History Main / LoweredRecruitingStandards

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* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': Theodore Kurita convinced his father to form a military unit made not of samurai elites, but of Undesirables like the {{yakuza}}. This ArmyOfThievesAndWhores actually turned out to be extremely effective. Training standards were not lowered for them and the honor they were accorded by being made soldiers filled them with motivation and pride, and they fought with distinction in the War of 39, the Ronin War, and the Clan Invasion.

* In ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex 2nd Gig'' Batou considers lowering Section 9's recruitment standards when it looks like they might be drastically outnumbered.

** Traditionally the Roman Armyhad included non-citizens and foreigners for various auxiliary roles that were either distributed among Roman units so that [[GoingNative they would be slowly culturally assimilated]] or kept in their own tribal units as ''foederati''. In the fifth century, however, the Western Roman Army suffered heavy losses in various external and civil wars, forcing the Western Empire to rely on the ''foederati'' as their entire army. It was these troops that in 476 AD mutinied over a lack of promised pay and deposed the last Emperor of the West.

* In [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13558817/3/Il-Logical-Conclusions Chapter 3]] of ''Fanfic/IlLogicalConclusions,'' Brienne of Tarth finds herself leading a [[PraetorianGuard Kingsguard]] with drastically reduced standards of skill, experience or even basic competence. Since all the greatest heroes of the land are either dead or retired, there aren't many legendary candidates available, and since the greatly reduced powers of the Crown mean that Brienne doesn't have the authority to demand able men from the Lords, she's reduced to populating the once-mighty Kingsguard with a procession of wide-eyed young men with no training in the dim hope that she can build them up into suitability.

As anyone in, well any Armed Forces can tell you, this is certainly TruthInTelevision, as seen with BoxedCrook (when criminals are hired, often forcibly), ChildSoldier (when recruits are taken younger) and OldSoldier (when older appliants are considered).

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' does it, when they go ''[[HeroesUnlimited Unlimited]]'', resulting in the recruitment of oddballs who have to be expelled later, like the Huntress. There are several members that outright wonder how ComicBook/TheQuestion got in. Given that this did happen in the wake of the Thanagarian Invasion, that saw the original members on the backfoot for most of the hostilities, it seems to be have been done to shore up numbers to prevent something similar from happening again. Superman also mentions that it's intended as a way for the various superheroes and vigilantes to coordinate with each other for the greater good. It should also be mentioned that quite a few of the oddballs are actually pretty good at hero work (Batman feels that Question is a better detective than himself) so the lowered standards can be countered by someone being a BunnyEarsLawyer so long as they're efficient and don't go against League standards.

** Thoroughly subverted for the SpaceMarines: their recruitment standards are so stringent they consider four possible candidates from a ''single planet'' to be an exceptionally good run. Of course, they have to be, as many won't even survive the horrific surgeries required to turn them into Astartes.

* Harry Dresden, title character of ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' is recruited into the [[spoiler:[[StateSec Wardens]] and made regional commander for the central United States]] due to their shorthandedness during the vampire war.

* This is what finished off the Western Roman Empire: traditionally [[TheGloryThatWasRome the Roman Army]] had included non-citizens and foreigners for various auxiliary roles and in the Late Empire they were either distributed among Roman units so that [[GoingNative they would be slowly culturally assimilated]] or kept in their own units as ''foederati'', but after the heavy losses suffered in various external and civil wars in the fifth century the Western Emperors were forced to rely on the ''foederati'' as their entire army, eventually resulting in these troops deposing the last emperor and taking over what remained of the empire.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' does it, when they go ''[[HeroesUnlimited Unlimited]]'', resulting in the recruitment of oddballs who have to be expelled later, like the Huntress. There are several members that outright wonder how ComicBook/TheQuestion got in.

* In [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13558817/3/Il-Logical-Conclusions Chapter 3]] of ''Fanfic/IlLogicalConclusions,'' Brienne of Tarth finds herself leading a [[PretorianGuard Kingsguard]] with drastically reduced standards of skill, experience or even basic competence. Since all the greatest heroes of the land are either dead or retired, there aren't many legendary candidates available, and since the greatly reduced powers of the Crown mean that Brienne doesn't have the authority to demand able men from the Lords, she's reduced to populating the once-mighty Kingsguard with a procession of wide-eyed young men with no training in the dim hope that she can build them up into suitability.

