This column is written for Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Dr. David S. C. Chu.  Why Dr Chu, you ask?  Because he is the perfect person to convince the service's personnel chiefs there are better assessment tools available to assist their field recruiters and retention staffs.    

According to DoD statistics, here's how the recruiting wars stack up:

• High Schools will administer about  700,000 Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) tests this year, creating a pool of potential enlistees for the military recruiters.
• US Military Enlistment Processing Command (USMEPS) will administer almost 500,000 Enlistment ASVAB Tests.
• Approximately 225,000 recruits will process through the MEPS based on their ASVAB test scores, and quality and moral screening by recruiters.
• Some 180,000 new recruits will actually complete the enlistment process and proceed to Basic military training and on to Technical schools.
• 60,000 of those enlistees will fail to complete their initial term of military service.
• 60 to 70 percent of High School Graduates will complete their first enlistment, but only 50 percent of Non-High School Graduates will complete theirs.
• DoD estimates the cost of furnishing replacements for those who do not complete their initial enlistment at $35 thousand, or said another way, the loss of first-term enlistees, over a four-year period, costs the services about $2 billion dollars.

A more comprehensive evaluation of a recruit's basic and moral character, their desire to serve in the military, their compatibility with job classification and desire to perform in that specialty and their drive, achievement orientation, and competitiveness could cut the first term loss rate in half.  This could save DoD close to $700 million a year.

The primary evaluation, selection and classification tool for recruiters is the ASVAB.  The ASVAB does produce a mostly realistic measure of technical, general, electrical and mechanical qualifications. 

What ASVAB fails to measure is the recruit's ability to adapt to discipline, the desire to serve in a military environment, the jobs they are best suited for, the propensity to perform military duties over the long haul and whether or not they are truthful.  Thousands of recruits do well on the ASVAB, but fail to launch on the performance platform.

Another nit with the ASVAB is that it fails to predict success.  While Cat-4 enlistments are held to a minimum, due to mental quality concerns, in 2005 Secretary of the Army F. J. Harvey cited an Army survey indicating that 12 percent of the Army's Command Sergeant Majors (the Senior Enlisted soldier in Army units) scored between the 16th and 30th percentile on the aptitude tests, placing them in Category-4.

There are assessment tests, proven to be race and gender neutral, designed to evaluate candidates for job fit, honesty, drug use, energy, reliability and work ethic.  These tests can also predict an individual's adaptability to military life and discipline.

Because many assessment firms are web-based systems, there is no software to install or hardware to buy.  The assessment can be administered on-line at the MEPS during normal duty hours or 24/7 from work, home, your hotel, or anywhere there is an Internet connection.

For the Air Force and Navy, who still find it possible to recruit high quality enlistees due to low accession requirements, it would be the perfect time to add a low cost assessment tool that can predict adaptability to the military, performance and success in military specialties.

The Defense Science Board Task Force on Human Resources Strategy, February 2000, said, "The (Defense) department needs to recognize that "one size" does not fit all and to develop tools that allow flexibility for the different career patterns, compensation, expectations and motivators in different occupations."  Well said and still true, especially in the testing area.

More than 30 percent of America's largest corporations, including DuPont, Wal-Mart, SAP, Eastman Chemical, CR Bard and Nursefinders as well as growing numbers of State educational and Government agencies such as DeVry University, are requiring pre-selection assessment tests to ensure their employees are the best qualified and most highly suited for the jobs they are hired to perform.

Several companies, such as Profiles International Inc. out of Waco, TX, are already administering personality/assessment tests for some of our largest civilian employers and institutions of higher learning.

Now would be the perfect time for the Military Personnel leaders to bring a new initiative to the recruiting wars, save some cash, reduce involuntary first-term losses and increase quality and retention.