Coping with recruiter stress: Hardiness, performance and well-being in US Army recruiters

ABSTRACT

Recruiting for military service can be a highly stressful job, but it is one that is essential for success in the all-volunteer force. Military recruiters face a number of job stressors, including pressure to meet monthly production quotas, long work hours and time away from family. They also work in relative isolation, with limited work social support networks. These factors make recruiters vulnerable to burnout and early attrition. The present study examines psychological hardiness and active, problem focused coping as potential stress resilience resources in US Army recruiters. In a stratified random sample of N = 817 recruiters, hardiness was found to predict supervisor-rated performance and psychological well-being. Hardiness also interacted with problem focused coping to predict psychological well-being, suggesting a mediating role for coping. These results can be applied to help improve policy for selecting and training military recruiters.

KEYWORDS:

• Recruiters
• stress
• hardiness
• coping
• well-being
• performance

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Samuel L. Swisher and Frances P. Cooke for their assistance on earlier stages of this project. We also wish to thank the Action Editor and two anonymous reviewers for their many helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.