I think you are on about FOA (ATC) known within military ATC as Fast Trackers. A few years ago it was realised that there was an optimum age to train Controllers. A lot of people had passed the aptitude tests and then waited until their appraisals were good enough to be selected to progress to the Controllers course. Inevitably there were some people who through the vagaries of service culture would never get selected for Controller training or if they did would be a the top end of the age range. The answer that was put forward was to recruit people off the street, who at the end of their training would be Sergeants but this was not acceptable within the structure of the RAF ground trades. The next solution was to recruit people who would be aptitude tested, trained as an Assistant and then employed directly in in an ATC role. After a few years, if they had progressed satisfactorily they would then be Fast Tracked to the Controllers Course jumping a rank in the process. I don't know this system is producing the goods, and whether or not the people staffing the Careers Information Offices actually understand the differences between the FOA and FOA (ATC)