Background

Military recruitment is the recruitment of civilians from the domestic, and sometimes international, population for military positions. In other words it is the act of requesting people (usually male adults aged 18-30 years old) to join the military voluntarily.

Even before the era of all-volunteer military organisations the recruitment of volunteers was an important component of filling military positions, and in countries that have abolished involuntary military recruitment (i.e. conscription) it is the sole means.

To facilitate this process, military organisations around the world have developed a variety of recruiting channels. Although the recruitment process may differ between military organisations, recent cross-cultural studies suggest that, throughout the world, the same broad categories may be used to define recruitment appeals. These include:

• War;
• Economic motivation;
• Education;
• Family and friends;
• Politics; and
• Identity and psychosocial factors.

There are a number of ways to enter the military but the first choice an individual will need to consider is if they want a career as:

• An Other Rank: civilian equivalents include apprentices, tradesmen, team leaders, supervisors and junior managers. Also known as enlisted ranks/personnel and non-commissioned members (NCMs).
• A Commissioned Officer: civilian equivalents include graduates, professionals (i.e. doctors), junior and middle managers, and executives.

The individual would then need to decide on the trade (i.e. job/role) they wish to pursue during their military career. Once this has been decided a candidate needs to think about whether they wish to sign-up to the Regular Force or the Reserve Force (these articles will be focusing mainly on the Regular Forces).

The associated pages will be looking at a number of areas such as recruitment and selection and initial (basic) training for a variety of military organisations, as highlighted below (click on the title to open the page).

• Armed Forces of the United Kingdom.
• Armed Forces of the United States of America.
• Australian Defence Forces (ADF).
• Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), also known as the Canadian Forces (CF).
• Indian Armed Forces.
• Irish Defence Forces (IDF), referred to in Ireland as the Defence Forces (DF).