Australian Defence Force recruiting systems need to be overhauled if the ADF is to sustain and increase its size in the coming years. The ADF also needs to make changes to entry standards so it can take maximum advantage of the pool of applicants.

In early 2024, the ADF was around 4300 people below its authorised strength of 62,700 permanent members. This makes the 2040 target of 80,000 permanent personnel look increasingly difficult to achieve.

While the challenges of recruiting are usually framed in the context of competition with other industries—with the low unemployment rate cited as evidence of labour market tightness—other factors are at play. It is commonly argued that pay and conditions for ADF members need to rise to attract and retain personnel. However, they are already relatively generous: Australia’s median full-time pay is about $88,500 a year. The starting pay of a sergeant or fully qualified officer is higher. A private reaching pay grade 5 will also earn more than the national median. Further increases to pay grades are likely to have diminishing returns.

In 2024, 64,000 people applied to join the ADF. The average time it took to complete a recruitment process was 300 days. These are both surprising figures, in different ways. On one hand, taking just a fraction more of those applicants in a year would bring the ADF up to its authorised strength. On the other hand, the recruitment period shows just how cumbersome and inefficient the recruitment process currently is.

While spending 300 days to decide whether to recruit someone might not have mattered as much in the relatively peaceful era straight after the Cold War, it is unacceptable when geopolitical tensions are increasing and we need expand the ADF quickly. Also, according to both human resources theory and plentiful anecdotal evidence, many of the ADF’s best applicants probably have other job opportunities. The longer the ADF takes to finish the recruitment process, the more likely a high-performing candidate will be frustrated by the bureaucratic delays and go elsewhere.

For those keeping score, some of those 64,000 applicants were successfully recruited and some withdrew their applications partway through. The rest would have been deemed unsuitable and had their application rejected. But could none of those applicants have been able to safely and competently do any of the 4,300 positions that remain unfilled in the ADF? Almost certainly not.

This is where the ADF needs to change its attitude towards recruitment standards: it needs to become less choosy. It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth that many Australian servicepeople who fought and died in World War I and World War II would have been rejected by today’s ADF. At the height of World War II, around one in eight Australians was deemed suitable to serve.

Defence needs to take a less risk-averse attitude towards health issues. There are many stories of potential ADF recruits being rejected for minor or historical physical and mental health reasons. ADF attitudes towards mental health are particularly outdated. Mental health issues are now better recognised and understood by health professionals and the public, increasing diagnosis rates. Despite improvements in the treatment and management of mental conditions, the ADF’s overly conservative attitude towards mental illness is excluding an increasingly large demographic from the recruiting pool. Recruiting from that pool will require improved mental health support both during service and after discharge.

The ADF will have to make changes to improve its recruitment process, starting with greater resource allocation to increase recruiting capacity. Identifying and prioritising high-performing applicants early would further optimise the recruitment process and increase Defence’s chances of securing these candidates. The ADF should also streamline bureaucracy where possible, particularly around document provision and follow-up medical examinations. Managing the contract with Defence’s recruiting service provider, Adecco, will further improve performance.

Defence would benefit from updated recruiting standards around minor or historical health issues. It should adopt a less risk-averse approach centred on an applicant’s ability to do their job at the time of recruitment. In the longer term, Defence should conduct a review into its recruitment processes with the aim of designing a recruiting system that can deliver the personnel needed for the ADF’s future.

Despite perceptions, there is a large pool of applicants who want to join the ADF. With appropriate changes to recruiting systems and standards, that pool should be able to fill the ADF’s expanding requirements. This will help the ADF meet its target of 80,000 permanent personnel by 2040.