The Australian Defence Force has launched a new recruitment campaign designed to remedy the tech skills shortage in the services by enlisting a specialist firm to find new apprentices and qualified personnel.
Based on figures released in October, Brigadier Simon Gould, Director General of Defence Force Recruiting (DFR) described tech trade categories as "the most pressing challenge for the ADF", in a statement.
It was announced on Friday that recruitment firm Alliance People Solutions had secured a deal with DFR to implement the scheme, which the department hopes will have attracted 100 new apprentices by the end of this financial year.
"We're trying to target a whole scheme towards the technical trade market," said Lieutenant Colonel John Fenwick, Deputy Director of Military Operations for Defence Recruiting.
On the IT front Fenwick told ZDNet Australia that DFR is looking to recruit apprentices and personnel for a number of positions across the services, particularly tech telecoms personnel for the Army, combat systems officers for the Navy, and electronics technicians for the Navy and Air Force.
Fenwick said: "It's fair to say that the Air Force is performing well at the moment, but recent changes to trades in the Army and Navy have led them to become far more specialised so there's greater demand [for tech recruits] in those two services, what we're trying to do is tailor a program to make them more attractive to people in technical areas."
While relatively few trades offered under the scheme are IT specific in title, Fenwick said: "Names don't always properly describe the amount of IT involved across a lot of these trades."
"Any trade described as avionics, electronics or even communications involves a lot of IT," he said.
DFR awarded a contract to Alliance to develop a national candidate testing and referral program as the first step in the initiative with the aim of sourcing potential recruits and referring them to the ADF.
Fenwick added that the scheme was not designed just to attract new apprentices but was "available to qualified people as well, we're specifically targeting members of professional organisations, university and TAFE graduates, perhaps some people who may not have considered a career in defence before."
DFR is hoping to extend its offer to 200 candidates per year from the 2008/09 financial year onwards.
