Resources Required to Meet the U.S. Army's Enlisted Recruiting Requirements Under Alternative Recruiting Goals, Conditions, and Eligibility Policies

Abstract

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End-of-Pilot Assessment of the U.S. Army's Consolidated Recruiting Program

“…However, the existence of a reserve recruiting mission at a station did not have a large effect on RA recruiting in either direction, suggesting that the failure to meet mission was driven by the difficulty of achieving two separate recruiting goals rather than by negative spillovers (Dertouzos and Garber, 2006). More-recent models of enlisted supply suggest that raising USAR recruiting goals (and therefore recruiter effort allocated toward producing USAR contracts) decreases the number of high-quality enlistment contracts signed for the RA (Knapp et al, 2018). More recently, an analogous result was found for the effect of increasing the RA mission on USAR enlistment contracts (Orvis et al, forthcoming).…”

“…When executed properly, consolidating the recruiting process for USAREC and the ARNG should allow the three components to draw on a pool of shared recruiters that is larger than any of the components would otherwise have access to on its own without substantially increasing costs. Prior research suggests that expanding the number of recruiters for the RA will increase high-quality enlisted supply (Knapp et al, 2018), and estimates of the effects of recruiting resources on enlisted supply are similar for the USAR and ARNG when controlling for the number of prior-service accessions to those components (Tan, 1991). If these newly available recruiters generate crosscomponent contracts for recruits who otherwise would not have enlisted, the CRP could also improve overall recruiting efficiency.…”

“…Similarly, recruiting missions can be a key determinant in the share of reserve enlistment contracts signed by personnel with no prior service, who require more effort to recruit (Tan, 1991). Numerous researchers have found that contract production responds to increases in recruiting missions and to individual incentive programs (Arkes and Cunha, 2015;Asch and Heaton, 2010;Knapp et al, 2018). However, the responsiveness falls as missions become more difficult to achieve (Dertouzos and Garber, 2006), and poorly designed incentive programs can have perverse effects, including a decline in the quality of enlistment contracts as deadlines for achieving goals draw closer (Asch and Heaton, 2010).…”

Setting the Level and Annual Adjustment of Military Pay

“…The reason for the different Army outcomes is unclear, but it appears that the Army adopted a different strategy when recruiting conditions improved at the higher RMC percentile, appearing to focus on reducing multiple recruiting-related costs while achieving its overall recruiting mission and meeting DoD recruit quality benchmarks. Knapp et al (2018) show that the percentage of Army recruits receiving bonuses, average bonus amounts, and Army advertising expenditures dropped dramatically in 2009, and the bonus budget figures in Table 5.1 imply that the Army bonus budget and number of recruiters were lower in 2018-2019 than in 2010. Second, retention was higher in recent years relative to the 70th percentile benchmark years.…”

Military and Civilian Pay Levels, Trends, and Recruit Quality

“…Data for the Army indicate a lower rate of attrition from DEP for category I-IIIA high school graduates than for others(Knapp, Orvis, et al, 2018), so the 60-percent guidance for contracts might be conservative. For example, if 58 percent of contracts were in categories I through IIIA, category I-IIIA accessions might be 62 percent.…”