The best wartime recruiting scheme is imo to approach proved NCOs who showed the necessary potential.

The best peacetime recruiting scheme is imo still to be attractive for a far too large quantity of applicants and then be able to pick the most promising ones in an assessment centre approach (btw, the latter was pioneered by the Prussian army pre-WWI).


The situation as of now seems to be that
* we apply peacetime mechanisms because we're 'not enough' at war for a real wartime mode
and
* we fail to attract enough applicants for a well-done peacetime mechanism.

This "we" means "just about every country on earth".



IIRC even wartime officer courses of the Wehrmacht (can't vouch for this) required to dismiss 40% of those who attended the course back to their NCO life.