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90% of recruits score high on aptitude test

Competition to join the Air Force is getting pretty stiff. More airmen are staying in, recruiting goals are being cut as part of a drawdown, and the weak economy is making the service more attractive to high school graduates, said Brig. Gen. A.J. Stewart, former commander of Air Force Recruiting Service.

All those factors, and aggressive recruiting, have contributed to a 10 percent jump — to 90 percent — in new recruits scoring in the top half on an aptitude test given to everyone seeking to enter military service, Stewart said.

Recruiting is “going so well it’s scary,” said Stewart, who took command of the Air Force Personnel Center on Aug. 6.

Interest in the Air Force has increased so dramatically that officials have put a cap on the number of applicants recruiters can send to the Military Entrance Processing stations. Without the cap, there would be more applicants waiting for jobs and for training than the Air Force could handle, said Chief Master Sgt. Thomas Nelligan, superintendent of operations for the Recruiting Service. The cap is 300 percent of a unit’s average goal, so a squadron with a monthly goal of 100 applicants can send only 300 for processing.

“The cut line has definitely moved up for who’s going to make it in the door,” Nelligan said. “We’re not turning people away. We won’t tell somebody who meets Air Force requirements they can’t join the Air Force. We will tell them, based on their scores they’re not very competitive and we can give them advice on how to be more competitive. ...

“Our problem isn’t finding enough people who are interested or qualified.”

Almost all of this year’s new recruits — 99.8 percent — are high school graduates, and about 17 percent have at least a year of college. Another 3 percent have earned a bachelor’s degree. Stewart said recruits who have at least graduated from high school are more likely to complete basic military training and their first enlistments.

Defense Department rules require at least 60 percent of new recruits to score in Categories I through IIIa of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery — meaning at the midpoint or better than all test-takers. In recent years, 77 percent to 80 percent of Air Force recruits met that mark, Stewart said. That rate jumped to 90 percent this year and to 98 percent for the 7,000 recruits waiting to enter the Air Force in 2011.

The Air Force has met its recruiting goals this year, but balancing those goals with the service’s drawdown of nearly 6,000 active-duty airmen over the next two years has required adjustments.

In March, the Air Force reduced its recruiting goal by more than 2,300, to 29,164. Similar reductions likely will be made for fiscal 2011 because retention is at a 15-year high, Stewart said.

Cutting back on recruiting isn’t the only answer to getting the Air Force down to its authorized end strength of 332,200.

“Force management and recruiting are related, but they’re not the same,” Stewart said. “You can’t replace a 10-year tech. sergeant with a new airman.”