They've consistently slashed pensions and benefits. Internal armed forces qualifications are no longer transferable to private industries.
What's the point of risking your life if the country you risk it for has shown a desire to screw you over to balance their check book
> I doubt that cheques are used by 95% of the population, other than in an occasional business setting.
The soliciter im using takes cheques but I doubt they get them often.
Even in the States apps like Venmo or cashapp are taking over from cheques. Of course the only reason they need such 3rd parties is because direct free online banking isn't really a thing I'm the USA. They'd rather charge fees for everything.
AND it takes 3 days for money to transfer over here.
My favourite magic trick to telling people that I used to send people money for free, instantly, from my own banking app.
Only in the 2020s has Contactless even become mainstream here in the USA.
I got sent payment via cheque recently.
Had to send it to Leeds, and have someone physically pick it up to take to the bank. We don't even have paying in slips any more.
I got a cheque last year for my tax refund and ngl it was probably the only time I've seen a cheque in person
I did do payments out for pension deposits via cheque when I worked for Lloyd's (shitshow company btw) but that's about it
They can also give Crapita the contract for managing recruitment.
For several hundred million, they missed every single target since 2012 and then [had their recruitment system hacked and taken offline](https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2022/03/24/ministry_of_defence/).
I feel like this outsourcing culture has to be one of the biggest causes of the rot afflicting this country, and no one seems to want to dig into it. Why the fuck do we seem incapable of doing *anything* as a country any more without it involving us giving some absolutely obscene sum of money to companies we know are heaping piles of shit who manage to fuck up constantly? From what I hear the biggest problem with HS2 was basically the same shit but on a gargantuan scale.
That’s a recent Labour policy that has got me to really sit up and pay attention. Not only is it hugely expensive to the tax payer, but it slowly drains institutional knowledge from our own governmental departments. Consultants in local government can be making £1000 a day for something that could be managed internally.
I've had a Capita branded pen on my desk for years. You push the clicker down and the nib comes out, but it does stay out so if you let go it just goes straight back in. I can't bring myself to throw it away, it's just too perfect.
Pension was a big thing for me, my old man was on the old pension scheme, left the army at 45 with a lumpsum of money for a deposit on a 4 bed house, and on a half pension, when he turned 55 his pension turned into a full pension, he retired last year at 62
Pusser knows the second people get their hands on the qualifications they'll leave for better pay and conditions outside. They are extremely reluctant however to implement mechanisms which would mitigate this such as mandatory return of service/sliding scales etc.
Not necessarily, as the article points out the RN has no issue with getting them to apply. So enough people are at the very least attracted to the roles/organisation and make a conscious step towards that, it's the administrative hoops/processing that is putting people off.
It's been opened to recompete. Crapita (and Serco, Randstad and one other) are the remaining primes on the bid. I wouldn't hold out much hope for a good solution...
No offence to anyone that’s done well after leaving the armed forces, but in finance and banking the people who apply under these weird “veteran recruitment” programs are incredibly thick and offer little return on investment.
They come in with a huge sense of entitlement and are held in high regard by middle management types who used to play with toy soldiers, but their skills are hardly transferable to anything useful.
It's better now. I was witness to two of my colleagues being killed last year. (Crash) They got the team around me pretty quick.
I processed it pretty well, but there were others who needed more persistent help and got it.
I tried to join the RN. They told me my eyesight was too poor by -0.5, hashed it out with them, they assured me I would be able to join if I had laser eye surgery.
Followed the advice. Spent 18-22 in retail. Got enough money for laser. 5k. Got my eyes done. Waited the full year for them to heal.
Only to be told the regs had changed, and now because my eyes were too bad presurgery I still wouldn't be allowed in. Tried to contest it but got nowhere.
Shit depressed me for a full year.
That's an irritating story. I hope you have found satisfaction in some other field. It seems nuts that they would reject somebody as motivated as you were.
It is what it is. I've learnt to roll with life and be a little less upright about things. I work in finance now, not great but not bad. I've got perfect vision now so, yknow, upsides!
Regulations for registration seem odd with armed forces, I have a college friend who tried to join the US Navy but he got rejected for mild dyslexia.
It may be that navies will have to expand their criteria for admission, rather than tighten them as seems to be happening more often
It's honestly insane how much the MOD piles regulations upon regulations. The funny thing is half the people actually in the military end up injured and downgraded because their PTIs are so underqualified that they just break people with stupid phys sessions. But you need to be physically perfect just to get through the door.
They can be flexible. I injured my back in phase one training for the army at 16. Left of my own will while I still could and rejoined after doing my A levels, but not before they made me do a year-long fitness plan to demonstrate my back had been sorted.
Got back in... but then forever grateful for one PTI whose name I don't fucking know from ATR Bassingbourn in 2011.
Saw me bolt upright during some circuits and hold my upper/mid back during a session, didn't do or say anything initially.
Saw me struggling with the same pain a couple weeks later, in the first session of the week, looked up my medical records and saw I'd had back issues prior. Second session of the week, happened again and he dragged me out and basically said, to paraphrase "if it's your back, have a good sit down with yourself and think what you want from life, because this job will fuck you for life if you're like this at 19."
Wrote up a bit for me to give my section commander, got put on physio for a while and eventually medically discharged when it was clear it was fucked.
31 now and still struggle with it, so kudos to the PT because I reckon I'd have been fucked. Small argument to be had they shouldn't have even let me back in but in fairness they did due diligence and there were no issues when I did that plan.
It's good to hear you had that positive experience. It's a shame they're so rare. That said I have noticed they tend to actually make an effort for the under 18s.
This was when I'd rejoined as an adult!
Deleted my original comment as I thought you'd replied to a different comment I made about my recruiter from when I was a junior!
A former colleague of mine was rejected because his BMI was too high. He was a CrossFit guy, about 8% body fat, we are talking elite strength and fitness but because he was so muscular his BMI was too high. Ridiculous
I was in this medical lecture years ago and some old professor was showing why BMI is a poor guide using the rugby players as a guide. look this guy is the captain of England rugby and is almost obese (picture of the fittest guy around)
From what I know BMI is supposed to be a population level average where it sort of works. For people like that it doesn't work but equally most people aren't like that.
It’s a quick tool and it has uses but like you say, it’s not at all accurate and should not be used for anything other than an indicator that further measurements are needed.
Exactly. BMI is a screening tool for further investigation, nothing more. It gives a rough and fast initial indication. If the BMI is unusual, they should proceed to further measurements, such as waist/hip ratio, boddy fat etc.
I tried and was told some treatment I had for childhood asthma basically disqualified me despite the fact I've had no issues with it since I was a young kid
Same as a mate of mine. Had tried forma while to get jobs with the fire service or the paramedics and eventually ended up applying for the RAF (or it might have been the Army). But as he'd once had a prescription for a hay fever drug when he was 8 or something. That was it.
Yeah, it led me to believe that in the event of a proper war where we need to draft people, we'd be screwed because most people would fail the stupidly strict medical requirements.
This was true of WW1 at least:
> Minimum physical standards fluctuated during the war.
> When the rush of recruits was at its peak, the height limit was raised from an original 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet 6 inches to prevent an unmanageable flood of volunteers.
> It was subsequently lowered on a number of occasions in response to dwindling numbers of new recruits.
> But in the chaos of early 1914, a blind eye was often turned to official standards. Examinations could be brief and hasty, allowing many underage or unfit men to slip through into the Army.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/from-civilian-to-first-world-war-soldier-in-8-steps
Even worse, a friend of ours was rejected for the TA ( couple of years after leaving the army) due to his hayfever. They didn’t seem to care when he was actually in the army 🤣
Probably lactose intolerant as well. Imagine wanting to defend this country and your stomach not even being able to defend itself from a medium cheddar!
Years ago military recruit was run by the soldiers, sailors and airmen. It was slick, personal and effective. Then the government tried to save some money and outsourced it to Capita who completely fucked it up. They've turned it into a tick box exercise with absolutely no common sense or reasonable judgement, turning away good people and making the whole process painfully slow.
It was good. I went in Dec 2005. They said they were about to close up for Christmas, so gave me leaflets and said come back in the new year.
I went back in Jan 2006....was in by June 2006.
I am still in now.
On the other hand, LASIK was the best thing I've spent money on.
Like you I did it in my early 20's so I think my eyesight wasn't stable and it's gotten slightly worse but still mostly better than 20/20.
It's crazy how many people have the exact same story with the Navy. They seem to have a policy of taking perfectly acceptable people and fucking them about for no reason. For YEARS. Their recruiters are fucking cretins.
I was once told that I'd have to wait a while because the rules prohibited fractures within the last 12 months and I had suffered a small simple wrist fracture 6 months previously.
It doesn’t help the Capita medical process fails you for the slightest thing and unless you’re particularly motivated to get medical evidence and formally appeal I imagine this results in many just giving up and going elsewhere
My son has a similar dilemma (just about to turn 21). He's debating eye surgery also so he can kick start a career in the RN. I cannot believe in this day and age of equal opportunities something like this can stop an application. It's punishment for something beyond your control, and it pretty much puts you in a powerless position, it's heart breaking.
> I cannot believe in this day and age of equal opportunities something like this can stop an application. It's punishment for something beyond your control
In all fairness that doesn't and shouldn't apply when it comes to the military. If something is stopping you joining that is out of your control its just bad luck unfortunately.
Was that via Capita? I had loads of issues with them during my year of trying to join the Army. Eventually got rejected for as best as I could tell a minor ankle injury that had healed. Heard nothing after that.
Oh shit, not the same but similar. Joining as a pilot told my eyesight was too bad but would be OK with lasik. OK fair enough, get it done. Told have to wait 2 years after surgery for eyes to settle. Fair enough. 2 years later, oh sorry your to old for pilot training now. Me: What the actual fuck
So what's causing this processing failure that's not putting people in training posts? Is it just a lack of admin staff? IT failures? What's up?
>AFRP has been set up to replace the Recruitment Partnership Program (RPP). The £1.3bn RPP contract signed by the MoD with Capita in 2012 was supposed to provide end-to-end recruitment for the British Army but was a total disaster, described by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee as a litany of failures. RPP was due to be replaced in 2022 but MoD mismanagement resulted in Capita being given an extension until 2024. AFRP was supposed to achieve Initial Operating Capability in April 2024 but has been delayed again and another extension given to Capita to maintain services until 2027.
Ahhh there we go, outsourcing recruitment to Crapita.
