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Vet hiring and the civ/mil divide: in which nittany03 threadjacks a threadjack

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
1,000%: getting foot in the door is a real thing. Companies hate hiring. So much. It’s the worst part of every managers job for many reasons (people can fool you, they’re always at dynamic place in their lives, you always feel like a perfect fit is right around the corner, you’re worried about losing the headcount, it’s a massive, massive commitment every time in training, etc). But when you’re in—- promotions are not like the military. The company actually wants you to move up rapidly if you’re willing to make those trade offs. Faster the better. #1 talent pool is 0-2 years with the company: who are the horses? If the manager says there is a path with the role (ie it’s not “front desk”) you never ever turn that down at a great company.

My 2 cents only.
I would agree, once you are and they see you perform it makes it easier to move up. I like how you put people can fool you as I have seen that a few times, there has been a time or two where I was in the final interview and not picked, later to find out the person who was hired left after several months.

The one thing that always gets me is hiring managers that are looking for the perfect candidate, which is essentially the person that just left the job, HM's need to realize that trying to find a person that is exactly like the one that left isn't going to happen.
 
I would agree, once you are and they see you perform it makes it easier to move up. I like how you put people can fool you as I have seen that a few times, there has been a time or two where I was in the final interview and not picked, later to find out the person who was hired left after several months.

The one thing that always gets me is hiring managers that are looking for the perfect candidate, which is essentially the person that just left the job, HM's need to realize that trying to find a person that is exactly like the one that left isn't going to happen.
Right: but I’m totally guilty of this. The perfect hire is #1 fitrep-bullet-caliber and huge cred as it relates to C suite, for a middle manager. So it’s super tempting.
 

mmx1

Woof!
pilot
Contributor
I saw the FAANG in your post as I was about to ask if you were a Microsoft type. Never mind. :) I know their PMs are really Product Owners to the rest of the world, and I know MS DevDiv rolled their own Agile implementation based on three-week iterations.

Just curious, what was your undergrad degree before you got the MS? Trying to figure out what my next play is, but the MS in CS route always made me worry I'd get laughed out of the room without a BS in CS to bring to the table . . .

Math. I'd done some app dev (watched the Stanford online CS193P iPhone development classes that are top-notch) which helped with the application but only one or two CS classes. But once I got there I decided I wanted to start from advanced undergrad classes. So in reality it was a stealth CS undergrad education.

Having done a lot of recruiting now, MS is a good vehicle for career switching if you can pull together enough prep to get admitted. You can take a lot of the prereq's (e.g. data structures) online. Stanford has a pretty strong online professional class program (https://scpd.stanford.edu) A lot of the MS candidates I see used the MS to get more in depth in an area they were interested in. Several of my classmates were doing the MS to get into cybersecurity. ML is hot (and low on coding, to be honest), but you should make sure you'd be ok with lots of statistics. I spent my time in Systems and Security and it was a pretty solid prep for what I do now.
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
Right: but I’m totally guilty of this. The perfect hire is #1 fitrep-bullet-caliber and huge cred as it relates to C suite, for a middle manager. So it’s super tempting.

I have seen it myself, then seen those same highly qualified people leave after 6 months after being hired away, or in 1 case the person "quit" on the day they were supposed to start, after the company wide announcement was made letting everyone know the person was starting on Monday.
 

nick3893

New Member
As a current CS major at a decent college and a SNA wannabe, I'm curious if you guys think a MS in CS / something related would be necessary to get into the tech industry after the 10 year-ish commitment (looking far ahead, I know :p). By 10 years I think I'd be pretty far behind and need a refresher, but preferably I think I'd enjoy a manager type position than a software engineer.
 

mmx1

Woof!
pilot
Contributor
As a current CS major at a decent college and a SNA wannabe, I'm curious if you guys think a MS in CS / something related would be necessary to get into the tech industry after the 10 year-ish commitment (looking far ahead, I know :p). By 10 years I think I'd be pretty far behind and need a refresher, but preferably I think I'd enjoy a manager type position than a software engineer.

It's not necessary now, and who knows what the industry will be like in 10 years. Focus on the next step and let the rest take care of itself.

There are some gatekeepers you have to plan ahead for. E.g. a STEM degree for NPS or Astronaut Program. Your post-commitment plans will likely depend more on recently acquired skills than decade old certifications.
 

taxi1

Well-Known Member
pilot
Trying to figure out what my next play is, but the MS in CS route always made me worry I'd get laughed out of the room without a BS in CS to bring to the table . . .
The easy counter is your program required you to take a bunch a prereqs, since you came from a different major.

I have a lot of respect for someone who jumps ship to a whole 'nuther major for the MS. You get to cram the comp sci BS basic content in one semester, while bringing all of your outsider perspective from your own BS.

