2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

Duties and Functions of a Recruiting Command Psychologist
LTC Stephen V. Bowles
U.S.Army Recruiting Center One
This paper discusses the duties and functions of the US Army Recruiting Command
(USAREC) Psychologist position that has applications to other national and international
recruiting psychologist positions, as well as other organizational psychologist positions.
This position serves as advisor to the USAREC Commanding General and senior
leadership on all areas of psychological issues, programs, projects, and initiatives in the
Command. The person in this position serves as liaison to the office of the Army Surgeon
General Psychology Consultant, Department of Defense, and civilian agencies regarding
psychological aspects of Soldiers in recruiting. This position oversees relevant screening
and selection projects for recruiting command and trains recruiters and leaders on
leadership, team building, and psychological principles at recruiting school and in the
field. This position also provides consultation on Soldiers’ and family members’ wellbeing
and command climate, and conducts research in recruiting and relevant areas to
enhance the screening, training, well-being, and performance of recruiters and leadership.
This position serves as a force multiplier to identify the best personnel to recruit and lead
while providing sustainment training.
The Command Psychologist serves as one of the members of the USAREC Commanding
General staff. In addition, the Command Psychologist serves as an advisor to all senior
leadership, on all areas of psychological issues, programs, projects, and initiatives in this
Command as well as other major Army Commands and Department of Defense agencies.
The person in this position serves as liaison to the Office of The Army Surgeon General
Psychology Consultant and interfaces with other military psychologists on recruiter
operational training and psychological research for Soldiers and leadership in recruiting.
The role of the Command Psychologist is to serve as the command advisor for screening,
assessment, well-being, and enhanced performance training. These programs will be
described over the course of this paper.
Recruiter and Leader Screening
The objective of the screening program is to develop research based programs to identify
the best personnel in the Army for recruiting and leadership. Past research that has been
overseen by the Command Psychologist in this area was a concurrent validation project
in the development of a recruiter screening test. Currently an ongoing predictive
validation study is being conducted. Most recently under the guidance of the Command
Psychologist, an Army Model web-based test program has been developed to screen all
soldiers on recruiting orders for recruiting. In this capacity, the Command Psychologist
served as the program manager directing Army staff from agencies in charge of
personnel, human resources, research, software development, and testing facilities. This
program has recommended a screening process that is currently under examination while
the testing process has been operationalized in Army facilities worldwide. The test will
undergo further research and development in the web-based phase for a couple more
years as the test data refines the scoring algorithm. The test will also be placed into a new
host testing system this year as the Army improves through continued advanced
205
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003