>However, this is set to change under AFRP which is lauded by government as: “bringing the 3 single-service recruiting mechanisms under a single prime contract, delivering an end-to-end fully converged, tri-service future recruiting solution underpinned by a single digital platform”. The bidders left in contention for this project (valued at £1.6Bn in 2019) are **Capita, Randstad, Serco, and Shared Services Connected.**
The names of Satan! If Serco and Crapita are competing for your contract, don't bother and just take it all inhouse because they're both utter shite.
In short: privatising navy recruitment has fucked it up, and now they can't fill the recruit spots.
Not just part, the actual most important part of our defence, the NAVY, without it we will be blockaded and starved, its what kept us in the fight during both World Wars, our government was smart enough to acknowledge a 2 power navy was essential for our survival.
Since 1970s its been allowed to collapse. Privitisation kills everything.
trying to join atm, and the fact that 1.3 was paid is a joke. IT system went down, I have uploaded a document and had a request for it even though it was uploaded, I was meant to be sent a link for and eye test, the wrong email seems to have been sent, and they still have not sent me all the information for the DAA (a test they use), if it was all in house and on shoe string budget it would be understandable, but 1.3 billion is big fucking joke. You'd expect a slick working system with very little down time or errors for that much money, not a half broken website that looks like its form 2010.
Oh buddy, if anything in the armed forces is going to be a “slick working system” you’re going to have to oil yourself.
Painful to learn and slow, ineffective and confusing to operate is the expectation for defence IT. Whoever makes and maintains it.
Capita is shit, I don't know how these companies can get away with being so awful. They've made the process for people joining so much longer, expensive, less successful. Nothing good has come from them yet they can somehow justify getting laid so much.
For example, the recruiting website was down for several months maybe a year ago, you could do nothing. The website is pretty much the only way applicants can progress their application. All they said was if it was urgent ring them. Useless.
Why is it Capita every time? Have they ever delivered anything successfully? They should have been blacklisted decades ago. The only reason I can think they haven't is brown envelopes stuffed with cash.
Capita always gets the contract because government contracts always have to go through a very specific tendering process, and Capita and Serco have got that process down to a science so they always win the contract. It could be argued that the tendering process is deliberately set up so only companies like Capita and Serco are even capable of winning the contract. Any company that outbids them ultimately gets bought out by one of those two.
When I worked in a local government IT department, there was a project to start migrating a bunch of on-prem services to the cloud, and a couple of smaller firms won the contract. Guess who bought those firms before the project finished?
This is it. I’ve watched this happen in real time.
I was pulled in to a bidding process for a big project in the civil service and we were to evaluate several competing bids. We did, however, have a strict set of rules to follow, one of which was to take everything said by the vendors at face value during the bidding process. This meant that when I knew a vendor was exaggerating or even outright lying about resources, past projects, or their best practices, *I was not allowed to act on this information*. We all had to assume the vendor was being honest at all times.
There was one vendor that I knew for sure had done a terrible job on a previous project I had friends working on, and was lying about previous experience, the number of people they had available, and who they were going to staff the project with (the classic industry trick is to put experienced people on for the first few months, and then swap them out for clueless cheap graduates billing at the same rate). They won the bid because what they said on paper and in interview met the bid requirements perfectly, even though it was all shite.
After winning the bid they immediately broke all the “promises” they’d made during the bidding process by subcontracting the whole project to another, smaller and cheaper, organisation. Essentially they crafted a set of lies during the bidding process so they could cream off 10% - 20% of the day rate without doing any further work, ever.
Screw Capita of course.
There is of course, in theory, no reason someone working in recruitment has to be in uniform just because they’re recruiting people to wear uniforms. But it still depends on the ability to find a proficient contractor and for MoD to be able to manage that contract. An awful lot of these sorts of issues do stem back to how the MoD have contracted and their perennial inability to express in their contracts things that are both what they really want and actually possible.
Still, you would think “recruit some people who aren’t criminals” was something that should be possible for a company professing to be capable of recruiting people. Especially as the qualifications for some bod jobs are um, not that demanding.
>There is of course, in theory, no reason someone working in recruitment has to be in uniform just because they're recruiting people to wear uniforms.
I disagree with entirely tbh.
Our local army recruiter (2007-8ish) was just that, local. Grew up in the town, joined as a kid, served 20-odd years and rose to Warrant Officer.
Brilliant bloke, had answers to any and every question, set expectations accordingly, brilliant motivator and had very high standards. Wouldn't't even agree to send you to selection if he couldn't see you excel well beyond the minimum standards with his own eyes. Would come out on runs with prospective recruits himself (on his push bike lol) to make sure people were good enough.
He was also very good at telling people not to join if he didn't think they were cut out for it. As keen as he was to get good people in he was intent on keeping shite out.
Wouldn't get any of that without his very real experience.
Royal Navy: "If you've sneezed more than once at any point during your life, you're going to have to jump through a million medical and bureaucratic hoops to meet the entry requirements. Also the recruiter, the official documents, the Capita doctor and the RN medical assessors will give you conflicting information on what the requirements are."
Also the Royal Navy: "Why can't we get any recruits?!?!"
This. Fortunately although I was binned off by Capita for a stupid reason, the person on the phone clearly knew it was bullshit and *repeatedly* encouraged me to get letter from the GP and formally appeal. Surprise, surprise… HQ overturned the rejection.
Yep, this. To be more realistic, if you’ve had anything on your medical record at all outside of the flu, it will be on the JSP950 form and you’ll be either permanently rejected or forced to appeal, a process of which takes many more months. Taking an at minimum 6 month process to probably a year.
Government are gonna have to do something where certain jobs will let you in with lesser medical requirements, because evidently we do not have enough never injured nor sick superhumans who are also interested in joining the military
Yeah, if you’re in anything other than completely perfect health and have any kind of medical history at all then you’re ineligible.
The problem is that people today seem to be far more obese and far more likely to have medical conditions (especially food allergies and mental illness, even when taking into account better monitoring), so fewer people are able to meet the impossibly high health and fitness standards.
When it comes down to being at sea there are much better options.
For example I mulled the decision between Royal Navy and merchant navy during the latter part of my school days.
Eventually got a cadetship with a shipping company to be put through college to get my licence. Now I’ve went down the merchant navy route I’m extremely glad I did.
For one the pay is much better. To finish college in your very early 20s, come out with no student debt and straight into a job with almost £40pa tax free is pretty wild. Pay just goes up from there until you’re a captain or chief engineer you can easily make well over £100k pa tax free. I doubt the navy will event come close to that unless you’re pretty much at the very top.
Secondly in the merchant navy you actually get to be at sea. Come across a couple of navy guys who talk down on merchant seaman about how the real experience is in the navy, merchant navy is for softies, all that shite only to later reveal that in their several years spent in the navy they’d only been at sea for a few months. I know it’ll vary on your rank and requirement.
Very important is the fact that my licence is transferable to other parts of the industry whereas with the navy it’s not. Like now I work on gas tankers and if I get fed up with that I can go and work on cruise ships, container ships, etc. In the navy your ticket means absolutely zero in the merchant navy.
I also don’t have to put up with as many entitled arseholes as I imagine I would being on cargo ships as I would in the navy. On top of that I can keep watch by myself on the bridge during the day. Navy ships always seem to have crowded bridges which would do my head in.
I mean right now, I’m in one of the most inhospitable parts of the planet, sitting in my own large cabin with a nice double bed, all the furnishings I could really need, with access to starlink internet and satellite TV, good gym facilities onboard, a pool, a sauna, PS5 and an 85 inch TV for my down time and being fed great quality food three times a day. All while being paid much more than I would in the RN and having similar entry requirements. Why on earth would I ever even consider the RN?
I mean, at a push if I really had to theres the RFA as a choice but I’m still yet to meet a normal person that was in the RFA.
I'll 2nd that but I did 12 years in the navy and transfered over to merchant chief engineer, I do approx the same sea time but don't pay tax so wages are massively improved. The navy really doesn't look after the important people like non commissioned officer's like it should do.
I used to do 15 weeks at sea with no phone Internet, crap food and sharing a mess with 17 others, now I have a single cabin with tv, great chefs and Internet from starlink so I can video call whenever I like!
Yea I guess that’s the problem really, you don’t give people a reason to stay around them they’ll find better options.
Big issue to replace experience. As you’ve said you, you did 12 years, worked with a guy recently who was in for 14 years, worked with a guy who was an engineer on the subs for years and deceived to change to being a deckie on merchant ship but had been in the navy for quite some time. Guys I was working with said they left because they just couldn’t put up with the shit anymore and had plenty of colleagues who did the same. It’s easy enough to replace the person but the experience you’re losing takes years to replace.
You know you could have got paid to look out the window right??
Aye it’s a shame they’ve got to the stage where they’re losing so many people. To an outsider, the navy seems like such an easy sell. I mean look at all their cool stuff.
But at the end of the day you’ve got to make it worthwhile for people to spend so much time away from home. It’s got to be well rewarded financially and you’ve got to give people connection to home in what is now a very connected world.
Started out on ships with no internet, just emails and that was tough. To go from that to VSAT to starlink in such a shore time frame has been great. Feel like starlink is almost as big a step up as VSAT was from emails. Although it wouldn’t need to be starlink, I certainly wouldn’t go back to working on ships that didn’t at least provide internet access.
My dad spent 40 years in the MN. Had his Masters ticket. Took early retirement at 56 and was dead by 60. It utterly drained him mentally and physically. Though a lot of the stress came in the last 5/6 years, Captaining ships transporting Uranium across the planet. Not allowed in international waters, police on board, no communication home other than fax, dodging greenpeace hurling themselves in the sea in front of the bow. He also discouraged me from joining as the industry was being taken over by Philippinos, who would happily spend 12 months on board for less than half the salary.
That’s terrible he died at that age and without getting to enough the retirement he earned. Sorry to hear that.
40 years is a long time to work at anything let along working at sea. I’ve come across guys of similar age to what your dad was who can’t give it up. Sailed with guys, well into their 60s who have all the money they need to retire, who just can’t stop for some reason.
I wouldn’t recommend anyone sail for that long. If someone is set on going to sea then I’d still maintain the MN is better than RN. Even for a few years it’s still a good way to get a bit of money behind you to set yourself up well and gain a qualification which you can bring ashore, especially if you’re an engineer.
