This podcast analyzes the US Army’s successive recruiting crises, identifying their consistent patterns and the efforts to resolve them, and makes three provocative arguments. First, there is a long-standing institutional tension between recruiting personnel for the combat arms and technical and administrative specialists. Second, many of today’s talent management problems were first identified in a 1907 General Staff report and reiterated in subsequent studies. Third, the Army has pursued innovative recruitment strategies, but much of their success depended on factors outside the service’s control. The podcast concludes with four history-based recruiting lessons and an affirmation that the 2019 Army People Strategy recognizes the need for the Army to revise its talent management approach.

Read here: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss3/9/

Download the full episode transcript here: https://media.defense.gov/2023/Nov/15/2003341318/-1/-1/0/DP-4-18-podcast-transcript-Linn_HistoricalPerspectiveRecruitingCrisis.PDF

Keywords: recruitment, US Army history, personnel policy, talent management, Army People Strategy