As part of the Israel Defense Forces' ongoing efforts to assess recruits' potential more accurately and assign them to the most advantageous positions, the Personnel Directorate has launched efforts to identify potential company commanders in the early stages of the recruitment process, Israel Hayom has learned.
The criteria for the new initiative will use the existing profile for company commanders. A Personnel Directorate team studied the current criteria for company commanders to pick out the characteristics that could be spotted among the newest inductees.
The criteria include the elements that make up a recruit's overall assessment score, which is calculated by level of education, a series of IQ tests, a personal interview and a medical profile as well as additional information gleaned from the recruit's first days of army service. The assessment includes recruits' social skills in basic training and the recommendations of recruits' commanding officers.
The Future Company Commanders project will scrutinize all this feedback to pick out recruits with the potential to go on to leadership positions, whom the IDF will label "stars."
Less quantifiable qualities that will be included in the review are good interpersonal interaction, motivation, mental strength, maturity, the ability to fit in and leadership skills.
The IDF says that at the end of the first stage of basic training, commanders will inform "star" soldiers that they have been flagged as potential commanders. The project aims to increase commanders' awareness of recruits' potential and encourage them to send their subordinates to officers' training courses.
Not every recruit who meets the program's criteria is expected to go on to become a company commander, and soldiers who aren't flagged as "stars" in basic training can still become officers and climb the ranks.
Meanwhile, data gathering is taking an increasingly central role in assigning new recruits to positions in the IDF. Last week, Israel Hayom reported that the army was using data to refine the assignments for recruits who will be joining the military this August (one of the two major drafts held each year). Some 700 recruits have been reassigned to combat units based on criteria identified as common denominators of soldiers serving in each of the IDF Corps.