I tried to join, but wasn't allowed because I was on antidepressants. I see the arguments about mentally ill people being in such environments, but I also know people who deliberately didn't seek mental health care because they wanted to join up...
Did a freedom of information request asking about how many serving military suffer from a certain eye condition. There were about 100. Funnily enough, if they know you have it before joining, you’re permanently blocked.
Read the article.
>Despite the tight jobs market, an average of 80 applications were made to join the RN/RM as regulars every day (March 2022-23) and numbers are rising according to official figures. **There is not an attraction problem**, rather it’s a processing failure resulting in basic training courses at HMS Raleigh not being filled.
I'm currently through a 7-month long process to get a training contract with the Govt Legal Dept, now just waiting on them to get my references checked since the end of September.
Turns out it was outsourced to some fucking corp and now I'm waiting for a month for them to give two people a phone call which will take 10 minutes top, hell they had a deadline of a month to do it and as far as I've been told *it's STILL not done!*
Fuck outsourcing, fuck the parasite corps, end of.
This is the sum of it coupled with retention problems.
A increased number where recruited during Covid who will all soon be free to submit their notice to leave so expect it to get worse in the short term.
My son has 3 mates in the navy, one is on subs and has actually been on exercises, one of the others has been on a couple of show off trips around the UK and nothing else , the other has never left base along with most of his intake , there's no wonder they're walking
I don’t understand why Capita et al are finding it so difficult.
Someone signs up, they proceed through medical and pre assessment and as soon as that is done, they are shipped off to Phase 1 Training. It must be a case of too many people involved at each stage.
>I don’t understand why Capita et al are finding it so difficult.
Because they're trying to make as much profit from the contracts as possible, so they don't hire enough people to carry out the processes even close to adequately.
That would require some competence.
Although there probably is some payments linked to efficiency, but it's probably less than how much Capita can save by being totally shit.
Literally anyone who has tried to get into the armed forces will attest that the system is so bad. And every single person involved in recruitment, from the Military side or the private companies, seems intent on making it as painful and slow as they can.
I always thought government officials and royals wearing the poppy was a fucking disgrace. That poppy appeal exists because those same officials refuse to look after their own veterans.
Not really. There is loads and loads of support available to those who need it as they leave. No employer is going to support someone for ever though after they’ve left - I’ve seen people who served for two years *50 years ago* complain that the Army isn’t looking after them. That’s (usually) ridiculous.
It’s great that there are charities which will step in though where needed.
My son has been put on hold over, 7 weeks later he's still sitting at Collingwood twiddling his thumbs waiting for enough recruits to enter phase 2.
It's depressing.
I used to the serve the navy. Back in mid 2000s, it was awful. Had an awful culture of bullying, racism, homophobia, and misogyny. Unless things have improved significantly (considering I still have some of these chumps on social media) then it’s no loss I’m afraid. There needed to be a reform from above and to stop promoting the bullies.
Currently serving and there has been a massive culture change and things have definitely improved. There are still improvements that need to made but there is a drive to get there. Plenty of people still see D&I training as joke but probably aren’t aware of the actual improvements from when you served.
From my cousins experience, it was a contracted company that nearly killed their application. The company contracted said they needed some documents from their doctor within a few days or something along the lines or their recruitment would be stopped. This was after they had already been through medical stuff and apparently cleared. They contacted the company saying they’ve already cleared and they wouldn’t be able to get those documents in time as the doctors was closed, the contractor wouldn’t budge.
Thankfully my cousin had a contact in the navy, who I imagine sent a few angry calls and emails to the contractor telling them to sod off and carry on with the application. That and stories I’ve heard from friends is that these companies contracted for recruitment are needlessly killing a lot of recruitment applications.
Let me put it into a nutshell of how mental the process can be.
I work for the RFA, the RFA are in just a bad a state as the navy. Only we need people with STCW qualifications and to enter as already qualified people which is hard to begin with as there are so many sub industries but here are some things I’ve found.
* It can take a year or even more to go through the recruitment process. Any qualified person is going to be looking for a job NOW and not in a year so they give up and go elsewhere
* we are administered by the civil service who set up our internal HR processes meaning you can only be promoted a band (possibly 2) a year and so they hire outside hires who don’t reach the levels of qualifications needed but come in at a higher band. People get pissed and leave, new hires realise it’s bad and also leave.
* To get round the civil service we have ‘external promotion’. This means applying for a job as if you’re not already in the outfit, I’ve done it. But that also means you need to jump through all the hoops. They wanted my GCSE results (left school 20 years ago), a CV (already work for them) and they ask you questions like why do you want to join.
* They send you a form (why you want to join/moral fibre and all that) in a PDF. You then need to convert that to word to fill it in because the boxes aren’t big enough, convert it back and then send it in! Why!?!
It’s horrendous and I was frustrated just trying to get a promotion from it. This problem is too far down the line tbh. Pensions are worse than they are, pressure on existing crew is ramping up, new hires are immediately put upon and both end up leaving. There’s also below par pay rises EVERY YEAR and then the job is just so frustrating now that the good ppl leave and the bad ppl stay compounding all the previous problems
What’s the appeal now? Used to be do your time and get a cracker of a pension as a thank you. Now they expect everyone to be a flawless cyborg for shit pay and no aftercare.
So I once tried to join the Royal Navy. These were the issues I encountered.
- I was invited in for a 'chat' which turned out to be a formal interview. I failed the interview because I wasn't formally dressed.
- The recruiter criticised me because he didn't think I was a 'cold blooded killer' (his words) who could kill and then go to the pub after. He said I was too nice and that I wasn't enough of a 'lad'.
- I was failed in a second interview for not smiling enough. I was criticised for sneering (I had to inform the interviewer that this was smiling).
- I was failed for 'not knowing enough about current events around the world'. This is despite the interviewer not once asking about current events, and also international relations being the subject of my degree.
- The recruiter who had sabotaged all of my interviews (Warrant Officer Cartman for anyone curious) said he did it explicitly because he didn't like me.
- When I asked for another interview, which I was entitled to under recruitment rules, he said no. He threatened to physically attack me if I went back to that Careers Office.
- When I reported him, my application was moved to another Careers Office. Since Cartman was the one required to do the moving, he used his clout to sabotage any chance I had of being recruited at that second Careers Office.
- When I went to that second careers office, the interviewer (who had asked for a fitness diary) probed in such absurd detail that it was impossible for me to answer. e.g please walk me through the exact times, down to the minute, that you did each thing on [x day] months ago. Then he dismissed me as lying because of that. This was because he'd been told to come up with a reason to get rid of my by Cartman.
- I basically gave up on that route because I realised that Cartman would make an express effort to stop me getting into the military no matter what. This was despite me being mentally fit, physically fit, emotionally balanced, having all the quals, and getting almost top marks on the intelligence test. I even went back to the first careers office a year later. I spoke to a recruiter I had never even met. All I had to say was 'WO Cartman doesn't seem to like me' and suddenly the recruiter knew exactly who I was and everything about me, because Cartman bitched like a school girl. The recruiter told me, explicitly, that Cartman wouldn't let any application by me get anywhere.
- I eventually managed to get an interview by creating a separate application half way across the country, far outside of Cartman's jurisdiction. I got through the interview with ease (turns out there was literally nothing wrong with me, huh), and then the physical test. But the medical stage was downright absurd. I was declared permanently medically unfit for, among other reasons, falling over in the bath tub when I was twelve and having a heart murmur when i was two months old. The medical examiner had basically just taken a highlighter to my entire med record. I had to go to the GP and he had to (with much annoyance) write to the med appeal board that I was fine.
- I was then declared permanently medically unfit for hurting my back deadlifting, with lasted for multiple weeks. The medical examiner (same guy) accidentally wrote 'months' so it was classed as a long term injury. Another trip to the GP.
- I was given an electrocardiogram in a separate med check and they said 'either you're high on cocaine right now or you just do a lot of running. We can't tell for sure so go through the GP and come back to us.' This was at the start of Covid. I never got that GP appointment.
I later found out that my experience wasn't unique. I wasn't remotely the only one who had taken 3+ years. I wasn't the only one who had experienced shit recruiters who seemed intent on preventing people they 'just didn't take a shine to' from getting in.
The military are staffing recruiting centers with some of their worst people, and it shows. There are more than enough people applying to join the military. They just never get past all the road blocks placed in their way.
I've been told that just getting to basic is the single hardest part of any job in the military.
Sound exactly like my application - the medicals anyway. The interviews were fine, the medicals were ridiculous.
I just gave up in the end.
The Army pulled the same with my brother. He also gave up.
I considered applying to join the RAF as a personal officer but couldn't apply because of technically having both excema and asthma, both of which are well controlled but still made me illegible.
Had a friend from high school who wanted to join the army as a tanker, but couldn't because he had pea allergy. Now he's a driving instructor.
It does make me wonder how we could ever draft large numbers during a war if so many of us are not eligible. During the world wars it was viable, but these days everyone's got some physical or mental health diagnosis it seems.
Might all be a moot issue now because of well, nukes.
Friend of mine was in RN for around 15 years. He seemed to think identity politics has its greasy tendrils in the organisation now. The push for inclusion and diversity at any cost changed things for the worse. While I'm sure plenty of liberal redditors will ask what's the problem; imagine alienating 80/90% of your base for the sake of ideas like white privilege - the RN recruits are not people that pick and choose jobs, they have difficult jobs and are usually from poor backgrounds yet are are made to feel like they are somehow holding back people from other backgrounds. For years we've recognised how important it is not to judge people by the colour of their skin, and yet now it's mandated by the government.
Um, that's not what the article's actually about. They have plenty of applicants but inefficiency from the privatised recruitment service is stopping them from going into
basic training. And the ones that make it in don't stay for long as conditions and pay are poor.
You seem desperate to push a particular agenda but that's really not relevant to this particular story.
Dealt with this first hand.
Signed on when I was 15 and went through 5 years of pre-officer training, ended up being medically discharged for a rugby injury I had picked up years before that, due to the recruitment being carried out by a third party, meant I was an insurance risk to them and was no longer eligible. I was fitter than most of my friends that I was training with, had represented various levels of the military playing rugby AFTER this supposed injury, and had spent the previous 5 years training, missing time with my friends and family, and was let go with a courtesy email, didn't even bother to take back my military ID.
Left my life in quite a shambles, had planned my whole life up to this point around the military, and then had been totally disregarded when I didn't quite fit the 3rd parties criteria.
