the Canadian Armed Forces was to become a Queens officer in Canada. I decide that I unfortunately could not just become an admiral but had to earn the rank and the respects of both the public and the Force. During one of my excursion out to the National Triathlon Centre in Victoria, I stop by a few people that were in the Navy and the CFRC. While I was there, I had the privilege to go on a day sail on a Navy frigate, as soon as we clear the port I new I had to be a an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces which branch did not concern me. Several months later, I was in Ontario where I took a tour of R.M.C. to look at the facility. By the end of the summer I had found mostly everything that I would be able to find out on my own with out going into or talking to an CFRC Recruiter.
The Recruiter that I talk to did not only know the answer to all my question but was able to answer some that I had not even thought of. She sent me all of the paper work that was required along with an information package. After reviewing the paper work, I filled out everything that I was able to do and sent off all of my letters of reference. A few weeks later, I had all of the paper work filled out and headed down to the CFRC recruiting office. After meeting with the recruiter and being assigned a file manger, I headed home floating on clouds. The next day being the nice gentleman I phone my file manager to introduce my self. I was told the previous day that it could be up to 2 weeks till she became available to look at my file. I am a nice guy and I figure it would be nice to but a voice to the name I had been given. After having a nice conversation with my file manager and being told that she would be able to look at my file within a few days. A week and a half later I received a call from my file manager saying that my file looked ok and that my career consular would like to set up a appointment for a prep interview. I was given the option to do it over the phone but decided that since I had to be down in that general area the next week that I would rather do a face to face meeting. Preceding the meeting with the captain I booked a full day of testing 2 weeks from that day.
I still unclear whether this was a mistake or not. I studied my brains out for my aptitude test. Which was what had me worried the most about my full day of testing? After about 45 minutes into the test I new that I had not done very well. I was expecting a SAT test or something similar and that was what I had been training for. The prep sheet that was given to me was accurate but I thought that there would be more to it than what was on the sheet so I had studied my brains out with questions that were way above what was on the test and in doing so I did not remember how to do all the basics. After completing the test I was summon into my career consular office. Since I had already on my own figured out that I had done poorly I knew what it was about. Latter on when I should have been in my medical if I had not royal screw up instead of driving home. I thought the day was going to go great was I wrong. Dreams and expectation do not mix. I phoned my file manager and gave her my 3 months notice, telling her that I wanted to book my second test for when my three month period was up. A few weeks later after requesting a session with someone about the results of my test I learn that about the only thing that I had not qualified for officer the only thing I did qualified for was supply technician and official latrine scrubber.(official latrine scrubber is my term and not what the CFRC said)
During my three-month period wait period, I was able to attend a high-level international military conference. At the conference I met, a large group of people all bent on perfecting militaries around the world. At this conference, I was able to find a lot of different input on what needs to happen in the world of militaries from high ranking officers and NCO. At the end of my three month wait period I went and did another full day of testing. I came out of the testing feeling proud of myself knowing that I had done the best that I was able to. I was also expecting to just leave right after my test since I was sure that I would not qualify. I did not just qualify to become an officer on the aptitude test but increase my score enough that I was able to select any officer trade that I wanted. After finish off that day still being stunned.
Now that I have given you my bare basic background I will get into what I think the problems are and what needs to be change. Some of these issue I know people are attempting to address right now.
1. Time it take to process an application. I am aware of all of the step that must be done for an application and the time and all the hard work that everyone but into to them. The problem is that for people applying for RMC the wait is simply to long. Most standard collage's and university will get back to a prospective student in 4-6 weeks. I could be wrong but it is quiet possible if not a strong possibility that the armed forces are losing people to the collage's and university. What I propose is that they move the board up so that the board sits in around the middle of March so that people will now by the mid of April. The people who do not get in have time to get everything else ready to further a great 9 to 5, 5 days a week civilian life.
2. Aptitude testing: Aptitude testing needs to be reworked my suggestion is to do a real aptitude test instead of a test that is spouse to test your mathematic knowledge. One suggestion is to bringing down the size of the aptitude test and take question that the interviewer was giving and change them into an aptitude test.
3. Recruitment: What people does the military want? Does the military want a academic or does do they want leaders. From everything I have gone through the military is leaning heavily towards the academics side of things. This is right in one aspect the military needs geniuses and people to develop long term plans. This however does not mean that your army can be composed of these people even if they can march and make a maple leaf on the parade ground or square it does not mean that they know a thing about leading. Leading require people skills and the ability to not just know people but be able to get sit down with them and say I have this fancy piece of paper but I have no experience what information do you have that I could use to make an informed decision. There is more to both of these categories. In my opinion, it would be better to have more leaders than academics but the military needs to make a decision on this and correlate it to the recruiting process.
4. Overall the military need to start a ongoing discussion where both civilian and military personal can go and express changes that they think would be beneficial to the Canadian Armed Forces.
I would like apologize to anyone I have offend by this. It was not meant as a rant but theses are my thoughts on the recruiting process and some of the changes I would like to see. This is not all the changes I would like to see but these are the one's that I have been able to come up with solutions for. Yes, the solutions are not complete but it is a start, I would like to see people add there input into the problem's facing recruiting and what can be done to improve it. This is also not an attention grab and I would hope that people look at my file the same they would any other person applying to officer cadet position. I have also not discuss certain details due to security issues. Further information can be obtained from me by my emailing me at skyesmith@hotmail.com. Please do not abuse this email account. I am willing to discus anything that I have posted. If I have made any errors, I will apologize about the error and correct it.
Skye
I do not at present have accesses to a spellchecker and this was a rushed post sorry for all of the grammatical and spelling errors made.
