Attracting qualified recruits and the costs associated with essential skills training make military recruitment an ongoing challenge; low recruitment affects, among other things, enlistee counts, unit readiness, and morale. RAND has provided objective evaluations and recommendations that support decisionmakers' efforts to monitor and manage military recruiting, including examinations of demographic groups and communities where recruiting could be more successful.
REPORT
The Air Force has a continuing interest in reducing high attrition and training-block failure (washback) rates, as both increase training and recruiting costs. This report describes research into these issues for nine career fields.
RESEARCH BRIEF
To assist the Army's move of its Human Resources Command from the Washington, D.C. area to Fort Knox, Kentucky, RAND Arroyo Center produced personnel competency models and a framework for training to support the future delivery of personnel services.
REPORT
The fraction of American youth meeting U.S. Army enlistment standards for weight and body fat has declined markedly. In response, the Army developed a waiver program tied to a fitness test known as the Assessment of Recruit Motivation and Strength (ARMS) test. Through difference-in-differences estimates and other analytic techniques, the authors examine the program's effect on Army accession and attrition rates.
REPORT
A major source of reserve manpower is the flow of enlisted members from an active component (AC) to a reserve component (RC). This volume examines how effective RC bonuses are in attracting prior service members and, in doing so, explores how AC and RC bonuses interact to affect both AC reenlistment and prior service enlistment in the Selected Reserve.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Summarizes results of a RAND Corporation study on sexual orientation and U.S. military policy requested by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Secretary of Defense in order to weigh repeal of the law known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
REPORT
This study on sexual orientation and U.S. military policy, requested by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Secretary of Defense in order to weigh repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, examines public and military opinion on allowing gay men and lesbians to serve without restriction; research on sexual orientation, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention; and experiences of domestic agencies and foreign militaries.
REPORT
Using data from 2007 through 2009, the authors tabulate the incidence and prevalence of recruiter irregularities. Exploring Army contract data, the authors compare the characteristics of those signing contracts at the end of the recruiting month — when recruiters are under the greatest pressure to meet their monthly recruiting quotas — with those signed earlier in the month.
REPORT
Presents three essays on obstacles to improving demographic representation in the armed forces.
NEWS RELEASE
The increased use of cash bonuses by the U.S. Department of Defense to encourage military enlistment and reenlistment had a positive effect on recruiting and retention in the armed forces.
REPORT
The increased use of cash bonuses by the U.S. Department of Defense to encourage military enlistment and reenlistment had a positive effect on recruiting and retention in the armed forces. Until recently, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have placed greater stress on military recruitment and retention.
MULTIMEDIA
In this Congressional Briefing, held on June 14, 2010, James Hosek and Beth Asch describe the effect of enlistment and reenlistment bonuses on military recruitment and retention efforts and on attrition.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Congress has questioned the scope and efficacy of enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, but Army high-quality recruiting would have been lower without them; they are more cost-effective than pay but less so than recruiters as a way to gain recruits.
REPORT
Analyzes the Air Force's seven medical and professional officer corps — the Biomedical Sciences Corps, the Chaplain Corps, the Dental Corps, the Judge Advocate General Corps (attorneys), the Medical Corps (physicians), the Medical Service Corps, and the Nurse Corps — with regard to end strengths, accession levels, promotion flow, and attrition since the late 1970s. Recent accession and retention trends have been most adverse in…
REPORT
The Air Force relies on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) as part of its officer selection process. Despite concerns about the test, the authors conclude that it is a good selection test that predicts important Air Force outcomes and is not biased against minorities or women. The Air Force would not benefit by replacing the AFOQT with the SAT, although other valid selection tools could be used to complement the AFOQT.
NEWS RELEASE
Although U.S. Army deployments have been linked positively to the likelihood of reenlisting for much of the past decade, by 2006 the mounting burden of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan reached the point where deployment had a negative effect on reenlistment.
REPORT
Although U.S. Army deployments have been linked positively to the likelihood of reenlisting for much of the past decade, by 2006 the mounting burden of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan reached the
point where deployment had a negative effect on reenlistment.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Theoretical models and survey and administrative data show that deployment during the war on terrorism has had positive or no effects on military reenlistment but a negative effect for Army personnel deployed for a high cumulative number of months.
REPORT
To address a decline in high-quality black enlistments in the U.S. Army and other minority trends across other service branches, the military may want to look at how it allocates its resources to such recruiting tools as bonuses, educational benefits and recruiters.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Identifies factors that explain recruiting trends among blacks and Hispanics from 2000 to 2007, including the responsiveness of these groups to various recruiting resources as well as other factors, such as the effect of the Iraq war.
REPORT
RAND Arroyo Center produced competency models and a training framework to support Army Human Resources Command's delivery of services after its upcoming reorganization and relocation. Researchers developed competency models for jobs that would survive the move. They identified gaps between the competencies HRC would need and the availability of workers. Finally, they developed training concepts to close gaps between current and future…
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