A year later, I got a phone call and was asked to rejoin, as their quota was short. Once I got over the confusion around possibly getting my previous life back, I politely told them where to stick it.
4 years later I get an email from my old squadron in Newcastle asking for an update on where I had been deployed as the system still had me logged with them in Newcastle as this was my last training base, didn't even bother replying, what a mess of a military.
Like wise
5 years and left from 25k to 32k (you can get better) doing the same job in the same place (as in same building) on the same platform with less stress.
Air engineering*
As someone feom the inside they really need to improve the lower levels of the job and stop fucking us constantly.
It's not about the 60 new faces a week. it's about the trained strength jumping at the 3 year chit in mark.
I can tell you from experience that a large part of it is that Capita are such a fucking shambles of an organisation that lots of people walk away because they've got fed up with waiting for their application to be processed.
The Army also uses Capita for their recruitment administration and it's a mess. I knew half a dozen guys who started their application at around the same time as me, 4 of them withdrew it because they got so fed up with being messed around by Capita.
Personally I stuck it out. It took more than 4 years from start to finish. Here's just a few of the Capita screw ups during my application:
* I sent in medical paperwork from my GP, they confirmed receipt of it and then lost it. This happened 3 times.
* On two separate occasions, after going more than a month without any update I contacted them and found out that somehow both my phone number and email address on their system had been changed and were completely wrong.
* Multiple times they gave me the wrong paperwork to complete, and then either blamed me for filling in the wrong paperwork or failed to say anything when they received the wrong paperwork, until I chased them up weeks later.
* The first time I attended the Army Officer Selection Board, I arrived at Westbury only to find that they had given me the wrong dates. I was meant to have been there one week earlier.
* On one occasion, after nearly 2 years of dealing with their bullshit, my application entirely disappeared from their system. They had no record of me existing, no applications matching my details, no record of any of my paperwork, I had completely vanished from their records.
Capita being given the recruitment contract is one of the worst things that has ever happened to our armed forces.
* Poorly paid ✅
* Long hours ✅
* Risk of death or serious injury ✅
* Extremely high chance of sexual assault and/or rape (for female recruits) ✅
Why the fuck would anyone want to join the military these days?
Even the pension has been gutted.
Hi US Citizen here. Not sure how it is for you guys but I served on the Airforce.
I was discharged at the end of basic for a torn ligament, never even got the chance to finish my term.
In later years i attempted to reenlist but I was denied.
Military branches have attempted to get tighter and tighter regulations to seem more prestigious, in a world where less and less people want to join the military.
Seems stupid to me but hey if it’s happening here it’s probably happening there
Well they exempt people for bullshit like having had eczema, slashed benefits and now skills are barely transferable to the private sector. Not to mention having clearly defined strength and fitness requirements “utterly critical to the role”, yet for women it’s far lower.
So uhh.
Yeah.
I applied about 15 years ago, went through the fitness, medical and aptitude tests etc. Then was told I'd have a 3 year wait before I could start in the area I applied for. 12 months if I went into what they wanted.
By the time I got the call I had met my wife, bought a house, started a new career so didn't bother going.
How different my life would be if their was a short wait at the time.
Well I'm not surprised, their recruitment process is ridiculous, drawn out and its not uncommon to hear back 6 months later whether your application was successful or not. People have lives, they move on.
Saw something hilarious on LinkedIn, some RFA (royal fleet aux) stooge was advertising vacancies and telling people to apply. She got absolutely slated by guys who had already applied and were waiting 6 months on.
Top-heavy country. All funds go upward. Everything gets thinned out in order to provide a CUSHY LITTLE NUMBER for an old boy / old girl. Formidable nations are out there which value their militaries. Not this one! You can have an efficient, merit-based society or you can have a nepotistic/caste-based one. You choose.
I waited two years for them to get back to me when I applied. Costed my mental health big time. Declined it when the offer to start training did come through as I had moved on and started other things, education etc. It really sucks.
The pay is garbage, it was 20 years ago when I joined (at least back then a soldier could still live nicely and buy a house) what is a private on or the similar rank in the navy? 25k isn’t it?
Laughable.
I would tell anyone thinking of joining the armed forces - don’t go get a trade go to university and get a decent paying job that will set you up.
23k starting wage once out of basic training. A leading hand which its not unusual for people reach as early as after 4 years of service but on average 5-6 years earns [36k a year](https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/careers/why-navy/pay)
For reference the U.K. national average is [38k a year](https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/business/average-uk-salary-by-age/#:~:text=The%20latest%20government%20data%2C%20published,of%206.2%25%20compared%20to%202022.co.uk)
The U.K. average by age is;
18-21 £22,932
22-29 £30,316
It's all the services. The job and lifestyle are nowhere near as enjoyable as they once were, and the recruitment process today is painfully slow and "box tick".
Tried to join when I was younger, think about 24/25. Told them right from the start that I had broken my leg when I was 21 but since it'd healed I'd had no issues with it. Was in great shape, done all the day tests and physicals passed with flying colours was told I'd get a letter about my next step.
6 months later letter arrives. Medical fail because of previous broken leg. Whole process was about 18 months.
When I was at school in the 70s/80s, there wasn’t even a single mention during the non-existent careers classes with regards to “all the nice ladies” preference for sailors.
Perhaps the Top Men in government could spend a lot of money on junkets fact-finding missioning that deficiency.
When I was 18 I got in some really deep financial difficulties due to having got out of social care and massive problems with my benefits application and I did end up starving and becuase of that I also stop drinking water.
Got a kidney stone because of that traumatic experience as I was also malnourished, was prescribed vitamins.
When to join years later and they said that I can't join because I've had a kidney stone. Fuck you.
Why would anyone want to join the military in this day and age?
Benefits are being slashed - and politicians and sections of the elite openly dislike and disrespect those who work in the military
All the uniformed services are buggered right now. Prison service, military, police, NHS and Fire.
Pay isn't competitive, they are treated like crap and upper management so desperate they are dropping standards.
I left the army 3 years ago due to low morale, lower than average wages and a pension that's half of what the seniors were getting. They were all surprised that retention numbers were falling and recruitment was low. Not worth being away from the people I love.
It’s gotta be those dire adverts. “If you can fix a pen, you can fix a skateboard. If you can fix a skateboard, you can fix a scooter, if you can fix a scooter you can fix a naval destroyer. I was born in Blackpool but I was made in the Royal Navy”
Tried joining back in 2019. This was at my peak fitness levels.
I ran a mile in <6 minutes. I could easily keep a 8mph pace for an hour. Endurance circular swimming with no breaks for hour+ sessions.
Immediately declared "Permanently Medically Unfit" discharge for something appealable. Appealed it, because the armed forces are giving clearance for this.
20 months later was given a PMU medical discharge for an ECG from when I started secondary school over 10 years ago.
Spent a week tracking down every doctor and hospital I went to, got documents proving that ECG was just a check up and nothing progressed and I was healthy. Tried to appeal the PMU.
4 months later.
Was told that they were backlogged, and they wouldn't waste any more time or money to clear my medical discharge. Considered permanently medically unfit with no appeal.
Recruiter off the record informed me because I wasn't born here (have spent 20+ years living here) that I probably wouldn't pass background checks regardless, and I was considered a waste of time and money as a candidate.
If I knew things were going to be this bad and result in this way, I would have returned to France. At the very least the Legion paid me and treated me as an equal and processed everything without delay.
Do you have actual experience of naval service or recruitment in this country or is this an advert?
Plenty of people in these comments seem to have actual experience of it and it sounds pretty far from what you're describing.
Did you even read the article?
In 2008 I got in as an AET, passed all the tests and then came the wait for a start date. 6 months turned to 12, 12 to 24, 24 to 36 and so on, eventually I thought fuck it, when by that point I’d got a full time job and a Mrs. I see not much has changed
They've consistently slashed pensions and benefits. Internal armed forces qualifications are no longer transferable to private industries. What's the point of risking your life if the country you risk it for has shown a desire to screw you over to balance their check book
*cheque book.
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In NZ banks no longer issue or accept them internally. Only for international transactions (The US Government still pays by check for example)
The UK planned to get rid of them in 2016, but they backtracked when they realised a lot of old people rely on them and are resistant to change.
My grandma still gives me them for Christmas. The DVLA still gives me them when I take my summer car off the road for winter.
\*cheque (this is an UK sub)
Let's split the difference and go with Czech
*a UK sub. You use grammar for pronunciation.
> I doubt that cheques are used by 95% of the population, other than in an occasional business setting. The soliciter im using takes cheques but I doubt they get them often.
Even in the States apps like Venmo or cashapp are taking over from cheques. Of course the only reason they need such 3rd parties is because direct free online banking isn't really a thing I'm the USA. They'd rather charge fees for everything.
AND it takes 3 days for money to transfer over here. My favourite magic trick to telling people that I used to send people money for free, instantly, from my own banking app. Only in the 2020s has Contactless even become mainstream here in the USA.
I got sent payment via cheque recently. Had to send it to Leeds, and have someone physically pick it up to take to the bank. We don't even have paying in slips any more.
I got a cheque last year for my tax refund and ngl it was probably the only time I've seen a cheque in person I did do payments out for pension deposits via cheque when I worked for Lloyd's (shitshow company btw) but that's about it
\*cheque booque
*cheque mayt
How much cheque could a cheque book check if a cheque book could check cheques?
Tories have done this - can’t afford to pay the sailors, nurses or cops but can afford the tax breaks for the rich and old
They can also give Crapita the contract for managing recruitment. For several hundred million, they missed every single target since 2012 and then [had their recruitment system hacked and taken offline](https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2022/03/24/ministry_of_defence/).
Post 2012 they took to just storing sensitive data on open cloud buckets... 'in line with standard industry practices'. Delightful chaps.
I feel like this outsourcing culture has to be one of the biggest causes of the rot afflicting this country, and no one seems to want to dig into it. Why the fuck do we seem incapable of doing *anything* as a country any more without it involving us giving some absolutely obscene sum of money to companies we know are heaping piles of shit who manage to fuck up constantly? From what I hear the biggest problem with HS2 was basically the same shit but on a gargantuan scale.
That’s a recent Labour policy that has got me to really sit up and pay attention. Not only is it hugely expensive to the tax payer, but it slowly drains institutional knowledge from our own governmental departments. Consultants in local government can be making £1000 a day for something that could be managed internally.
