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With Troop Drawdown, IT Looks To Hire More Vets
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."
I like to brag that, when I walk into the server room, Danger Zone starts blaring in the background.
My life in this hell-hole is extreme. Can't tell you how many times a server blade has nicked me. We go through bandages like coffee at Google around here!
Therefor it will not succeed.
We've hired a few of these folks. Technical skills tend to be shallow, but we are willing to train the right candidate. Worse is their yes man attitude. You can't get these guys to provide any useful input, when they think their input might conflict with that from somebody "above them". It doesn't seem like these guys can overcome that part of their military training.
Not doing at least 20 years is a questionable call since you can retire after that, but going contract after you eject (early or late) is a good way to leverage any skillset you acquire.
Find a system that will outlive you (the first folks to work on C-130s are now long dead!) and get in as early as possible.
I've never met anyone who regretted serving until retirement, self included.
If you don't like your job, crosstrain. If you don't like your service, get smart and go Air Force. :)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
In our Biology department we have a high end confocal microscope. This is a very expensive, sophisticated and complicated microscope with complex optical, mechanical, and control systems. The technician who services it and keeps it running was a sonar technician in a submarine for many years before he got a job working on microscopes. He is very good - logical, careful, and responsible. Obviously this is a small sample size but if his training in the navy has anything to do with his performance in his current job then this is a nice example of military training actually translating well into a civilian technology position.
I've had the opportunity in the past to work closely with people who learned their IT skills in the military. Without exception they were very competent and a pleasure to work with. If I were hiring today, a candidate who learned IT skills in the military would get a closer look than the guy with the degree from the local community college.
I'm not saying that everyone who learns IT skills in the military is awesome, but the ones I've met have been.
Military logistics is some of the most advanced out there.
When I was working shipping at Dell I would say almost all of the logistics management was ex-military. At least all the useful ones were ex-military.
FedEx being another good example of military logistics making its way to the civilian world.
of military veterans in IT my experience is limited to managers or techies, all can vary wildly.
the manager I had at one company was from the navy. not very intelligent but he knew enough about how to lead a team
that he could tell when we needed help and he knew when to stay out of the way. great guy to work with.
but the helpdesk manager im told was a complete asshole. he alientated the seasoned pro's by treating them like kids
and before we knew it, they had all quit.
the NOC tech i work with now is coming out of retirement from the airforce. hes not brilliant by any stretch, and he doesnt appear motivated to
any great feats of knowlege. probably a bad example
the guy we just promoted is from the army. he isnt smart, and he chews up most of our time asking questions about code, but hes at least very motivated
to learn. i guess thats a plus.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Can you please explain exactly how this would be discriminatory?
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
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.
s. The technician who services it and keeps it running was a sonar technician in a submarine for many years before he got a job working on microscopes. He is very good - logical, careful, and responsible.
I've known couple others that been in the sub service and they are very good. Getting sub service experience means they had to pass courses and examinations, besides weeding out nutzoids they also want best techie talent on board when you are weeks (months?) under the water.
mfwright@batnet.com
No, it's not. Subsidies to employers mean that, given 2 people of "close-enough"qualifications, the one from the military, who qualifies for subsidies and tax credits, will get the job.
How is that NOT economic discrimination?
What is common between the /. editorial department & the USPTO? They don't bother to check what they rubber-stamp :S
The post links to the last page of the article instead of the first.
Submariners tend to be very good on the average. It comes down to the fact that they live in roughly a 1000' long steel pipe under water with a nuclear reactor, high explosives, and on SSBNs a hundred plus nuclear war heads sitting on 24 big honking rockets. Mistakes are very costly in that environment :)
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm a prior Army Officer that has transitioned into the civilian workforce. The Army taught me many things, but the primary benefit was the amount of money the Army was willing to risk on me. Not many people can say that their first job out of college was managing 55 people and 8 million dollars in physical assets. Fortunately I did very well and had more command positions after with ever increasing responsibilities. I have what I consider to be an above average intelligence, but I'm certainly not anything special (certainly not genius level, I've met geniuses, I can't understand half of what to them is simple). I've faced combat and been under extreme pressure situations. I currently work in programming and find it moderately boring and frustrating with almost no correlation to my military service. Currently I'm working on getting back into some sort of operational role.