Right now I am advising a USAF pilot who is doing a distance learning MS in additive manufacturing, so you can do it while on active duty. Just need the internet and time management skills.
 

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
The easy counter is your program required you to take a bunch a prereqs, since you came from a different major.

I have a lot of respect for someone who jumps ship to a whole 'nuther major for the MS. You get to cram the comp sci BS basic content in one semester, while bringing all of your outsider perspective from your own BS.

Right now I am advising a USAF pilot who is doing a distance learning MS in additive manufacturing, so you can do it while on active duty. Just need the internet and time management skills.
Well I was in the inaugural class of IST, which of course is what the CS folks call "I Stopped Trying." :D I was an aerospace engineering refugee, though, not a CS one. My concern isn't knowing how to code; I've been doing that all my life. It's the DS&A stuff, and actually having to write scalable code, that worries me. I jumped off the CS train halfway through in my major, and onto the "project management, organizational structures, and leadership" train; I was an IT Integration focus.

Which, oddly enough, makes me one of those people actually using my major in the private sector.
 

SELRES_AMDO

Well-Known Member
Interesting experience from an interview that I just had.

The position was for a senior supervisory analyst position. The interview question asked me to explain my supervisory experience. Don't have any has a civilian. That's why I'm applying for this job. I told the interview panel that I served in the Navy as an Officer and supervised 40 people. I was a divo and dept. head. So obviously I wasn't new to being in a leadership position. This job was supervising 3 GS-13 analysts. Anyways, I didn't get the job. But, I did ask for feedback from the nice person that interviewed me.

One sticking point for the hiring panel was my lack of supervisory experience. I asked for more information and the person told me that "supervising people in the military isn't the same as civilian experience". Fair enough. Nothing I could do. Thanked the person for his time and went back to work.

The organization?

The U.S. Navy. More specifically, a command run by senior GS employees that were never in the military.

Hmmmmm. ?
 

RedFive

Well-Known Member
pilot
None
Contributor
You do know that a lot of times those GS jobs are trying to hire from within but are forced to interview X number of people before selecting someone, right? I wouldn't beat yourself up too much over that, lots of civilian companies love military supervisory experience -- look at Jack McCain, already in management at AA!
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
You do know that a lot of times those GS jobs are trying to hire from within but are forced to interview X number of people before selecting someone, right? I wouldn't beat yourself up too much over that, lots of civilian companies love military supervisory experience -- look at Jack McCain, already in management at AA!
If the agency ONLY wants to hire within then there are ways they can do it without having to worry about interviewing external candidates.

I don't know if I'd use Jack McCain as an "average" example. Whopper is a great guy but he walks in different circles than many of us.
 

SELRES_AMDO

Well-Known Member
You do know that a lot of times those GS jobs are trying to hire from within but are forced to interview X number of people before selecting someone, right? I wouldn't beat yourself up too much over that, lots of civilian companies love military supervisory experience -- look at Jack McCain, already in management at AA!
I do. I actually have 10 years as a GS-13. So I know how whack and broken the GS system is.

Just thought it was funny since the entire hiring panel works for an O-6. Unfortunately, it is kind of true that in some circles within the Navy that they don't like prior military and hate veteran's preference. A lot of GS employees think they run the show and can just wait out the military boss since that person will move on after three years.
 

SELRES_AMDO

Well-Known Member
I've worked on two Flag staffs for 10 years. One command required that all openings be advertised on USAjobs. No exceptions. The other command allowed supervisor's to do internal competitive promotions.

I've seen all sorts of things in my GS career. Creating GS positions for retiring O-6s. Blocking retiring O-5 from a job because the GS-15 hated him on a personal level. Skipping vet's preference to hire family members. Etc...

The whole thing is a shit show of epic proportions.
 

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
... "supervising people in the military isn't the same as civilian experience". ...
What a crock. I can't swing a dead cat in Pax River without hitting a dozen prior-mil GSes. Many of them were hired directly into GS-14/15 jobs because of their experience in the service.
 

SELRES_AMDO

Well-Known Member
What a crock. I can't swing a dead cat in Pax River without hitting a dozen prior-mil GSes. Many of them were hired directly into GS-14/15 jobs because of their experience in the service.
Yes. It's the same all over the Navy.

But, in my experience the career civil servants hold it against the prior military guys that didn't get the hook up for 14/15 gigs. It is especially true for fields like finance and contracting where they hire people straight out of college and the senior "leaders" in those fields have no military experience or even interaction with uniformed members.

I've had numerous GS-15s and SES tell me that veteran's preference is bullshit and they will always do what they can to bypass it.
 
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