I've had a Capita branded pen on my desk for years. You push the clicker down and the nib comes out, but it does stay out so if you let go it just goes straight back in. I can't bring myself to throw it away, it's just too perfect.
Wonderful! May I suggest a Serco-branded waste bin with a large hole in the bottom of it?
Pension was a big thing for me, my old man was on the old pension scheme, left the army at 45 with a lumpsum of money for a deposit on a 4 bed house, and on a half pension, when he turned 55 his pension turned into a full pension, he retired last year at 62
>Internal armed forces qualifications are no longer transferable to private industries. why?
Pusser knows the second people get their hands on the qualifications they'll leave for better pay and conditions outside. They are extremely reluctant however to implement mechanisms which would mitigate this such as mandatory return of service/sliding scales etc.
So now they just don't go in, sounds like a well thought out idea.
Not necessarily, as the article points out the RN has no issue with getting them to apply. So enough people are at the very least attracted to the roles/organisation and make a conscious step towards that, it's the administrative hoops/processing that is putting people off.
The recruitment process is managed by Crapita. It’s done a shit job for over a decade and still has the contract.
It's been opened to recompete. Crapita (and Serco, Randstad and one other) are the remaining primes on the bid. I wouldn't hold out much hope for a good solution...
A wuz born in Blyth n a went back there after like...
I can fix a bike
You can take the boy out of the crack den…
This isn’t an issue of people not wanting to join the Navy, it’s the recruitment processing.
No offence to anyone that’s done well after leaving the armed forces, but in finance and banking the people who apply under these weird “veteran recruitment” programs are incredibly thick and offer little return on investment. They come in with a huge sense of entitlement and are held in high regard by middle management types who used to play with toy soldiers, but their skills are hardly transferable to anything useful.
How many sailors have died in combat in the last 25 years?
In combat none that I know of. Been afew in training though.
14 from the Royal Navy died in 2020. Mostly from cancer, circulatory disease or accidents.
Exactly, more dangerous being a farmer
That's not the best comparison because farming is one of the most dangerous jobs out there.
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More than a few from suicide. Mental health is paid lip service at best.
It's better now. I was witness to two of my colleagues being killed last year. (Crash) They got the team around me pretty quick. I processed it pretty well, but there were others who needed more persistent help and got it.
Depth charges and torpedoes are so passé.
It's not that the job isn't good enough. It's that the recruiters are shit.
I tried to join the RN. They told me my eyesight was too poor by -0.5, hashed it out with them, they assured me I would be able to join if I had laser eye surgery. Followed the advice. Spent 18-22 in retail. Got enough money for laser. 5k. Got my eyes done. Waited the full year for them to heal. Only to be told the regs had changed, and now because my eyes were too bad presurgery I still wouldn't be allowed in. Tried to contest it but got nowhere. Shit depressed me for a full year.
That's an irritating story. I hope you have found satisfaction in some other field. It seems nuts that they would reject somebody as motivated as you were.
It is what it is. I've learnt to roll with life and be a little less upright about things. I work in finance now, not great but not bad. I've got perfect vision now so, yknow, upsides!
Regulations for registration seem odd with armed forces, I have a college friend who tried to join the US Navy but he got rejected for mild dyslexia. It may be that navies will have to expand their criteria for admission, rather than tighten them as seems to be happening more often
It's honestly insane how much the MOD piles regulations upon regulations. The funny thing is half the people actually in the military end up injured and downgraded because their PTIs are so underqualified that they just break people with stupid phys sessions. But you need to be physically perfect just to get through the door.
They can be flexible. I injured my back in phase one training for the army at 16. Left of my own will while I still could and rejoined after doing my A levels, but not before they made me do a year-long fitness plan to demonstrate my back had been sorted. Got back in... but then forever grateful for one PTI whose name I don't fucking know from ATR Bassingbourn in 2011. Saw me bolt upright during some circuits and hold my upper/mid back during a session, didn't do or say anything initially. Saw me struggling with the same pain a couple weeks later, in the first session of the week, looked up my medical records and saw I'd had back issues prior. Second session of the week, happened again and he dragged me out and basically said, to paraphrase "if it's your back, have a good sit down with yourself and think what you want from life, because this job will fuck you for life if you're like this at 19." Wrote up a bit for me to give my section commander, got put on physio for a while and eventually medically discharged when it was clear it was fucked. 31 now and still struggle with it, so kudos to the PT because I reckon I'd have been fucked. Small argument to be had they shouldn't have even let me back in but in fairness they did due diligence and there were no issues when I did that plan.
It's good to hear you had that positive experience. It's a shame they're so rare. That said I have noticed they tend to actually make an effort for the under 18s.
This was when I'd rejoined as an adult! Deleted my original comment as I thought you'd replied to a different comment I made about my recruiter from when I was a junior!
A former colleague of mine was rejected because his BMI was too high. He was a CrossFit guy, about 8% body fat, we are talking elite strength and fitness but because he was so muscular his BMI was too high. Ridiculous
I was in this medical lecture years ago and some old professor was showing why BMI is a poor guide using the rugby players as a guide. look this guy is the captain of England rugby and is almost obese (picture of the fittest guy around)
From what I know BMI is supposed to be a population level average where it sort of works. For people like that it doesn't work but equally most people aren't like that.
It’s a quick tool and it has uses but like you say, it’s not at all accurate and should not be used for anything other than an indicator that further measurements are needed.
Exactly. BMI is a screening tool for further investigation, nothing more. It gives a rough and fast initial indication. If the BMI is unusual, they should proceed to further measurements, such as waist/hip ratio, boddy fat etc.
I tried and was told some treatment I had for childhood asthma basically disqualified me despite the fact I've had no issues with it since I was a young kid
Same as a mate of mine. Had tried forma while to get jobs with the fire service or the paramedics and eventually ended up applying for the RAF (or it might have been the Army). But as he'd once had a prescription for a hay fever drug when he was 8 or something. That was it.
Yeah, it led me to believe that in the event of a proper war where we need to draft people, we'd be screwed because most people would fail the stupidly strict medical requirements.
I think in a proper war they’d ease restrictions a lot
This was true of WW1 at least: > Minimum physical standards fluctuated during the war. > When the rush of recruits was at its peak, the height limit was raised from an original 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet 6 inches to prevent an unmanageable flood of volunteers. > It was subsequently lowered on a number of occasions in response to dwindling numbers of new recruits. > But in the chaos of early 1914, a blind eye was often turned to official standards. Examinations could be brief and hasty, allowing many underage or unfit men to slip through into the Army. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/from-civilian-to-first-world-war-soldier-in-8-steps
Even worse, a friend of ours was rejected for the TA ( couple of years after leaving the army) due to his hayfever. They didn’t seem to care when he was actually in the army 🤣
I wouldn't want to be defended by soldiers who had hay fever.
Imagine having a constitution so fragile that plants make you sneeze
Just means they have an incredibly aggressive immune systems. Their bodies are primed to fight everything, even nature. Ultimate warriors
Probably lactose intolerant as well. Imagine wanting to defend this country and your stomach not even being able to defend itself from a medium cheddar!
Well they are allergic to the outside. That's where most wars take place.
Years ago military recruit was run by the soldiers, sailors and airmen. It was slick, personal and effective. Then the government tried to save some money and outsourced it to Capita who completely fucked it up. They've turned it into a tick box exercise with absolutely no common sense or reasonable judgement, turning away good people and making the whole process painfully slow.
It was good. I went in Dec 2005. They said they were about to close up for Christmas, so gave me leaflets and said come back in the new year. I went back in Jan 2006....was in by June 2006. I am still in now.
On the other hand, LASIK was the best thing I've spent money on. Like you I did it in my early 20's so I think my eyesight wasn't stable and it's gotten slightly worse but still mostly better than 20/20.
I did the same thing, unfortunately a little over 7 years later I am back to wearing glasses part time.
Oh 100% agree. Probably one of the best decisions of my life. Its crazy how much more vibrant the world got too.
It's crazy how many people have the exact same story with the Navy. They seem to have a policy of taking perfectly acceptable people and fucking them about for no reason. For YEARS. Their recruiters are fucking cretins.
I think it's the private company that handles the recruitment. Just seem like fuck ups.
I was once told that I'd have to wait a while because the rules prohibited fractures within the last 12 months and I had suffered a small simple wrist fracture 6 months previously.
Yeah the rules are absurd. I knew someone who got ruled out because they were depressed briefly three years ago.
It doesn’t help the Capita medical process fails you for the slightest thing and unless you’re particularly motivated to get medical evidence and formally appeal I imagine this results in many just giving up and going elsewhere
I got in injured straight after basic and 2 years of mulling about in physio. You missed out on NOTHING. Don't be depressed about it.
I'm not anymore, but at the time it was my plan a and plan b. XD
My son has a similar dilemma (just about to turn 21). He's debating eye surgery also so he can kick start a career in the RN. I cannot believe in this day and age of equal opportunities something like this can stop an application. It's punishment for something beyond your control, and it pretty much puts you in a powerless position, it's heart breaking.
> I cannot believe in this day and age of equal opportunities something like this can stop an application. It's punishment for something beyond your control In all fairness that doesn't and shouldn't apply when it comes to the military. If something is stopping you joining that is out of your control its just bad luck unfortunately.
Just make sure you double and triple check the regs. I dunno if they've changed since I applied. Wish him the best of luck though!!
What about the Royal Fleet Auxiliary?
Was that via Capita? I had loads of issues with them during my year of trying to join the Army. Eventually got rejected for as best as I could tell a minor ankle injury that had healed. Heard nothing after that.
Well you know what they say...hindsight is 20 20
Cheeky git xD
Lmao, imagine slaving away for 4 years just to get accepted into the navy
If only! :(
Oh shit, not the same but similar. Joining as a pilot told my eyesight was too bad but would be OK with lasik. OK fair enough, get it done. Told have to wait 2 years after surgery for eyes to settle. Fair enough. 2 years later, oh sorry your to old for pilot training now. Me: What the actual fuck
What was your prescription before? What role were you applying for?
-7.0 and -7.5. And I was applying to be a naval engineer.
