Link to recruiting success
A range of roles are ensuring the ongoing success of Army’s recruiting efforts.
CAPTION: Australian Army officer Captain Jake Rudge is the Staff Officer Recruiting Attraction – Army within Defence Force Recruiting. Story by Major Tim Sydenham.
One of these roles is the Staff Officer Recruiting Attraction – Army (SORA-A) within Defence Force Recruiting.
Captain Jake Rudge has been the Army SORA since 2021 and while his background is infantry, his current role focuses on marketing campaigns and advertisement initiatives.
Having joined Defence in 2012, Captain Rudge has committed time to 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, 8th/9th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment and Headquarters Joint Operations Command.
He says his current role is not the normal posting for a staff officer, however.
“The SORA is immersed in a marketing and advertisement world, which for me was quite big leap having no background knowledge in this space and having come from postings that were primarily tactical in nature,” Captain Rudge said.
“Employed within a triservice environment, the SORA will work side-by-side with a civilian marketing team and consult with a creative marketing agency and Army Headquarters to bring to fruition marketing attraction initiatives designed to create awareness to the Australian population of the plethora of roles within the ADF.”
Each day in the role can vary greatly, with tasks that provide support to both Army and other services, being a triservice environment, including the recent Air Force Brand Campaign.
At any time, the SORA can be working to coordinate a range of tasks between civilian teams, Army Headquarters and internally to Defence Force Recruiting.
The main aim is to ensure the accuracy of information utilised by Defence Force Recruiting, requiring close work with the service headquarters.
“During my time I have been able to work on social media projects, the Australian Defence Force Academy campaign, the interactive battlespace toolkit and other testimonials and material including the Army Indigenous development program and the Army pre-conditioning program,” said Captain Rudge.
“One project that stands out for me is the interactive battlespace augmented reality (AR) platform. This was essentially working with an augmented reality agency to develop an app that a user could operate from a personal device.”
The augmented reality app is accessed via a QR code from the ADF Careers website or at events and users can be immersed in to a tactical kinetic scenario that employs combined armed tactics.
“The best part of the job, however, would have to be being on the film set,” he said.
“Seeing how an advertisement comes to life and the complexities surrounding it is a very exclusive experience and this comes with a lot of domestic travel to support the production.”
The role of the SORA comes with an enormous amount of responsibility and trust.
The SORA is required to manage multiple projects while also committing to daily tasks.
It is vital in ensuring that Defence Force Recruiting continually generate new and unique campaigns in support of Army recruiting efforts to highlight the ADF as an employer of choice.
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