What would you do in this situation?

[Bravo Kilo]

I'm in my last semester of university and I will be done in 2 weeks. I have been working with an OR and my OCS package for SNA/SNFO I am happy to say is complete! I unfortunately missed the November board which is inconvenient, and I'll get to why in a moment.

Back in September my university had a job fair, and I figured that I should go and find a backup option if the Navy declines me. Well, that was very fruitful and I landed an awesome position with a major defense contractor (Air Force experience paid off big time). I have a job offer from them which I need to respond to by mid December. Now had I made the November board I would have known the Navy's decision and it would be an easy choice for me. However since I'm going for the January 23 board now, I'm not sure I can stall this job offer long enough to hear back about OCS.

What I really want to do is commission, but I feel like I'll really be shooting myself in the foot if I decline this offer, and then by chance the Navy says no. I'm open to ANG or the Reserves also, but this company wants to relocate me to the UK after a year of training.

Does anyone have experience with this or have any ideas what to do? Some people have suggested that I take the offer and if the Navy gives me a green light dip out of it and tell them I'm going to OCS. I'm not sure how I feel about that though.

Thank you

 

[exNavyOffRec]

I'm in my last semester of university and I will be done in 2 weeks. I have been working with an OR and my OCS package for SNA/SNFO I am happy to say is complete! I unfortunately missed the November board which is inconvenient, and I'll get to why in a moment.

Back in September my university had a job fair, and I figured that I should go and find a backup option if the Navy declines me. Well, that was very fruitful and I landed an awesome position with a major defense contractor (Air Force experience paid off big time). I have a job offer from them which I need to respond to by mid December. Now had I made the November board I would have known the Navy's decision and it would be an easy choice for me. However since I'm going for the January 23 board now, I'm not sure I can stall this job offer long enough to hear back about OCS.

What I really want to do is commission, but I feel like I'll really be shooting myself in the foot if I decline this offer, and then by chance the Navy says no. I'm open to ANG or the Reserves also, but this company wants to relocate me to the UK after a year of training.

Does anyone have experience with this or have any ideas what to do? Some people have suggested that I take the offer and if the Navy gives me a green light dip out of it and tell them I'm going to OCS. I'm not sure how I feel about that though.

Thank you

Take the job, then if you get selected quit the job. I have known several people that have taken a new job, then a better job that they had applied for came through, so they quit the job they had and went for the better one, no different than the situation you are in.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Ditto what @NavyOffRec said.

But I am curious which defense contractor would pay for a year of training up front - esp. if you already have skills from your USAF time. The margins are so slim these days that training has been getting slashed. Usually any contractor training time comes with strings attached, too, to keep employees around after the training ends. And living over in Molesworth/ whereverville will not make it any easier to work with a Navy recruiter, visit MEPS, etc. (although you may be ok).

I would be wary of any DoD contractor job (i.e. read the fine print) where you have a ton of training up front, vs. being billable soon/ immediately after joining.

 

[Bravo Kilo]

Ok thanks guys, that's what I'll do.

Ditto what @NavyOffRec said.

But I am curious which defense contractor would pay for a year of training up front - esp. if you already have skills from your USAF time. The margins are so slim these days that training has been getting slashed. Usually any contractor training time comes with strings attached, too, to keep employees around after the training ends. And living over in Molesworth/ whereverville will not make it any easier to work with a Navy recruiter, visit MEPS, etc. (although you may be ok).

I would be wary of any DoD contractor job (i.e. read the fine print) where you have a ton of training up front, vs. being billable soon/ immediately after joining.

The reason for the training is because I am a Computer Science major and the position is for software engineering on aircraft. The language used for this is called Ada and it is used because of its inherent safety features (so your avionics don't decide to crash mid flight), but it's not used outside of defense/military/aerospace. It's certainly not something that will be taught in university because there is little market value to it outside these specific industries. This is why they train new grads on this because they will never find anyone who already has experience programming in it.

I was an avionics tech in the Air Force with lots of radar and EW experience, so I just have a lot of good background knowledge and experience for the job. All they have to teach me is how to program/maintain their systems and not so much about how radars work etc.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Rgr. If you plan to quit before the training ends and didn't give them at least a heads up, they'll probably be unhappy with you, because you'll have been all overhead and no revenue. Also, moving to/from the UK ain't cheap - esp. if your employer doesn't have an incentive to help you return home. If there is a similar job that keeps you in CONUS with less required training for roughly the same salary, I'd look into it. Keeps it simpler.

 

[zippy]

There's PLENTY of money in DoD contracting. A lot of contracts allow customer required training to be billed to the customer. Don't be afraid your company is going to take a loss on you and get mad at you if you end up leaving them. From what I've seen of DoD contracting in the last decade that's very unlikely. It's business for them, nothing more, nothing less... it should be that way for you too.

Take the job that sends you to the U.K. IF you get selected for OCS you can either quit, or go on military leave (I recommend the latter in case OCS/the Navy doesn't work out) for upto 5 years.