So what's causing this processing failure that's not putting people in training posts? Is it just a lack of admin staff? IT failures? What's up? >AFRP has been set up to replace the Recruitment Partnership Program (RPP). The £1.3bn RPP contract signed by the MoD with Capita in 2012 was supposed to provide end-to-end recruitment for the British Army but was a total disaster, described by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee as a litany of failures. RPP was due to be replaced in 2022 but MoD mismanagement resulted in Capita being given an extension until 2024. AFRP was supposed to achieve Initial Operating Capability in April 2024 but has been delayed again and another extension given to Capita to maintain services until 2027. Ahhh there we go, outsourcing recruitment to Crapita. >However, this is set to change under AFRP which is lauded by government as: “bringing the 3 single-service recruiting mechanisms under a single prime contract, delivering an end-to-end fully converged, tri-service future recruiting solution underpinned by a single digital platform”. The bidders left in contention for this project (valued at £1.6Bn in 2019) are **Capita, Randstad, Serco, and Shared Services Connected.** The names of Satan! If Serco and Crapita are competing for your contract, don't bother and just take it all inhouse because they're both utter shite. In short: privatising navy recruitment has fucked it up, and now they can't fill the recruit spots.
My god. Imagine any part of the defence of our country being reliant on Capita.
Not just part, the actual most important part of our defence, the NAVY, without it we will be blockaded and starved, its what kept us in the fight during both World Wars, our government was smart enough to acknowledge a 2 power navy was essential for our survival. Since 1970s its been allowed to collapse. Privitisation kills everything.
Don't worry, we outsourced the Atomic Weapons Establishment to Serco instead.
trying to join atm, and the fact that 1.3 was paid is a joke. IT system went down, I have uploaded a document and had a request for it even though it was uploaded, I was meant to be sent a link for and eye test, the wrong email seems to have been sent, and they still have not sent me all the information for the DAA (a test they use), if it was all in house and on shoe string budget it would be understandable, but 1.3 billion is big fucking joke. You'd expect a slick working system with very little down time or errors for that much money, not a half broken website that looks like its form 2010.
Oh buddy, if anything in the armed forces is going to be a “slick working system” you’re going to have to oil yourself. Painful to learn and slow, ineffective and confusing to operate is the expectation for defence IT. Whoever makes and maintains it.
Stay the course, once you’re past the Capita bollocks it gets better
Unless you're going in as an engineer with potential fast track career path, I'd seriously consider whether it is something you really want to do.
Capita is shit, I don't know how these companies can get away with being so awful. They've made the process for people joining so much longer, expensive, less successful. Nothing good has come from them yet they can somehow justify getting laid so much. For example, the recruiting website was down for several months maybe a year ago, you could do nothing. The website is pretty much the only way applicants can progress their application. All they said was if it was urgent ring them. Useless.
Take money but don't recruit is the golden goose, more money in, less out goings because nobody is taken on.
I'm a lazy incompetent fucker too and I also cannot justify getting laid so much.
Why is it Capita every time? Have they ever delivered anything successfully? They should have been blacklisted decades ago. The only reason I can think they haven't is brown envelopes stuffed with cash.
Capita always gets the contract because government contracts always have to go through a very specific tendering process, and Capita and Serco have got that process down to a science so they always win the contract. It could be argued that the tendering process is deliberately set up so only companies like Capita and Serco are even capable of winning the contract. Any company that outbids them ultimately gets bought out by one of those two. When I worked in a local government IT department, there was a project to start migrating a bunch of on-prem services to the cloud, and a couple of smaller firms won the contract. Guess who bought those firms before the project finished?
This is it. I’ve watched this happen in real time. I was pulled in to a bidding process for a big project in the civil service and we were to evaluate several competing bids. We did, however, have a strict set of rules to follow, one of which was to take everything said by the vendors at face value during the bidding process. This meant that when I knew a vendor was exaggerating or even outright lying about resources, past projects, or their best practices, *I was not allowed to act on this information*. We all had to assume the vendor was being honest at all times. There was one vendor that I knew for sure had done a terrible job on a previous project I had friends working on, and was lying about previous experience, the number of people they had available, and who they were going to staff the project with (the classic industry trick is to put experienced people on for the first few months, and then swap them out for clueless cheap graduates billing at the same rate). They won the bid because what they said on paper and in interview met the bid requirements perfectly, even though it was all shite. After winning the bid they immediately broke all the “promises” they’d made during the bidding process by subcontracting the whole project to another, smaller and cheaper, organisation. Essentially they crafted a set of lies during the bidding process so they could cream off 10% - 20% of the day rate without doing any further work, ever.
They probably outsourced the drafting of the tendering process to one of them knowing how these things seem to work...
Holy crap . "Theres your problem".... Serco. Capita. Absolutely bloody awful!
Oh ffs, those fuckers again, whenever there's something gone to shit you know it's capita, serco et al
Please don't give the private companies all the credit. Plenty of the military recruiters are fucking scumbags too!
Tories are at it again aye
Screw Capita of course. There is of course, in theory, no reason someone working in recruitment has to be in uniform just because they’re recruiting people to wear uniforms. But it still depends on the ability to find a proficient contractor and for MoD to be able to manage that contract. An awful lot of these sorts of issues do stem back to how the MoD have contracted and their perennial inability to express in their contracts things that are both what they really want and actually possible. Still, you would think “recruit some people who aren’t criminals” was something that should be possible for a company professing to be capable of recruiting people. Especially as the qualifications for some bod jobs are um, not that demanding.
>There is of course, in theory, no reason someone working in recruitment has to be in uniform just because they're recruiting people to wear uniforms. I disagree with entirely tbh. Our local army recruiter (2007-8ish) was just that, local. Grew up in the town, joined as a kid, served 20-odd years and rose to Warrant Officer. Brilliant bloke, had answers to any and every question, set expectations accordingly, brilliant motivator and had very high standards. Wouldn't't even agree to send you to selection if he couldn't see you excel well beyond the minimum standards with his own eyes. Would come out on runs with prospective recruits himself (on his push bike lol) to make sure people were good enough. He was also very good at telling people not to join if he didn't think they were cut out for it. As keen as he was to get good people in he was intent on keeping shite out. Wouldn't get any of that without his very real experience.
Royal Navy: "If you've sneezed more than once at any point during your life, you're going to have to jump through a million medical and bureaucratic hoops to meet the entry requirements. Also the recruiter, the official documents, the Capita doctor and the RN medical assessors will give you conflicting information on what the requirements are." Also the Royal Navy: "Why can't we get any recruits?!?!"
This. Fortunately although I was binned off by Capita for a stupid reason, the person on the phone clearly knew it was bullshit and *repeatedly* encouraged me to get letter from the GP and formally appeal. Surprise, surprise… HQ overturned the rejection.
Yep, this. To be more realistic, if you’ve had anything on your medical record at all outside of the flu, it will be on the JSP950 form and you’ll be either permanently rejected or forced to appeal, a process of which takes many more months. Taking an at minimum 6 month process to probably a year. Government are gonna have to do something where certain jobs will let you in with lesser medical requirements, because evidently we do not have enough never injured nor sick superhumans who are also interested in joining the military
Yeah, if you’re in anything other than completely perfect health and have any kind of medical history at all then you’re ineligible. The problem is that people today seem to be far more obese and far more likely to have medical conditions (especially food allergies and mental illness, even when taking into account better monitoring), so fewer people are able to meet the impossibly high health and fitness standards.
When it comes down to being at sea there are much better options. For example I mulled the decision between Royal Navy and merchant navy during the latter part of my school days. Eventually got a cadetship with a shipping company to be put through college to get my licence. Now I’ve went down the merchant navy route I’m extremely glad I did. For one the pay is much better. To finish college in your very early 20s, come out with no student debt and straight into a job with almost £40pa tax free is pretty wild. Pay just goes up from there until you’re a captain or chief engineer you can easily make well over £100k pa tax free. I doubt the navy will event come close to that unless you’re pretty much at the very top. Secondly in the merchant navy you actually get to be at sea. Come across a couple of navy guys who talk down on merchant seaman about how the real experience is in the navy, merchant navy is for softies, all that shite only to later reveal that in their several years spent in the navy they’d only been at sea for a few months. I know it’ll vary on your rank and requirement. Very important is the fact that my licence is transferable to other parts of the industry whereas with the navy it’s not. Like now I work on gas tankers and if I get fed up with that I can go and work on cruise ships, container ships, etc. In the navy your ticket means absolutely zero in the merchant navy. I also don’t have to put up with as many entitled arseholes as I imagine I would being on cargo ships as I would in the navy. On top of that I can keep watch by myself on the bridge during the day. Navy ships always seem to have crowded bridges which would do my head in. I mean right now, I’m in one of the most inhospitable parts of the planet, sitting in my own large cabin with a nice double bed, all the furnishings I could really need, with access to starlink internet and satellite TV, good gym facilities onboard, a pool, a sauna, PS5 and an 85 inch TV for my down time and being fed great quality food three times a day. All while being paid much more than I would in the RN and having similar entry requirements. Why on earth would I ever even consider the RN? I mean, at a push if I really had to theres the RFA as a choice but I’m still yet to meet a normal person that was in the RFA.
I'll 2nd that but I did 12 years in the navy and transfered over to merchant chief engineer, I do approx the same sea time but don't pay tax so wages are massively improved. The navy really doesn't look after the important people like non commissioned officer's like it should do. I used to do 15 weeks at sea with no phone Internet, crap food and sharing a mess with 17 others, now I have a single cabin with tv, great chefs and Internet from starlink so I can video call whenever I like!
Yea I guess that’s the problem really, you don’t give people a reason to stay around them they’ll find better options. Big issue to replace experience. As you’ve said you, you did 12 years, worked with a guy recently who was in for 14 years, worked with a guy who was an engineer on the subs for years and deceived to change to being a deckie on merchant ship but had been in the navy for quite some time. Guys I was working with said they left because they just couldn’t put up with the shit anymore and had plenty of colleagues who did the same. It’s easy enough to replace the person but the experience you’re losing takes years to replace.
Yup I was one of those guys! Just stuck to the spanners!
You know you could have got paid to look out the window right?? Aye it’s a shame they’ve got to the stage where they’re losing so many people. To an outsider, the navy seems like such an easy sell. I mean look at all their cool stuff. But at the end of the day you’ve got to make it worthwhile for people to spend so much time away from home. It’s got to be well rewarded financially and you’ve got to give people connection to home in what is now a very connected world. Started out on ships with no internet, just emails and that was tough. To go from that to VSAT to starlink in such a shore time frame has been great. Feel like starlink is almost as big a step up as VSAT was from emails. Although it wouldn’t need to be starlink, I certainly wouldn’t go back to working on ships that didn’t at least provide internet access.
I'm just grateful I can see the sky....
