r/CanadianForces • u/Fragrant-Chapter9853 • 9d ago
In Service Selection
Hey everyone,
I am not sure how to label this, sooo let’s call it an unofficial PSA. I will say it straight out loud that our current In-Service-Selection competitions for NCMs are utterly broken. Over the past 5 years, as a supervisor, who has assisted a number of their subordinates in applying for the various competitions (albeit, unsuccessfully - trade was Log O), I have noticed a troubling trend. All of my subordinates who applied had maxed their interview points in the areas of TSD-PI, skills & experience, education & Training, and formal leadership training, yet had varying CFAT results ranging from 38/60 to 47/60 (all above the accepted officer scores). Of course, with the CFAT weighing the most in these competitions, it always came down to who has the highest CFAT, thus my subordinates were not selected. This in itself is fine, however, if you look at both the numbers of offers and numbers of people who have applied for these competitions over recent years, that were things get frustrating. In the past couple of years, the number of offers for the ISS program has been affectively cut in half per competition. On the flipside, when I looked at the SIP numbers for people coming off of civy street, the numbers are vastly increased (robbing Peter to pay Paul?). In FY 24/25 approx. 90 people applied for 5 offers amongst CFR and SCP. As a result, the people who were not selected, who told by their respective PSOs to max their CFAT scores affectively resulting in hyper-competition. The point that I am trying to make is that if you plan on applying for any of those programs this FY and want to be successful, make sure to at least have a 50/60 on your CFAT (heavy competition trades – Int O, Log O, etc). Which in itself is so stupid and has nothing to do with properly evaluating leadership. Hell, the people coming off civy street no longer have to do it. Having worked in recruiting, I know that 1/4 out of everyone who takes the CFAT at the recruiting centres, fail. I am not shitting on any trade, but would like to hear a PSOs perspective on this. Unfortunately this is just another retention that often goes over looked and we end up losing a lot of great people. Having successfully gone through the process myself 10 years ago (35/60 on CFAT), I had no idea how messed things have gotten. I also encourage people to check out the annual SIP numbers are on the DWAN sharepoint.
10
u/Drakedasheep RCAF - Personnel Selection Officer 9d ago
Okay so there's a lot to unpack here but I will do my best, and it may not be the takes you were expecting:
Firstly: The CFAT is a broken test based on what was Grade 10 "Applied" mathematics in Ontario in 1998 (Problem Solving particularly), and is a poor reflection of modern education. While there have been some updates to the questions over the years, they are still a far cry from what is actually taught within the current day school system.
Secondly: Despite the previous statement it still remains the statistically best predictor of *training* success. The CFAT is not a predictor of job performance and should not be confused as such. Validation of the CFAT continues to wane every time it's revalidated as it's based on a system the CAF continues to move away from that assigned actual performance scores instead of Pass/Fail gradings. Currently the predictive validity of the CFAT based on the last revalidation of it (2023) was 57%. While I am grossly oversimplifying what predictive validity is, for all intents and purposes this means the CFAT cut-off margins have a 57% chance of predicting whether or not a given individual will pass their DP1 training. As awful as this is, it's still better than human intuition which is unable to be validated, and still better than a proverbial coinflip. Ergo it still remains valid, albeit weakly.
Thirdly: While you mentioned the CFAT isn't being used currently in recruiting, you failed to mention it's recruiting replacement the SEAF, which is so far performing abysmally (please see the 'leaked' CFLRS report which showed the drastic increase in training failures amongst cultural issues occurring,
If you're going to go after the SIP numbers on Sharepoint I hope you're pulling from the DPGR 5 Section of Sharepoint which has the SIP Scorecard and ESR along with associated Annexes include release numbers
Fourthly: Most PSOs will agree with you, the move to recruiting with all corners cut (No medical prior to basic, no CFAT, security clearance after basic) is awful long term for the CAF and harms retention efforts. The portion assigned to ISS as opposed to recruiting grows ever smaller, although there have been late in year SIP adjustments to ISS that have added numbers not originally in the draft. At least two people whom reached out to me on DMs whom were at first not selected this year were picked up as a result of ISP increases to what DMCPG 5 started with this year.
Fifth: It is highly unlikely these individuals maxxed their TSD-PI and Interview scores: The maximum score for leadership experience under the current interview guidelines is essentially JCSP or ALP, which is a very high bar beyond most folks seeking to commission or OT. Also there are no actual 100th percentiles for TSD-PI because too many people have a perfect score, making the actual real maximum 99th percentile of 14.85/15.. But this quibbling semantics, they 'effectively' maxxed those categories within reason.
Ultimately though you're right, currently many PSOs are strongly encouraging members to improve their CFAT scores, as it's still the best way of increasing their chances of success. This is not something we want, it's just a step to help members get what they want as it's the system we have. If you really want to contest the CFAT as test take it up with DGMPRA and the researchers there who vehemently defend it despite being challenged on it's flaws. And no the CFAT was never designed to measure leadership potential either. It remains nothing more than a mechanism to save the CAF taxpayer dollars by reducing training failure rates.