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With Troop Drawdown, IT Looks To Hire More Vets

Posted by timothy on from the but-what-about-the-animals? dept.

Lucas123 writes "The military's a great place to learn how to kill people and break things, but many also consider it one of the best training grounds for high-tech skills. 'If you're working on a ship or a plane or tank, you've got responsibility for large, complex, extremely expensive equipment run by highly sophisticated IT platforms and software,' said Mike Brown, senior director of talent acquisition at Siemens. But, just how well do military tech skills translate to private-sector IT? Computerworld spoke to veterans to find out just what they learned during their tours of duty and how hard it was to transition to the civilian workforce."

3 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Depends on the high-tech skill set by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    During the tech bubble burst of 2002, I went from being a full time Perl programmer to working part-time at a super market in the meat section. One of my coworkers was a tech lead in the Army working on avionics in attack helicopters. When the attack copter wings were cut, he left with them, only to discover his high-tech skills in attack helicopter avionics were completely useless in the private sector. Clearly advanced technology, clearly without a direct compliment in the civilian world.

    I eventually found another Perl/PHP job, but as far as I know hes still at the super market. So I think it really depends on what you're high tech skills are, as to how successfully you can make the transition.

  2. Re:That seems somewhat smart by Bardwick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Two things.. You are much less likely to experience work place violence from a Vet. 'Nother thing. I was Navy Air Traffic Controller, USS Theodore Roosevelt (Carrier).. Just curious, how do you define high-stress? Can't print?

  3. Re:That seems somewhat smart by afidel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're an idiot. Our network engineer, telecom guy, and email admins are all ex-military and not only are they all above average intelligence but their disciple and calmness under stress are all great advantages working in a small IT group with fairly significant expectations from the business.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.