Tag Archive for: Recruitment

Oliver’s struggle: a case study in the frustration of trying to join the ADF

If you’re a qualified individual looking to join the Australian Army, prepare for a world of frustration over the next 12 to 18 months. While thorough vetting is essential, the inefficiency of the Australian Defence Force’s recruitment process is inexcusable.

Communication between recruits and the ADF is disorganised and inefficient. The system seems designed to test patience rather than welcome recruits.

What follows is a case study. It’s the miserable experience of 22-year-old Oliver from Sydney, an entirely suitable recruit who struggled for 12 months to be recruited—by an organisation that says it can’t get enough people. (‘Oliver’ is not his real name.)

Oliver’s application process was so riddled with complications that he lost count. A particular issue was constant turnover of recruiters. Oliver went through four different recruiters in 12 months.

Twice, his file was reassigned without any notice, and on two other occasions, he had to personally track down his new recruiter’s details and make the first contact. He discovered that his recruiter was no longer handling his case only when his emails and calls began to go unanswered. Each time, he had to call the general recruiting phone line just to get an update on his application and find out who his new case manager was.

On top of that, poor record-keeping led to lost documents, adding unnecessary delays. But the most frustrating part was the medical clearance process, which became an administrative nightmare.

‘Every time I followed up [on the medical clearance], I’d find out they had either lost my documents again or hadn’t even checked them since last uploading them,’ Oliver says. ‘It felt like I was stuck in an endless loop of submitting paperwork with no progress.’

Recruiter turnover meant that each of Oliver’s follow-ups were with a new person with no understanding of his case, causing misunderstandings surrounding his medical history. Oliver had undergone leg surgery in the past, so he understood that some delay arising from it was inevitable. However, he didn’t expect simple administrative tasks to be mishandled so often.

For instance, he was required to complete a second pre-entry fitness assessment two weeks before his enlistment. When he arrived at the test location, he discovered he wasn’t on the list. His recruiter had forgotten to book him in, despite assuring him otherwise. Fortunately, the assessment staff, whom he happened to know, allowed him to take the test and promptly submitted his scores. Without their help, his enlistment date would have been delayed yet again.

After everything he had been through, it was no surprise that his medical approval took six months: if they couldn’t even book a basic fitness test, how could he trust them to handle something as important as his medical history?

Prolonged uncertainty keeps recruits in limbo, disrupting their personal lives. Oliver, for instance, chose not to renew his residential lease for another year, because thought he might soon need to leave town for a life in the army. Instead, he moved frequently and cycled through jobs, always on edge: at any moment, he could be called and told to ship out. Had he known the process would drag on, or had he received a firm departure date, he could have signed the lease and avoided a year of instability.

His impression was that the ADF was indifferent to the hardship its process takes on applicants. This leaves a negative impression on recruits, already part of a generation less inclined to serve than their forebears were and sends a clear message that their commitment is met with bureaucracy rather than support.

Oliver, a dual citizen of Australia and the United States, became so frustrated that he nearly enlisted in the US military instead. In the US Army, recruits can receive up to US$50,000 (nearly AU$80,000) in bonuses, including a US$15,000 (AU$24,000) Quick Ship Bonus for those who start basic training within 30 days.

In contrast, the average enlistment process in Australia takes about 300 days—but it doesn’t have to. If Australia is serious about addressing its recruitment crisis, the first step is fixing a system that almost seems designed to push recruits away.

Oliver was finally accepted September 2024. He’s now in infantry.

If not for a determination to serve, which he had held since the age of 15, he likely wouldn’t have made it through the process. This begs the question: how many potential recruits, uncertain about enlisting, abandon their applications in frustration? Stories like Oliver’s seem countless.

The ADF’s failure to efficiently vet qualified recruits isn’t just a bureaucratic hiccup; it’s a fundamental flaw costing valuable soldiers. Fixing this requires prioritising high-performing applicants like Oliver, reducing bureaucratic hurdles and improving recruitment capacity. If Australia wants a strong, capable military force, it needs to start by proving to recruits that their time, dedication and service are valued—not wasted.

Too slow and too picky: Defence recruiting isn’t fit for purpose

Australian Defence Force recruiting systems need to be overhauled if the ADF is to sustain and increase its size in the coming years. The ADF also needs to make changes to entry standards so it can take maximum advantage of the pool of applicants.

In early 2024, the ADF was around 4300 people below its authorised strength of 62,700 permanent members. This makes the 2040 target of 80,000 permanent personnel look increasingly difficult to achieve.

While the challenges of recruiting are usually framed in the context of competition with other industries—with the low unemployment rate cited as evidence of labour market tightness—other factors are at play. It is commonly argued that pay and conditions for ADF members need to rise to attract and retain personnel. However, they are already relatively generous: Australia’s median full-time pay is about $88,500 a year. The starting pay of a sergeant or fully qualified officer is higher. A private reaching pay grade 5 will also earn more than the national median. Further increases to pay grades are likely to have diminishing returns.

