Page 83 - MERCIAN Eagle 2018

Regimental Support Team
WO2 Scott Roxborough
Since my arrival at the MERCIAN Regimental Headquarters’ (RHQ) Regimental Support Team (RST) and the arrival of two SNCOs, Sgt Barker & Fayle, we have been looking at the way the MERCIAN Regiment recruits compared to other Regiments within the division.
After several long meetings with the RST junior commanders and listening to their thoughts on recruiting on the street, we decided to take a better look at recruiting and come up with smarter ways to recruit and better ways to utilise our time.
From this we decided to look at new avenues
and more modern ways to recruit by using a bit of influence and social media to get in to local clubs, gyms, schools and other places. The way we have been selling this is if we go to an organisation and do community engagement or a recruiting event then we can advertise this on social media before and after the event, we have also been tagging them in to our social media pages across different platforms and then they can tag the MERCIAN Regiment in
to their social media groups. This way we all get some excellent free advertising across several social media platforms. To date we have been in to several gyms, youth groups and after school clubs all within our recruiting area. We have been welcomed in
and have always been asked to come back. This has resulted in a small increase in our social media footprint and has been a great success.
Another one of our great successes has been for each JNCO to select a Job Centre Plus (JCP) and a set day of the month to go and do recruiting. We started to see people turning up to speak with our MERCIAN Soldiers about a possible career in The MERCIAN Regiment. I believe the key to this
is having the right personalities and making sure the RST Soldiers are at that set location of that set day of the month. This produces routine and then everyone, including the JCP staff, know exactly when the MERCIAN Soldiers will be in and on what day of the month and then they can refer people to come and have a chat.
Over the last year I have visited all of our careers officers and met with the Military personnel and Capita staff, all have been very welcoming and all
have appreciated our willingness to assist them with their taskings. This has resulted in some fantastic opportunities and the RST attending some great recruiting events that we may not have been invited to had we not visited their office. One of our best successes has been going to some of the recruiting offices within our recruiting area and provide briefs on AFC Harrogate and ITC Catterick. This has also given us the opportunity to sell the MERCIAN brand and then recruit young applicants who are unsure what they want to join.
We have also recently invested in updating our paintball range, and equipment. We have found
that because the range is interactive and somewhat noisy, it attracts a lot of people and soon becomes the centre of attention. As people are lining up to have a go, the RST Soldiers quickly interact with the potential applicants and offer information and advice to both protentional applicants and their gate keepers. This has been working extremely well and again because the paintball range is such a good asset, we have been asked back to events several times.
Another one of our great attractions has been the updated version of the “face in hole picture frame” with its QR code attached. It has proven an ideal way to get people to look at our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. The parents and gatekeepers of the potential applicants love to take photos of their children and then forward them to friends and family, all while advertising the MERCIAN Regiment.
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