The British army is launching a new recruitment campaign aimed at attracting more ethnic minority and women soldiers, featuring online personality tests and a new TV and radio advertising campaign. This report from Rob Watson:

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Re-branded as one-army recruitment, the latest drive will, for the first time, combine recruiting to both the regular and territorial army. Efforts will also be made to attract more women and ethnic minorities by making recruitment, as one officer put it, more customer-focused.

Potential recruits will be encouraged to use an online tool to test their motivational profile and will be enticed by statistics claiming more than one thousand different jobs in the army across one hundred and forty different trades.

The army insists the drive is not a sign of desperation and that recruitment has been encouraging, with another increase in new soldiers last year, though overall, the armed forces remain undermanned.

Rob Watson, BBC News

Listen to the words

competitive jobs market
there are many good companies looking for good employees

bad publicity
news or information that gives a negative view of an organisation

sophisticated
skilful or clever

corporate
like a large company

Re-branded
given a new identity for publicity reasons

territorial army
in the UK, people who choose to be part-time members of the army as a hobby; a local reserve force for use in an emergency

ethnic minorities
people of a different race to the main group in a country

be enticed by
be persuaded by something

trades
professions, or types of job, that often require good manual skills, such as mechanics and builders

a sign of desperation
something which shows you are in a bad situation and will do anything to solve it

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