Page 13 - AGC Journal 2018

AGC JOURNAL 2018

Corps Offi cer Recruiting Community Engagement

Headquarters Officer Recruiting is continuing to face the with the Hampshire Fire and
Rescue Service

challenges of the previous years. The offers
in civilian street continue to provide real
competition to the Army offer, especially

Personnel with on-going changes to Army schemes.
However, the investment into Worthy Down,
combined with utilising bright, positive
officers and soldiers of the Corps has helped

to impress some of our potential candidates.
Branch The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
is starting to see increased numbers and

hopefully this change will be reflected in our
statistics soon. That said, it will always be

By Corporal James McCafferty vital to maintain a good nurturing process
at Sandhurst and that we pick the right
individual for the various events where we
The Corps Headquarters Personnel Branch recruits officers and soldiers into have contact with our candidates. To aid

in this process the recruiting officers are
the Adjutant General’s Corps. working on various advertising campaigns,
to influence our impact prior to Sandhurst,

with a view to increase the overall number
of candidates in the pipeline.
The Corps Engagement Team To conclude the day we had an afternoon at the Army

Training Regiment, Winchester to conduct the High Ropes. Officer Familiarisation Visits Offi cer
The Corps Engagement Team is part of Personnel Branch This was designed to put members of the team outside Recruiting
Team

within Corps Headquarters and is responsible for raising their comfort zone and it did just that. All members who The Officer Familiarisation Visits are held
multiple times a year at Worthy Down.
awareness of soldiering opportunities in the Corps (Staff attended managed to complete the course.

and Personnel Support and Royal Military Police). During these visits, potential officers,
Late Entry Commission Assessment Board both serving soldiers and civilians, are

Jobs Attended hosted by the three Corps officer recruiting
One of the main events in the calendar is the Late Entry representatives. The visits aim to widen
The team travel throughout the country attending a Commission Assessment Board, held at Worthy Down the knowledge of the candidates, ideally
variety of events. These include all the major Air Shows every September. This year was the second year that some presenting each cap badge in a desirable
over the summer months, County Agricultural Shows, of the infrastructure from Project Wellesley was utilised. light and sparking an interest in those that
perhaps only came looking at one of the
Colleges and Universities for Career Fairs, Military The team is employed throughout to facilitate each serial,
Preparatory Colleges and town surge events alongside with their main focus on the Command Task phase and three. There is also a chance for our team to
assess the candidate and their suitability to
all other Corps Engagement Teams. The team also supporting the physical element – Exercise Aching Limb.
run Regimental Insight Courses for recruits about to join our Corps. The team is largely supported
commence Phase One training. by local units of all three cap badges which
run half day visits for the candidates. These
Army in Education are hugely important in delivering the
necessary information to the candidates and
their support is greatly appreciated. These
The team has continued its work as part of the Army in
Education initiative, which sees soldiers supporting the visits are key to our recruitment pipeline and
usually provide a good pool of candidates
national curriculum by delivering developmental activities
in schools and colleges. who either receive sponsorship, apply
for Confirmed Cadetship or select us as a

Nurturing choice once at the Royal Military Academy Visit to 10
Downing
Sandhurst.
Street
The current focus of the Sergeants within the team, Potential Officers Briefing Course

is to build further relationships with the Phase One
establishments, to nurture our soldiers as they complete The Potential Officer’s Briefing Course is run

Phase One training. We are fortunate to have several Staff
and Personnel Support members assigned to all three sites James McCafferty briefing a twice a year and is designed to make the

commissioning process more transparent
who we must thank for their support so far. candidate on the Late Entry
Commission Assessment Board for serving soldiers. The three day course

Community Engagement offers vital developmental opportunities for
the prospective direct entrants and allows

Outside the office, members of the team were involved Become Part of the Team them to ask any questions regarding the

process to the Recruiting Officers. Off the

in an educational and community engagement visit at back of this course, the soldiers receive a
our local fire station in Winchester. The visit consisted of Life as a Corporal within the Corps Engagement Team

a familiarisation and capabilities brief, and a mock road is extremely different to Regimental Duty. Corporals are comprehensive report which indicates their

preparedness to attend the Army Officer

side traffic collision exercise. Captain Ed Goates, Warrant selected at the annual selection day to showcase the Selection Board Briefing and identifies areas

Officer Class 2 Emily Daley, Corporal Ben Stanley and opportunities available within the Corps to an ever- which require more attention. This course

myself all completed and passed the fire fighter fitness test. varying audience. Any Corporal who aspires to become has had extremely positive feedback and is

We also wore the equipment which is used on a day to day part of the team must understand time in barracks can

basis and compared this to military equipment in regards be of the minimum, especially in the summer months. open to any of our serving soldiers identified
by the chain of command as having the
to weight and of course everyone had a go at sliding down Selection for the Corps Engagement Team is trawled potential to commission as a Direct Entrant.
the fire station’s pole. annually across the Corps.

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