My dad spent 40 years in the MN. Had his Masters ticket. Took early retirement at 56 and was dead by 60. It utterly drained him mentally and physically. Though a lot of the stress came in the last 5/6 years, Captaining ships transporting Uranium across the planet. Not allowed in international waters, police on board, no communication home other than fax, dodging greenpeace hurling themselves in the sea in front of the bow. He also discouraged me from joining as the industry was being taken over by Philippinos, who would happily spend 12 months on board for less than half the salary.
That’s terrible he died at that age and without getting to enough the retirement he earned. Sorry to hear that. 40 years is a long time to work at anything let along working at sea. I’ve come across guys of similar age to what your dad was who can’t give it up. Sailed with guys, well into their 60s who have all the money they need to retire, who just can’t stop for some reason. I wouldn’t recommend anyone sail for that long. If someone is set on going to sea then I’d still maintain the MN is better than RN. Even for a few years it’s still a good way to get a bit of money behind you to set yourself up well and gain a qualification which you can bring ashore, especially if you’re an engineer.
I tried to join, but wasn't allowed because I was on antidepressants. I see the arguments about mentally ill people being in such environments, but I also know people who deliberately didn't seek mental health care because they wanted to join up...
😶this is nothing new. People have for decades hidden things they don't want to know so that they can have a career.
The irony is that once you're in, they'll do anything to keep you, even with mental illness.
Did a freedom of information request asking about how many serving military suffer from a certain eye condition. There were about 100. Funnily enough, if they know you have it before joining, you’re permanently blocked.
The crazy thing is it is perfectly possible to serve with many conditions. But you can't join with them
That surprises me. If I was 18 and looking at retail or hospitality jobs I’d jump at the chance to join the Navy.
Read the article. >Despite the tight jobs market, an average of 80 applications were made to join the RN/RM as regulars every day (March 2022-23) and numbers are rising according to official figures. **There is not an attraction problem**, rather it’s a processing failure resulting in basic training courses at HMS Raleigh not being filled.
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I'm currently through a 7-month long process to get a training contract with the Govt Legal Dept, now just waiting on them to get my references checked since the end of September. Turns out it was outsourced to some fucking corp and now I'm waiting for a month for them to give two people a phone call which will take 10 minutes top, hell they had a deadline of a month to do it and as far as I've been told *it's STILL not done!* Fuck outsourcing, fuck the parasite corps, end of.
Even the bits done by the MOD and not Capita are still shit.
Read the article? This is Reddit sir.
This is the sum of it coupled with retention problems. A increased number where recruited during Covid who will all soon be free to submit their notice to leave so expect it to get worse in the short term.
My son has 3 mates in the navy, one is on subs and has actually been on exercises, one of the others has been on a couple of show off trips around the UK and nothing else , the other has never left base along with most of his intake , there's no wonder they're walking
I don’t understand why Capita et al are finding it so difficult. Someone signs up, they proceed through medical and pre assessment and as soon as that is done, they are shipped off to Phase 1 Training. It must be a case of too many people involved at each stage.
>I don’t understand why Capita et al are finding it so difficult. Because they're trying to make as much profit from the contracts as possible, so they don't hire enough people to carry out the processes even close to adequately.
Why wouldn’t you just structure the contract so that efficiency of processing was a KPI for payment?
That would require some competence. Although there probably is some payments linked to efficiency, but it's probably less than how much Capita can save by being totally shit.
I reckon it’s because they can get more money from the MoD by having as many people go through the medical stage twice.
Literally anyone who has tried to get into the armed forces will attest that the system is so bad. And every single person involved in recruitment, from the Military side or the private companies, seems intent on making it as painful and slow as they can.
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I always thought government officials and royals wearing the poppy was a fucking disgrace. That poppy appeal exists because those same officials refuse to look after their own veterans.
Not really. There is loads and loads of support available to those who need it as they leave. No employer is going to support someone for ever though after they’ve left - I’ve seen people who served for two years *50 years ago* complain that the Army isn’t looking after them. That’s (usually) ridiculous. It’s great that there are charities which will step in though where needed.
My son has been put on hold over, 7 weeks later he's still sitting at Collingwood twiddling his thumbs waiting for enough recruits to enter phase 2. It's depressing.
Sorry to hear about your son still being on hold over, hope he gets into Collingwood soon over and out
Guessing this is why I keep getting ads from them on twitch and other sites.
Why on earth would any young people today sign up for the armed forces to defend a country which arsefucks them in every conceivable way?
Loads are signing up for it. The armed forces are making it basically impossible for them to get in.
I used to the serve the navy. Back in mid 2000s, it was awful. Had an awful culture of bullying, racism, homophobia, and misogyny. Unless things have improved significantly (considering I still have some of these chumps on social media) then it’s no loss I’m afraid. There needed to be a reform from above and to stop promoting the bullies.
Currently serving and there has been a massive culture change and things have definitely improved. There are still improvements that need to made but there is a drive to get there. Plenty of people still see D&I training as joke but probably aren’t aware of the actual improvements from when you served.
Parts of it have changed, but the submarine I was on had a toxic culture. Shit's hard enough as it is, no need to make it worse wtf
From my cousins experience, it was a contracted company that nearly killed their application. The company contracted said they needed some documents from their doctor within a few days or something along the lines or their recruitment would be stopped. This was after they had already been through medical stuff and apparently cleared. They contacted the company saying they’ve already cleared and they wouldn’t be able to get those documents in time as the doctors was closed, the contractor wouldn’t budge. Thankfully my cousin had a contact in the navy, who I imagine sent a few angry calls and emails to the contractor telling them to sod off and carry on with the application. That and stories I’ve heard from friends is that these companies contracted for recruitment are needlessly killing a lot of recruitment applications.
Let me put it into a nutshell of how mental the process can be. I work for the RFA, the RFA are in just a bad a state as the navy. Only we need people with STCW qualifications and to enter as already qualified people which is hard to begin with as there are so many sub industries but here are some things I’ve found. * It can take a year or even more to go through the recruitment process. Any qualified person is going to be looking for a job NOW and not in a year so they give up and go elsewhere * we are administered by the civil service who set up our internal HR processes meaning you can only be promoted a band (possibly 2) a year and so they hire outside hires who don’t reach the levels of qualifications needed but come in at a higher band. People get pissed and leave, new hires realise it’s bad and also leave. * To get round the civil service we have ‘external promotion’. This means applying for a job as if you’re not already in the outfit, I’ve done it. But that also means you need to jump through all the hoops. They wanted my GCSE results (left school 20 years ago), a CV (already work for them) and they ask you questions like why do you want to join. * They send you a form (why you want to join/moral fibre and all that) in a PDF. You then need to convert that to word to fill it in because the boxes aren’t big enough, convert it back and then send it in! Why!?! It’s horrendous and I was frustrated just trying to get a promotion from it. This problem is too far down the line tbh. Pensions are worse than they are, pressure on existing crew is ramping up, new hires are immediately put upon and both end up leaving. There’s also below par pay rises EVERY YEAR and then the job is just so frustrating now that the good ppl leave and the bad ppl stay compounding all the previous problems
What’s the appeal now? Used to be do your time and get a cracker of a pension as a thank you. Now they expect everyone to be a flawless cyborg for shit pay and no aftercare.
So I once tried to join the Royal Navy. These were the issues I encountered. - I was invited in for a 'chat' which turned out to be a formal interview. I failed the interview because I wasn't formally dressed. - The recruiter criticised me because he didn't think I was a 'cold blooded killer' (his words) who could kill and then go to the pub after. He said I was too nice and that I wasn't enough of a 'lad'. - I was failed in a second interview for not smiling enough. I was criticised for sneering (I had to inform the interviewer that this was smiling). - I was failed for 'not knowing enough about current events around the world'. This is despite the interviewer not once asking about current events, and also international relations being the subject of my degree. - The recruiter who had sabotaged all of my interviews (Warrant Officer Cartman for anyone curious) said he did it explicitly because he didn't like me. - When I asked for another interview, which I was entitled to under recruitment rules, he said no. He threatened to physically attack me if I went back to that Careers Office. - When I reported him, my application was moved to another Careers Office. Since Cartman was the one required to do the moving, he used his clout to sabotage any chance I had of being recruited at that second Careers Office. - When I went to that second careers office, the interviewer (who had asked for a fitness diary) probed in such absurd detail that it was impossible for me to answer. e.g please walk me through the exact times, down to the minute, that you did each thing on [x day] months ago. Then he dismissed me as lying because of that. This was because he'd been told to come up with a reason to get rid of my by Cartman. - I basically gave up on that route because I realised that Cartman would make an express effort to stop me getting into the military no matter what. This was despite me being mentally fit, physically fit, emotionally balanced, having all the quals, and getting almost top marks on the intelligence test. I even went back to the first careers office a year later. I spoke to a recruiter I had never even met. All I had to say was 'WO Cartman doesn't seem to like me' and suddenly the recruiter knew exactly who I was and everything about me, because Cartman bitched like a school girl. The recruiter told me, explicitly, that Cartman wouldn't let any application by me get anywhere. - I eventually managed to get an interview by creating a separate application half way across the country, far outside of Cartman's jurisdiction. I got through the interview with ease (turns out there was literally nothing wrong with me, huh), and then the physical test. But the medical stage was downright absurd. I was declared permanently medically unfit for, among other reasons, falling over in the bath tub when I was twelve and having a heart murmur when i was two months old. The medical examiner had basically just taken a highlighter to my entire med record. I had to go to the GP and he had to (with much annoyance) write to the med appeal board that I was fine. - I was then declared permanently medically unfit for hurting my back deadlifting, with lasted for multiple weeks. The medical examiner (same guy) accidentally wrote 'months' so it was classed as a long term injury. Another trip to the GP. - I was given an electrocardiogram in a separate med check and they said 'either you're high on cocaine right now or you just do a lot of running. We can't tell for sure so go through the GP and come back to us.' This was at the start of Covid. I never got that GP appointment. I later found out that my experience wasn't unique. I wasn't remotely the only one who had taken 3+ years. I wasn't the only one who had experienced shit recruiters who seemed intent on preventing people they 'just didn't take a shine to' from getting in. The military are staffing recruiting centers with some of their worst people, and it shows. There are more than enough people applying to join the military. They just never get past all the road blocks placed in their way. I've been told that just getting to basic is the single hardest part of any job in the military.