* PlayedForDrama in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheTwoTowers''. Due to the approaching Uruk-hai army being several times larger than anticipated, Theoden's army is forced to start conscripting old men and children (some looking to be as young as 10) to bolster their numbers.

As anyone in, well any Armed Forces can tell you, this is certainly TruthInTelevision, as seen with BoxedCrook (when criminals are hired, often forcibely), ChildSoldier (when recruits are taken younger) and OldSoldier (when older appliants are considered).

* Going by the backstories of the XCOM soldiers from ''VideoGame/{{XCOM2}}'', this clearly happened between ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' where soldiers recruited by the titular Extraterrestrial Combat Unit actually were trained soldiers fighting an AlienInvasion, while in the later game XCOM is basically LaResistance against a VichyEarth and the requirements to qualify for XCOM duty are "Do you hate the alien overlords?" and "can you hold a rifle somewhat straight?".

* In ''Film/TheBourneLegacy'', a character reveals that his IQ score was raised 12 points by a recruiter so the recruiter could make his quota.

* In Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' series, Sam Yeager is a player for a Triple-I League Baseball team. During the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI Great War]], he tried to join the Army but was rejected on the basis of having lost all his teeth during UsefulNotes/TheSpanishFlu. After the [[TheReptilians Race]] attacks the US (and many other nations), the Army quickly lowers its standards and starts accepting anyone who's willing to fight. Sam and his manager "Mutt" Daniels (who would normally be too old to fight) join up.

** An interesting take on this is when the US military started mass recruitment during [=WW1=], they discovered a large percentage were below acceptable standards on UsefulNotes/IQTesting. This forced the authorities to confront the fact that the IQ test itself was skewed by education and cultural bias.

** In the meantime, general Cadorna of the [[UsefulNotes/NewROmanLegions Italian army]] worked around that, as he'd raise troops from the youths a year before their majority, when they were supposed to be conscripted even during peacetime, to have the time to train them up to standards that were actually being ''increased'' due combat experience. This ended up being more useful than anticipated after the debacle at Caporetto, as the new troops sent to the frontline to replace the losses were already trained and skilled, if unexperienced.

* UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn invoked this during the Soviet-German War. Entire categories of people who had been barred from combat-roles (socialist- and liberal-sympathisers, central Asians, petty criminals), or from military service (women) were suddenly conscripted, trained, and pressed into logistics and frontline roles. Upon the war's outbreak the UsefulNotes/RedArmy had been entirely male, mostly Russian, and quite strictly Communist. Upon its end the Army was only 9/10 male, less than half-Russian, and embraced all flavours of the left-wing rainbow. This couldn't last, however, with the women and less orthodox members being quietly removed in post-war years.

* Allegations of this phenomenon occuring in education have been levied with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_down dumbing down]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation grade inflation]].
* Happens during economic bubbles: the prices of an asset such as real estate or shares rise because there's the expectation there will be buyers, thanks to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory Greater fool theory]], meaning that moneylenders think they can afford to be less selective towards prospective buyers, since they could seize something whose value actually rose if the borrowers defaulted. Moreover, sellers will be more and more agressive in their search for buyers. So, the chain will go from good risks with good prospective of payment and go down until going to those whose financial state will be way less good.
** This is how went the 2000s real estate bubble: first, banks started by lending to good risks, or ''prime'', with regular and high incomes then they went to loan to ''subprime'' cases with less favourable finances (see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_income,_no_asset NINA]] and even [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_income,_no_asset#No_income,_no_job,_no_assets_(%22NINJA%22) NINJA]]).
** It is the origin of the anecdocte of Joseph Kennedy deciding to sell his shares after he heard his shoe shine boy speaking about investing in Wall Street: it meant that it will be, in the future, no much to buy his assets and that he would be better off selling them ''now''.
* This has happened in just about every professional sports league in times where they expanded the number of teams. As the league needed more players to fill out rosters, athletes who were previously considered not good enough to make the ranks were suddenly accepted.

This trope is specific to when an organization changes to rules to allow more people to join, as opposed to situations for the elite organization making a special exception for an especially talented individual who otherwise wouldn't have been able to join.

An organization that has always had strict standards about who is allowed in their ranks has suddenly decided become more lenient about who it recruits.

* In ''VideoGame/Portal2'', the player gets to see Aperture Science at three times. The first time, all "test subjects" are olympians, war heroes, etc. The second time, since Aperture almost ran out of money, they are replaced by vagrants offered $60 for questionably safe experiments.