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Headed to the Civil Service?
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So I perused 2181 and it seemed like all of them required also being a Guard member, which doesn't really work if you've already retired. Or at least, that's what several of the listings were saying. Or am I missing something?
Look for ones that are not department of the Army or Air Force. Other government agencies (CBP, FAA, Forest Service, DON, FBI etc) do not require reserve / NG association.
And apparently 2183 is for Navigator jobs, for those of us with an extra anchor.
I've seen some 1810/1801 jobs that would be a good fit for aviation folks as well. NFO experience wasn't necessarily a requirement but it certainly would have helped (FLIR operator etc.)
A job I interviewed for had only been shifted to a 2181 recently, and had been coded as an 1801 job previously (it had to do with the agencies change opinion that flying was now a full time duty instead of a part time duty).
I have a question about how the reserve side handles it more than the civil service side necessarily. Say you end up working for DoS and are assigned to an embassy or maybe you are a teacher for DoDEA assigned overseas and you are also in the reserves. What are your options as far as continuing to drill and make good years other than taking an international flight back to the unit you were with back in the States regularly? Not sure if that is a common problem that has a cookie-cutter solution or not, but some of those jobs interest me and I'm wondering what the long term plan for keeping up with the reserves includes.
Many units have 'flex drill' as an option where you drill some weekends but do real work in lieu of going to every drill weekend (the units usually have a description if they drill most weekends or are flex drill in JOAPPLY). Several types of units, particularly ones that support exercises or watches, tend to do this versus some of the more traditional units. My first unit supported a watch and we had only two 'mandatory' drill weekends a year, they wanted you to stand the watch with the rest of your drills and AT. We had a lot of guys I saw only on the watch, they never came to drill, who lived across the country or even in Europe. They came to the states 2 or 3 times a years and did their time. My current unit has a guy who only comes to the exercise supprt, he hasn't come to a single drill my 2 years in the unit since he lives in Hong Kong where he flies for an airline.
There are also a few units overseas too, each COCOM and their Navy component usually have a few reserve units associated with them. The NATO unit I was In was based in DC but we had a member who lived in Germany and had done a career with overseas units in Europe before then.
So defiantly doable, you just have to find the right units and the right employer. As is often the case networking is key, most of the guys in my current unit found out about it through networking. But don't be afraid to do some cold calls either though, I got in my first unit by simply knocking on a door and asking if they used reservists.