Shout Out: Thinking Strategically About Recruiting!

You go John!!

Just a brief shout-out and follow-up to my writing partner’s great new-and prescient- post “It Doesn’t Matter What We Think…”.

Might I begin by pointing out that it was posted Monday at 7 a.m.? (I can certainly attest that I read various iterations several days prior.) John stressed the importance of appealing to the younger generation of all races and genders when recruiting because they are the real warfighters.

My point: At ~3 p.m. Monday, the story broke about the Army Recruiting Command's decision to end its long-term public partnership with the Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA), an annual conference that attracts students, academics, and professionals in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

The event, which takes place in Baltimore, has historically been a key venue for the Pentagon to recruit talent, including awarding Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarships and pitching military service to rising engineers. Past BEYA event attendees included multiple Army staff chiefs and defense secretaries. The Navy, Air Force, and Space Force are also pulling out of the event and have forbidden officials from attending in their official capacity and from attending in uniform. It was unclear Monday whether the Marines were still participating, but it’s a safe bet they, too, have been barred by new DoD policy. It’s clearly part of President Trump’s s purge on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the military.

This would be a scratch-your-head-and-ask-them-who-the-heck-came-up-with-this-dumb-decision in the best of times. However, it’s dumber than usual at a time when the Pentagon is facing ongoing competition with Silicon Valley for top-shelf talent as military jobs become increasingly technical. (and need I note that the Pentagon and the entire federal government are losing badly?)

BEYA's website notes: "The U.S. military is one of the largest STEM employers in the nation, yet its critical role in driving technological innovation often goes overlooked and misunderstood by the civilian sector. BEYA works to bridge this gap by highlighting the vast STEM opportunities available within the armed forces and showcasing military leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics."

Two defense officials noted (anonymously, of course) that additional recruiting events tied to specific racial or gender groups are also likely to be scrapped, including other conferences and career fairs with thousands of participants. However, last week, the very same Army recruiting unit that will not be attending BEYA participated in a National Rifle Association-sponsored event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white gathering that recruiters acknowledge is less likely to yield high-quality, technically savvy applicants. Several recruiters argued that the Army's partnership with the Black engineering awards has historically been about talent, not race.

But SecDef Hegseth has falsely suggested the military has race- and gender-based quotas in promotions and assignments. No such policies exist, though there are aspirational goals in some efforts to have segments of the military ranks better resemble the general population.

"The military has been selecting on merit the whole time," said Katherine Kuzminski, an expert on the military and veterans at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C. "Some people might be seeing how the civilian world has handled DEI issues and applying that view to the military, but it has frameworks in law and policy, all these interwoven standards that are rigorous and always have been rigorous."

I’ll close by noting that 24% of new recruits in the Army are black (they make up 14% of the general population), while 19% are female (and they are 50.5% of the general population.). The last figures I could find (and it was strictly active duty 2022) showed the Army was also composed of ~17% Hispanic and 6.9% Asian/Pacific Islander soldiers. All of those groups have increased their participation over a decade, while the percentage of white soldiers has dropped from ~61% to ~53%.

Good luck maintaining an all-volunteer force if the military turns its back on these “DEI” groups.

(and may I make a brief note about the artwork? John does it-and I think we can all agree he does a fabulous job. However, my hair is NOT gray! (Tho I’ll gladly claim the bullhorn—and take the Fifth on the size of the wine glass ! :-)