In 2024, 64,000 people applied to join the ADF. The average time it took to complete a recruitment process was 300 days. These are both surprising figures, in different ways. On one hand, taking just a fraction more of those applicants in a year would bring the ADF up to its authorised strength. On the other hand, the recruitment period shows just how cumbersome and inefficient the recruitment process currently is.

While spending 300 days to decide whether to recruit someone might not have mattered as much in the relatively peaceful era straight after the Cold War, it is unacceptable when geopolitical tensions are increasing and we need expand the ADF quickly. Also, according to both human resources theory and plentiful anecdotal evidence, many of the ADF’s best applicants probably have other job opportunities. The longer the ADF takes to finish the recruitment process, the more likely a high-performing candidate will be frustrated by the bureaucratic delays and go elsewhere.

For those keeping score, some of those 64,000 applicants were successfully recruited and some withdrew their applications partway through. The rest would have been deemed unsuitable and had their application rejected. But could none of those applicants have been able to safely and competently do any of the 4,300 positions that remain unfilled in the ADF? Almost certainly not.

This is where the ADF needs to change its attitude towards recruitment standards: it needs to become less choosy. It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth that many Australian servicepeople who fought and died in World War I and World War II would have been rejected by today’s ADF. At the height of World War II, around one in eight Australians was deemed suitable to serve.

Defence needs to take a less risk-averse attitude towards health issues. There are many stories of potential ADF recruits being rejected for minor or historical physical and mental health reasons. ADF attitudes towards mental health are particularly outdated. Mental health issues are now better recognised and understood by health professionals and the public, increasing diagnosis rates. Despite improvements in the treatment and management of mental conditions, the ADF’s overly conservative attitude towards mental illness is excluding an increasingly large demographic from the recruiting pool. Recruiting from that pool will require improved mental health support both during service and after discharge.

The ADF will have to make changes to improve its recruitment process, starting with greater resource allocation to increase recruiting capacity. Identifying and prioritising high-performing applicants early would further optimise the recruitment process and increase Defence’s chances of securing these candidates. The ADF should also streamline bureaucracy where possible, particularly around document provision and follow-up medical examinations. Managing the contract with Defence’s recruiting service provider, Adecco, will further improve performance.

Defence would benefit from updated recruiting standards around minor or historical health issues. It should adopt a less risk-averse approach centred on an applicant’s ability to do their job at the time of recruitment. In the longer term, Defence should conduct a review into its recruitment processes with the aim of designing a recruiting system that can deliver the personnel needed for the ADF’s future.

Despite perceptions, there is a large pool of applicants who want to join the ADF. With appropriate changes to recruiting systems and standards, that pool should be able to fill the ADF’s expanding requirements. This will help the ADF meet its target of 80,000 permanent personnel by 2040.

The ADF needs more specialists. To get them, it needs more flexibility

The Australian Defence Force needs a new way to recruit and retain hard-to-find experts, such as specialist engineers. Current systems do not allow for the flexibility that the 21st century demands, nor do they match industry salary standards.

These shortcomings were highlighted by the Strategic Review of the Australian Defence Force Reserves, which identifies the need to adopt a Total Workforce System that supports more innovative and flexible workforce arrangements.​

The problem has been worsening as tasks within the ADF have become more complex. But maybe the solution has been right in front of us all along.

We could adapt the existing Specialist Services Officer (SSO) system through which the army currently engages people in fields such a healthcare, finance, law, chaplaincy, management, public affairs, aviation, engineering or education, without necessarily requiring the full military training of standard army service. The SSO arrangement needs to be more flexible: rather than limited to pre-defined fields, it must be open to whatever roles the ADF requires.

It would thereby enable the ADF to employ a much wider range of specialists, and it would apply to people with particularly valuable skills who could already be in the ADF under a different role.

The adaption, renamed Specialist Service Person (SSP), could also replace the Specialist Service Soldier scheme, which the army is trialling for enlisted personnel and which is focused on specific trades.

For example, the army may need someone with specialist sanitation knowledge for an operation, but ‘sanitation engineer’ isn’t on the Specialist Services Officer list or a job in the ADF. The review of the reserves advocates creating pathways that allow a broader range of specialists to enter the ADF, ensuring operational requirements guide employment rather than rigid role categories.

Instead, operational needs should guide employment, and a system unconstrained by pre-defined employment categories and open to negotiable pay should ensure that ever-changing service demands are met.

Other examples of skills that the ADF can acquire with far more flexibility are artificial intelligence experts, automation engineers, naval architects, procurement specialists and unknown future roles we haven’t thought up yet.

The SSP system, like the SSO, would apply to civilians entering the ADF or to reservists with specialised skills. This gives the ADF options to move people into roles where there is an operational need and move them out when it is over.

A continuous full-time service (CFTS) contract, as already used for upgrading reservists to full-time employment, could be used. Under the SSP model, the ADF could call upon specialists when needed, similar to the reserves, rather than keeping people permanently on contract but underemployed.

Additionally, ADF also relies on a contracted external civilian workforce for niche expertise. They are often employed by companies that they work for directly, adding complexity, cost and conflicts of interest. Instead, such skills should be available from service members under SSP CFTS contracts.

