Forecasting and Allocation of US Army Recruiting Resources

[Since the inception of the All-Volunteer Force in the early 1970s, the U.S. Army Recruiting Command has been responsible for recruiting the necessary number (and quality) of individuals to meet the Army's needs. Recruiting is carried out by military recruiters supported by various functions. Foremost amongst these is advertising in national and other media. Effective management of this system, which costs several hundred millions dollars a year to maintain, requires the Army to know how efficiently the recruiting resources are used and what can be expected from different levels and mixes of these resources. No such methodology was available until the late 1980s. This paper presents a system developed for forecasting, allocating and evaluating annual Army recruiting resources at the aggregate Headquarters level. The system was implemented during the force downsizing years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The system was designed to provide senior Army planners with a methodology for constructing a seven-year program of recruiting objectives and aggregate resource requirements which was realistic and defensible in a time of reduced budgets, and enabled them to respond quickly to frequent congressional inquiries on budget issues. Model and software development were completed in 1992, and the system has since been in operation at both the Pentagon and the recruiting command.]