Army RCB briefing

Has anyone been to the RCB briefing? Have you got any tips as i'm trying to prepare an icebreaker and am not sure what to expect?!!
Cheers

Reply 1

CW Esq

I am in the same boat as you old chap. October the 3rd is when I have mine. From what a few fellows have told me, you need to be confident without being cocky, not take your self too seriously and be talkative. "Apparently" it is rather easy, though I am not sure. What date is yours, and are you from Clifton by any chance?

Reply 2

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

Have either of you found the forums on www.arrse.co.uk ? Look at the Officers forum and you will find at least one thread giving advice on RCB etc. Also a lot of other information/opinion that you should probably take with a large pinch of salt, it's a rather outspoken website. Nevertheless, there does seem to be an amount of useful info on it.

Reply 3

CW Esq

Yes, funny website. I remember seeing pictures of a women in red latex with a rifle and gas mask; highly disturbing stuff.

Reply 4

Steve Stifler

Don't forget to pack your sense of humour guys :biggrin:

Reply 5

Unregistered

I passed my RCB Briefing in August last year with a Category 1; feel free to PM with any queries, and best of luck.

Reply 6

ChrisBristol

CW Esq

I used to be at the Univeristy of Bristol, but I am now at home, so I really should change my name! I have my briefing on the 30/31st August.

Reply 7

CW Esq

Soon then. Good luck.

Reply 8

supasonic1987

The key to the icebreakers is to be natural. By all means, bullet point a few key ideas beforehand such as your hobbies and interests but don't memorise a set speech. Keep it light hearted and friendly, after all they are assessing your confidence and character, not how well you can memorise your CV. Oh yeah, and don't waste time saying 'um' and er'.

Good luck

Reply 9

Ed~D

As far as I can remember from my briefing there is a card left on your bed with details of what to include in your introduction (family, where you come from, interests etc). I practised the day before just standing up and trying to talk for 3minutes about myself without drying up. This definitely helps. I got the impression from talking to other people after their final interview (where you get your cat) that the main reasons for getting cat 2s was a lack of confidence and not contributing in the group discussions. By the way I found the briefing much more hectic than actual RCB where you're free from 1630ish onwards. Anyway good luck and enjoy your time at Westbury.

Reply 10

CW Esq

The thing I am worried about is the planning exercise and the leaderless task.

Reply 11

Ed~D

CW Esq

The thing I am worried about is the planning exercise and the leaderless task.

There's no point in denying it; the planning exercise is a tortureous experience. However the briefing one is alot simpler than the one you get at RCB and no one tends to stand out as you are all made idiots of. Mine was "dissappointing" mainly due to messing up a calculation. I would definitely recommend doing any practise exercises you can get hold of (there's at least one on the RCB website). I didn't and regretted it afterwards. I think we had 45mins to come up with a plan at the briefing.

The leaderless tasks (I did 2 at briefing) were surprisingly enjoyable. I managed to get a good mention for volunteering to be timekeeper (always an easy way to get credit... I used it again at RCB). The trick seems to be able to put forward any ideas you have got but not talking just for the sake of it. Unless things have changed the tasks are one of the last things you do, so it really helps if you have got to know everyone well in your group. It is much easier to get a friend to listen to you than a stranger. On a similar note my group decided what topics we would bring up in the discussion beforehand. Someone at my main board started talking about Mauist Insserectionism in Nepal and was none too popular with his group as a result.