Cohort RecruitingGreat Idea, or Greatest Idea?

Lt Col Darin NinnessNational Recruiting & Retention Manager

BUILDING CAP’S TEAM ... FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW

Lesson Objective

By the end of this presentation, you should understand:

1. What is Cohort Recruiting

2. How Cohort Recruiting differs from other means, the benefits and the disadvantages

Cohort Recruiting – What it is

The process of channelizing the new member recruiting, inprocessing and training functions into well defined

chunks or “cohorts”

(Used to be called “pipleline” recruiting)

Units have limited resources, use wisely! Take advantage of economies of scale Concentrate new member admin requirements Concentrate training events and introduction to

CAP

Build repeatability and consistency of action Maximizes training value

(both new members & trainers)

Reduces administrative overhead

Why Use Cohort Recruiting?

Repeatable – After 1-2 times, do it in your sleep. Builds economies of scale

Engages members, spreads workload Predictable – Members know that for a period

after event, you will be doing training. Self-filtering – If they aren’t willing to wait for

x weeks to join, will they stick with it anyway?“If you make CAP ‘easy come’ it will also be ‘easy go’.”

Makes CAP a commitment, not just a hobby. Makes your unit look professional like they

have their stuff together.

Pros to Cohort Recruiting

Does not satisfy the “right now” crowd. (This might actually be a “pro” under “self-filtering”)

Very different from the norm. Takes some cajoling and convincing people to buy in

Potential to lose prospective members due to waiting (again, speaks to self-filtering)

Cons to Cohort Recruiting

“We’re not big enough to do this!” You’re not big enough to NOT do this

“It sounds like a lot of work” Yes. So is doing the same things over and over

without any benefit. Cut that out!

“That’s not how other units do it.” Yep. And how are they doing? Better? Worse?

“We’re in a rebuilding phase” Uh huh. Want to end that?

Excuses

A planPlan to execute a cohortPlan for what you will do with your new

membership once you bring them in A pipeline A schedule (you do have a schedule, right?) Continuous advancement What happens beyond?

People want to be involved things that are organized and “together.”

Cohort requires planning

Cohort requires organization

Requires

You should have the date 6-10 weeks in advance(for example, know at least “in September” by May or June)

All planning backs from your unit recruiting event

4+ weeks out, have fliers Make sure everybody knows the timeline!

(When recruiting, you will get asked. If the member doesn’t know, it will look unplanned and sloppy)

Build a Plan

Timelines

11 11 11 22 11 11

Trickle-In Recruiting

1010

Great StartGreat Start Great StartGreat Start

BCT ProgramBCT Program

Cohort Recruiting

Great StartGreat Start

BCT ProgramBCT Program

=10JAN FEB MAR

JAN FEB MAR

=10

You have to do it.

Flyers – Seem to work great. Definitely a 1m item

Newspaper – Who reads that anymore?Patch.com – It’s the “new” newspaper.Facebook – Yes, please! Pay for $20 or $40

in adsWeb – You have to have this these days

InformativeUp to date

Build Your Advertising

You’re always “filling the tank” Contacts & Follow-up are key

(#1 complaint from non-members – “I can’t get in touch with anybody locally”)

Build your ongoing pool of recruits Spreadsheet? Text file? Database? Name, address, phone, email, status, contact dates, etc. Automate it if you can Have more than 1 member doing this.

Be able to tell them when to come to your unit. Follow ups:

4-6 weeks out from event 2-3 weeks out from event

Filling The Tank

Contact avenues: Contact form on website Email links Facebook messages Phone number

Use multiple people, not just one. Just one is a single point of failure

Follow up with all interested parties Have a canned email you can cut/paste easily Do it within a few days

Ease Contact

Purpose: to get people inside your 1m recruiting zone. Open House, Recruiting Night. Whatever you want to

call it, HAVE ONE KISS principle

Brief on the organization Talk about “How to Join” Show people what we do “Call to join” by your C/CC Takeaways: Things for folks to look over at home Food. Seriously, food.

Let your members recruit: Cadets recruit cadets, adults recruit adults.

Sell the CAP you have, not some other CAP

Recruiting Event (Kickoff)

Definitive start & end of training Have a plan Put them together, and train them together How effective is your training if:

You have people at varying levels (days) of training within the group?

People enter and exit randomly or at a whim? You have to repeat the training over & over

Result:Those already training are annoyedThose joining up are playing catch upTrainers are not effectively utilized

Train the Cohort

Engages your existing membership Inprocessing night: data entry, membership board

participants, commander, logistics, others Open House / Recruiting night: presenters,

displays, packet creation, member recruiting Ongoing training

Planned training beats off the cuffBring in previously trained members to execute

a small pre-coordinated pieceEverybody on the same piece of paper

Cohort Effects

Mutually supportive cohortMembers recruited and trained together

tend to rely on each other and form a cohort

Members identify with the unit, the organization and their cohort

Later it gets competitive with their progression, staff positions, etc

Veterans: think back to basic training and the people you went thru training with. That was YOUR cohort.

Cohort Effects

No advertising/publicizing. How did you expect to get them in the door if you don’t?

No fliers. They work, and they’re cheap.

No schedule. 2 weeks out the unit members don’t know they are having an event, or they change it at the last second. How do prospective members find out if your own members don’t know?

Mistakes

Uninteresting event. What part of “meh” makes people join?

Too long event.Zzzzzzzz

No food. No plan for what to do/how to train after. No follow up No follow on training/progression Selling the wrong thing Not repeatable

Mistakes

Follow up at intervals after joining With the cohort, its easier for fellow members

to notice when someone is missing It becomes self-encouraging Watch for those who lag behind their cohort

peers – it will be obvious. 10 C/TSgts and 1 C/SrA. That guy needs help.

Maintain Your Cohort

Follow up with members not showing up(this applies w/o cohort, BTW) Get them before they lose interest Cadets, especially those doing sports, school

plays, etc, are easily “out of the loop,” so work to re-engage these members.

Communicate to your membership regularly

Maintain Your Cohort

Nov 99 – 10 seniors, 27 cadets (< 25% showing up)

Dec 00 – “No more until January” Jan 01 – The start of “cohort” recruiting Mar 02 – 80+ cadets, 35 seniors on the books

Since ‘99, this unit has recruited over 600 cadets, and at least 150 senior members.

Consistently keeps 65-75 cadets, 25-30 seniors.

Each cohort consists of 12-18 cadets, 2-3 seniors.

Not a lot of churn, evened out the waves.

Since ‘99: Never have the words “we’re rebuilding” been uttered

The Proof Is In The Pudding

Questions?Feedback?

Ask now or email dninness@cap.gov

Civil Air Patrol

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