Application | Aviture | Air Force | News | Technology
Aviture is excited to announce the release of the brand-new Aim High Air Force recruiting app! The app is a “sister app” to AirForce.com designed to draw in non-traditional recruits while expanding non-traditional networking around candidates and recruits. The Aim High app opens communication channels using rich “social-like” content to communicate with families and friends of recruits in ways that create a positive network, leading to recruiting success and career retention.
The app is a unique solution to a unique problem in the current recruiting world. More than 50% of 17 to 21-year-olds in the U.S. do not have a parent or relative who was in the military, making their knowledge of the military and its offerings limited. Currently there are 20 million, 17 to 21-year-olds in the U.S.; however, only 4.4 million are eligible to join the military, and only 465,000 are propensed to join the military. Once a potential recruit is older than 39-years-old and if he/she doesn't have any record of prior service, they are no longer eligible for recruitment. The Aim High App exists to extend the Air Force’s ability to inspire and engage, while effectively educating and exciting to increase the propensity to join.
Innovating a Process
Leveraging Aviture’s user experience (UX) team of engineers and proven design theory processes, along with the oversight and contributions of tech lead Michael Bosetti, the Aim High app is able to apply an innovative approach to engage potential recruits along with their friends and family. Aviture’s approach was to include the information traditional recruiting supplied but center this information on the potential recruit’s interest in jobs available, the job requirements, and what their aptitude test may suggest as a "most likely" job area.
The Aim High app was developed with an easy to navigate user interface that isn’t intimidating to use. The app drives interaction by allowing recruiters to identify key candidates and nominate public recruiters: people who are adept or have networks that seem to be the type of candidate lists from which recruits are likely to be found.
An unconventional approach that was taken into the recruiting process was adding games and gameplay to the Aim High app. These games allow recruits to gain interest in the AirForce.com site material, spread the network out further, recommend others to join the network of Aim High users, and develop positive impressions of the Air Force within new communities.
Cloud Nine? Cloud One is Better
On the back-end of development, one of the biggest hurdles and successes during the development of the Aim High app came from searching for a cloud provider. The success came from choosing Cloud One, an Air Force cloud offering platform. Cloud One provided an established process and the proper security level required to develop the app and receive an authority to operate (ATO). ATO is a designation stating that an application is secure and won’t be susceptible to cyberattacks. Having an ATO environment was imperative as the Aim High app is public facing, and keeping public user accounts and information safe is a number one priority. As Kimo Scott, the senior architect on the project said, “We are more commercial than government because our customers are civilians.”
What made the development especially unique is out of all of Cloud One’s other clients, the team on the Aim High app was the first client who was serverless through AWS-Lambda and one of the first government applications to include civilian access to this kind of data. In response to the innovative process, Cloud One said:
“[The] Aim High App was a significant milestone for Cloud One. Not only was it the first mobile application in Cloud One, it was also the 50th application deployed for our program. Collaborating with Aviture, AFRS, and the AETC teams to attack this new and unique set of requirements was a fantastic opportunity for Cloud One to push the technical boundaries, and arrive at a product that will help to grow the future of the Air Force.”
Scott added to the statement saying, “this is new territory for a lot of the government solutions for the cloud ... We're helping Cloud One expand their offering to other systems that require the type of environments Cloud One offers."
Big Outcomes, Promising Future
The Aim High app drove users to request more access to content and added visualization, all beyond the sponsorship vision. The team was successful in breaking the glass, leading the process and obtaining an ATO within 15 months. The Aim High app is now encouraging other Air Force innovators to step forward and ask if they can contribute ideas, furthering the future success of the platform.
For more information about the Aim High app, be sure to visit the landing page.
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Innovation built on intent and powered by collaboration can take us beyond any obstacle.
To get in touch with us about launching your next revolutionary tech adventure, contact Steve Miller today at steve.miller@aviture.us.com.
