You could argue that it is undesirable to have a prior as a commissioned officer. I do have alot of military and leadership experience to bring to the table; however, I've never been on a ship. I'm a Corpsman that has been with Marine units and in hospital settings. As far as shipboard knowledge and SWO duties, I'm right in line with any other civilian.
Super insightful! I've heard SWO has trouble retaining people, so that makes sense now. I just figured the Navy would have to spend less resources "training" a prior than a civilian. Do you know if there are many SWO females? There seem to be a few applying on this forum, but my OR didn't seem to have many around when he was AD SWO.
No not really because we all go through the same training pipeline (OCS, DIVO, etc.) The only real benefit for military taking priors is the experience they can bring to the table. I actually have NO idea about female SWO's.
No it's not uncommon. There are two reasons for the difference in competency levels of a Command Career Counselor (neither of which is their fault). 1) Smaller commands (like mine) means less applicants which means the CCC has never had to submit a package before. I am the only one at my command that has submitted an officer package. 2) CCC's at a smaller command usually have that assigned as a collateral duty which means that is just an extra duty in addition to their primary job. My CCC is SUPER busy all the time. When I was stationed at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton, we had two CCC's that only did that as their job. Plus there were multiple Sailors a year submitting packages.
Oh, really? Even better. I guess I just assumed they did the majority of the work. I remember my buddy's package had his CCC's signature on every page verifying them as original documents. I guess that's the extent of their involvement. Either way, it seems like a larger command has some better resources for putting a package together.
Yeah so I guess getting a prior isn't so bad for the Navy. I mean....they know they have me for at least 10.
Yeah I could definitely see how the focus is on enlisted retention. I mean....there are countless programs out there which can be considered a retention tool. Career development boards, mentorship programs, incentives (GI Bill transferability guidelines, reenlistment bonus, etc.). I believe my buddy had to go through the XO to schedule his interviews. It was at a large naval hospital and he was going for MECP so it worked out in his favor. He had 4 or 5 RN board members in one interview. I had to search everywhere for my interviewers and ended up getting in my dress whites for 4 separate interviews. Pain in the ass. But I would have to think that X number of enlisted Sailors being accepted into a commissioning program looks good on a CO's evaluation. At the VERY least it looks great for the Senior Enlisted Advisor.
you would think, but nope, all about completing the mission and retention, well and not getting fired.....
Seems like that last one has been particularly challenging recently. CO's gone wild, man.