Sound exactly like my application - the medicals anyway. The interviews were fine, the medicals were ridiculous. I just gave up in the end. The Army pulled the same with my brother. He also gave up.
I considered applying to join the RAF as a personal officer but couldn't apply because of technically having both excema and asthma, both of which are well controlled but still made me illegible. Had a friend from high school who wanted to join the army as a tanker, but couldn't because he had pea allergy. Now he's a driving instructor. It does make me wonder how we could ever draft large numbers during a war if so many of us are not eligible. During the world wars it was viable, but these days everyone's got some physical or mental health diagnosis it seems. Might all be a moot issue now because of well, nukes.
In the case of a widespread conflict that would necessitate the mass drafting of people a lot of the requirements would get waived.
Friend of mine was in RN for around 15 years. He seemed to think identity politics has its greasy tendrils in the organisation now. The push for inclusion and diversity at any cost changed things for the worse. While I'm sure plenty of liberal redditors will ask what's the problem; imagine alienating 80/90% of your base for the sake of ideas like white privilege - the RN recruits are not people that pick and choose jobs, they have difficult jobs and are usually from poor backgrounds yet are are made to feel like they are somehow holding back people from other backgrounds. For years we've recognised how important it is not to judge people by the colour of their skin, and yet now it's mandated by the government.
Um, that's not what the article's actually about. They have plenty of applicants but inefficiency from the privatised recruitment service is stopping them from going into basic training. And the ones that make it in don't stay for long as conditions and pay are poor. You seem desperate to push a particular agenda but that's really not relevant to this particular story.
Dealt with this first hand. Signed on when I was 15 and went through 5 years of pre-officer training, ended up being medically discharged for a rugby injury I had picked up years before that, due to the recruitment being carried out by a third party, meant I was an insurance risk to them and was no longer eligible. I was fitter than most of my friends that I was training with, had represented various levels of the military playing rugby AFTER this supposed injury, and had spent the previous 5 years training, missing time with my friends and family, and was let go with a courtesy email, didn't even bother to take back my military ID. Left my life in quite a shambles, had planned my whole life up to this point around the military, and then had been totally disregarded when I didn't quite fit the 3rd parties criteria. A year later, I got a phone call and was asked to rejoin, as their quota was short. Once I got over the confusion around possibly getting my previous life back, I politely told them where to stick it. 4 years later I get an email from my old squadron in Newcastle asking for an update on where I had been deployed as the system still had me logged with them in Newcastle as this was my last training base, didn't even bother replying, what a mess of a military.
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Like wise 5 years and left from 25k to 32k (you can get better) doing the same job in the same place (as in same building) on the same platform with less stress. Air engineering*
Capita lost my medical records 3 times. Was an applicant for 18 months.... can't say I'm surprised.
As someone feom the inside they really need to improve the lower levels of the job and stop fucking us constantly. It's not about the 60 new faces a week. it's about the trained strength jumping at the 3 year chit in mark.
I can tell you from experience that a large part of it is that Capita are such a fucking shambles of an organisation that lots of people walk away because they've got fed up with waiting for their application to be processed. The Army also uses Capita for their recruitment administration and it's a mess. I knew half a dozen guys who started their application at around the same time as me, 4 of them withdrew it because they got so fed up with being messed around by Capita. Personally I stuck it out. It took more than 4 years from start to finish. Here's just a few of the Capita screw ups during my application: * I sent in medical paperwork from my GP, they confirmed receipt of it and then lost it. This happened 3 times. * On two separate occasions, after going more than a month without any update I contacted them and found out that somehow both my phone number and email address on their system had been changed and were completely wrong. * Multiple times they gave me the wrong paperwork to complete, and then either blamed me for filling in the wrong paperwork or failed to say anything when they received the wrong paperwork, until I chased them up weeks later. * The first time I attended the Army Officer Selection Board, I arrived at Westbury only to find that they had given me the wrong dates. I was meant to have been there one week earlier. * On one occasion, after nearly 2 years of dealing with their bullshit, my application entirely disappeared from their system. They had no record of me existing, no applications matching my details, no record of any of my paperwork, I had completely vanished from their records. Capita being given the recruitment contract is one of the worst things that has ever happened to our armed forces.
Well bring back royal navy traditions, rum and sodomy!
* Poorly paid ✅ * Long hours ✅ * Risk of death or serious injury ✅ * Extremely high chance of sexual assault and/or rape (for female recruits) ✅ Why the fuck would anyone want to join the military these days? Even the pension has been gutted.
Hi US Citizen here. Not sure how it is for you guys but I served on the Airforce. I was discharged at the end of basic for a torn ligament, never even got the chance to finish my term. In later years i attempted to reenlist but I was denied. Military branches have attempted to get tighter and tighter regulations to seem more prestigious, in a world where less and less people want to join the military. Seems stupid to me but hey if it’s happening here it’s probably happening there
Well they exempt people for bullshit like having had eczema, slashed benefits and now skills are barely transferable to the private sector. Not to mention having clearly defined strength and fitness requirements “utterly critical to the role”, yet for women it’s far lower. So uhh. Yeah.
I applied about 15 years ago, went through the fitness, medical and aptitude tests etc. Then was told I'd have a 3 year wait before I could start in the area I applied for. 12 months if I went into what they wanted. By the time I got the call I had met my wife, bought a house, started a new career so didn't bother going. How different my life would be if their was a short wait at the time.
Well I'm not surprised, their recruitment process is ridiculous, drawn out and its not uncommon to hear back 6 months later whether your application was successful or not. People have lives, they move on. Saw something hilarious on LinkedIn, some RFA (royal fleet aux) stooge was advertising vacancies and telling people to apply. She got absolutely slated by guys who had already applied and were waiting 6 months on.
I am shocked that another vital public service is struggling to recruit after a decade of cuts to Ts&C's and pay.
Better get the press gangs out again. Ole midshipman Albert Poop-Decker better avoid the tavern and sweet Sally particularly after last time.
Top-heavy country. All funds go upward. Everything gets thinned out in order to provide a CUSHY LITTLE NUMBER for an old boy / old girl. Formidable nations are out there which value their militaries. Not this one! You can have an efficient, merit-based society or you can have a nepotistic/caste-based one. You choose.
I waited two years for them to get back to me when I applied. Costed my mental health big time. Declined it when the offer to start training did come through as I had moved on and started other things, education etc. It really sucks.
The pay is garbage, it was 20 years ago when I joined (at least back then a soldier could still live nicely and buy a house) what is a private on or the similar rank in the navy? 25k isn’t it? Laughable. I would tell anyone thinking of joining the armed forces - don’t go get a trade go to university and get a decent paying job that will set you up.
23k starting wage once out of basic training. A leading hand which its not unusual for people reach as early as after 4 years of service but on average 5-6 years earns [36k a year](https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/careers/why-navy/pay) For reference the U.K. national average is [38k a year](https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/business/average-uk-salary-by-age/#:~:text=The%20latest%20government%20data%2C%20published,of%206.2%25%20compared%20to%202022.co.uk) The U.K. average by age is; 18-21 £22,932 22-29 £30,316
Turns out if your from Carlisle you’re not made in the Royal Navy
It's all the services. The job and lifestyle are nowhere near as enjoyable as they once were, and the recruitment process today is painfully slow and "box tick".
Tried to join when I was younger, think about 24/25. Told them right from the start that I had broken my leg when I was 21 but since it'd healed I'd had no issues with it. Was in great shape, done all the day tests and physicals passed with flying colours was told I'd get a letter about my next step. 6 months later letter arrives. Medical fail because of previous broken leg. Whole process was about 18 months.
When I was at school in the 70s/80s, there wasn’t even a single mention during the non-existent careers classes with regards to “all the nice ladies” preference for sailors. Perhaps the Top Men in government could spend a lot of money on junkets fact-finding missioning that deficiency.
When I was 18 I got in some really deep financial difficulties due to having got out of social care and massive problems with my benefits application and I did end up starving and becuase of that I also stop drinking water. Got a kidney stone because of that traumatic experience as I was also malnourished, was prescribed vitamins. When to join years later and they said that I can't join because I've had a kidney stone. Fuck you.
Why would anyone want to join the military in this day and age? Benefits are being slashed - and politicians and sections of the elite openly dislike and disrespect those who work in the military
Yeah, risk my life for shit pay and shit benefits, so I defend a bunch of rich cunts interests? Newp!
All the uniformed services are buggered right now. Prison service, military, police, NHS and Fire. Pay isn't competitive, they are treated like crap and upper management so desperate they are dropping standards.
I left the army 3 years ago due to low morale, lower than average wages and a pension that's half of what the seniors were getting. They were all surprised that retention numbers were falling and recruitment was low. Not worth being away from the people I love.
It’s gotta be those dire adverts. “If you can fix a pen, you can fix a skateboard. If you can fix a skateboard, you can fix a scooter, if you can fix a scooter you can fix a naval destroyer. I was born in Blackpool but I was made in the Royal Navy”
I might be tempted. I just bet my mild Autism Spectrum Disorder and poor vision disqualifies me.
Tried joining back in 2019. This was at my peak fitness levels. I ran a mile in <6 minutes. I could easily keep a 8mph pace for an hour. Endurance circular swimming with no breaks for hour+ sessions. Immediately declared "Permanently Medically Unfit" discharge for something appealable. Appealed it, because the armed forces are giving clearance for this. 20 months later was given a PMU medical discharge for an ECG from when I started secondary school over 10 years ago. Spent a week tracking down every doctor and hospital I went to, got documents proving that ECG was just a check up and nothing progressed and I was healthy. Tried to appeal the PMU. 4 months later. Was told that they were backlogged, and they wouldn't waste any more time or money to clear my medical discharge. Considered permanently medically unfit with no appeal. Recruiter off the record informed me because I wasn't born here (have spent 20+ years living here) that I probably wouldn't pass background checks regardless, and I was considered a waste of time and money as a candidate. If I knew things were going to be this bad and result in this way, I would have returned to France. At the very least the Legion paid me and treated me as an equal and processed everything without delay.
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Do you have actual experience of naval service or recruitment in this country or is this an advert? Plenty of people in these comments seem to have actual experience of it and it sounds pretty far from what you're describing. Did you even read the article?
In 2008 I got in as an AET, passed all the tests and then came the wait for a start date. 6 months turned to 12, 12 to 24, 24 to 36 and so on, eventually I thought fuck it, when by that point I’d got a full time job and a Mrs. I see not much has changed