Offering realistic market salaries under the SSP system would also improve the chance of keeping highly skilled ADF members who have grown beyond their standard employment model.

This proposal takes inspiration from the US Warrant Officer system and Singapore’s military expert system.

The US Army pays more for its technical experts through its Warrant Officer ranks. These members are specialists in specific fields rather than generalist leaders, enabling them to focus on their core skills. This system allows the military to retain and access the expertise of its best specialists.

The Singapore Armed Forces directly recruit specialists from the civilian sector, tapping into a wider talent pool to meet evolving defence needs. These specialists, known as military experts, can then develop their skills through the Military Domain Experts Scheme.

Like the US model, the proposed SSP system would recognise and promote expertise from within the ranks. Like Singapore’s approach, it would acknowledge the need to bring in external expertise when required. This hybrid model ensures seamless integration of both internal and external specialists, optimising the ADF’s capabilities.

The SSP system could also be used to keep the skills of people who would otherwise leave the ADF—for example, because medical conditions make them unfit for standard duties. If they hold the right in need skillsets the ADF in the SSP model would have the flexibility to reengage them under a CFTS contract with defined duties, salary and outcomes.

Currently, specialists often face pay cuts when they move from private companies into ADF roles. This concern is echoed in the review of the reserves, which emphasises the need to modernise conditions of service and adopt a more competitive pay structure to improve retention and recruitment outcomes.

The key word is ‘flexibility’. That’s what the ADF must have as it tries to employ and keep people with the ever-enlarging range of skills that it needs.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘A PNG view on recruitment for the ADF: yes, please’

Originally published on 12 August 2024.

Papua New Guineans should serve in the Australian Defence Force. As a Papua New Guinean, I believe this would instill Western values of democracy and freedom in our young people, who must be made to realise that these principles are under threat as China expands its influence in the region.

Australian military service would also provide employment for young people from PNG and other Pacific island countries, giving them real life skills.

As Australia considers the possibility of Pacific recruitment, it must understand that this would not just be a way to make up the ADF personnel shortfall. It would also help the countries from which service personnel were drawn, demonstrating good will towards the Pacific and going well beyond mere words in promoting their alignment with the West.

In general, the Pacific islands would prefer to align with Australia and the United States rather than China, but this view is predominantly held by older people, especially those who remember what they call the good times of the colonial era. In contrast, the younger people do not care greatly whether their countries are aligned to the West or not.

Service in the ADF would do more than bind many young people in PNG and other Pacific island countries to Australia. It would also teach them the moral values that come with military service, values that are lacking among far too many of them, especially in PNG. And they would take those values back home after completing their ADF service, to the gratification of their fellow citizens, not least their extended families.

Serving in the armed forces of a sturdily democratic country such as Australia would also reinforce democratic values that are fast eroding in the Pacific islands.

Terms of service for Pacific island people should require them to return home after, say, nine years in the ADF. If they later wanted to apply for Australian citizenship, they could be given preferential treatment, but only after at least five years serving in the armed forces of their home countries.

This should be an important feature of Pacific recruitment. Pacific defence and security forces are short on skills and suffer declining disciplinary and ethical standards. The infusion of ex-ADF people would address both problems. For the PNG Defence Force, the skills transfer would be particularly effective, because almost all its equipment has been donated by Australia.

If Pacific islanders did not shift from the ADF to their home countries’ forces, their skills would still benefit their countries in non-military employment.

In return for giving Pacific islands these benefits, Australia would gain from their labour availability. Pacific island countries, such as PNG, have economies that are not growing much but populations that have exploded, leaving many well educated young people unemployed.

The $600 million that Canberra plans to spend on establishing a team from PNG in the Australian Rugby League competition would be far better spent on ADF recruitment in the country. It would employ far more PNG people if it were. And rugby league does not teach life skills, whereas ADF service would provide that and other much deeper benefits.

Crucially, Pacific countries must be treated as equal partners in defence of democracy and freedom. It is not their politicians but their people who must realise that Western values that they enjoy, such as democracy and freedom of speech, are not guaranteed.

They must also be reassured that the Pacific islands are not merely a military buffer against a threat to Australia. Young Papua New Guineans, who have a better grasp of geopolitics than their parents, are increasingly of the view that PNG must not be treated as useful cannon fodder in a possible war. If they think that that is Australia’s attitude, any sense of loyalty or partnership will vanish.

They can see what China is doing to enlarge its influence and what the US is doing in response. In my experience, they are not clear about what Australia is doing, as distinct from what it is merely saying, to demonstrate commitment to the region.

In the spirit of equal partnership, the ADF should avoid creating a Pacific Regiment, one composed entirely of Pacific recruits, as that would give rise to criticisms of colonialism and second-class status. Instead, as recommended by former British Army officer Ross Thompson, it should follow the model that Britain uses for Fijian recruits: it should spread Pacific islanders across a range of units.

Australia needs to demonstrate its commitment to Pacific island countries. The best way it can do so is by giving Pacific islanders the benefits of service in the ADF.