The point is, just because their military does not mean they will be uniquely gifted to do a job. The talent to shut up and listen I have found is what differentiates the good from the bad.
If there is no God then free will is an illusion.
I have to agree. Submarine sailors often are more technically inclined and generally smarter than your average sailor as they had to qualify for those posts. From what I remember these sailors are often recruited to be placed on submarines from the start. Also there are mental aspects of being underwater for months on end as well as living under an unconventional daily cycle.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
When you hire someone you always look at their past job history to determine if the person is going to work well in your organization.
This is a standard practice, you would be a moron not to do that.
Yes, I will more likely higher someone with military background vs someone with a fast food background.
I guess you would be technically correct, discrimination happens, but it is not illegal unless the discrimination is based on something the individual cannot change, such as their skin color or place of birth.
Remember, you can always join up, serve your country for a few years and when you get out you too can enjoy the perks of being ex-military if it is that big of a deal for you.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I had a good friend that went into the Navy. When he went in, he was far from thoughtful and responsible. When he got out, he worked his way through a Physics degree, and we hired him where I worked.
The military really can transform people.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Nah...they're just the 2000's version of the hippies/yippies from the 60's. Loud, boisterous...but not really adept at accomplishing anything, nor even having a real concrete, unified goal or message to promote.
The OWS today's shouts of "Kill the Corporations" and "Life is Unfair" are basically the analogous to the "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out" of that day. Fun to say and march to....but in the end, fairly useless and pointless.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
it is discriminatory, in the strictest sense of the word. But its not illegal. its not even immoral. To provide preferential treatment to those who gave up their time to help defend our freedom is not a bad thing. To offer a job to someone who risked their life to ensure our way of life is never a bad thing. Of all the things our government does that they shouldn't do, it should do more for veterans.
I work in IT (sys admin), having spent a bit of time in the military. Military experience is certainly no stone-cold guarantee that you've got a quality person on your hands, but it does increase the probability significantly. Technical skills aside, the military tends to instill a fairly healthy amount of discipline, teamwork, and the ability to think/act under pressure. As my Dad puts it (formerly in the military for 12 years) - the ability to think and chew bubble gum at the same time.
You can have shitty people in the military, too, but the military is generally not an environment that lends itself to extreme incompitence, advancement out of nepotism, etc.
If I'm looking at a pile of resumes or interviewing candidates, I generally assume that if someone has military experience, they won't have too many issues coming in late, being poorly dressed, being disrespectful to team mates, etc.
I have visited a few Canadian Navy ships and I saw some pretty old crap. Lots of RS232 and whatnot. The newest tech was all in the private hands of the sailors in the form of iPads to keep themselves sane. The main tech skills that the sailors seemed to have developed was how to select computers that won't die in the harsh environment and how to run cables through this nasty environment. So if you are wiring a building where you have a magnitude 5.5 earthquake 9 times a day and your server room has a salt water swimming pool then these Navy Guys might be for you.
Also looking at how the various systems were wired together I could see layer upon layer of upgrades where various proprietary systems had been hacked into the older systems. So if you need your sonar system upgraded then the Navy could provide you with a guy who understands what all the pins do in that 183 pin plug that someone thoughtfully painted gray.
There are certain physical requirements to enlisting in the military that are, let's say, not specifically geek-centric. Further, until very recently, they were notorious for automatically disqualifying approximately 10% of the population based upon... a questionable criterion.
There are plenty of reasons why the military would have rejected otherwise perfectly suitable IT workers.
Yes the military does discriminate against people who are physically disabled. And honestly when I tried to join up I was rejected even though my scores were outstanding, yes they do discriminate against others for non physical reasons, with me it was mainly because I really was a complete fuck up at the time. Getting properly medicated has been a tremendous boon to my life.
Now that doesn't mean that we should ignore if someone has served their country in the hiring process just because someone who was physically disabled wasn't able to join.
If you were born physically disabled you should already know that you will have to work twice as hard and be twice as qualified if you want a job. It ain't fair, but it is the truth. There are foundations and charities set up to help the disabled do exactly that.
If you are physically disabled you really need to do very well in school because no ones going to hire you just because you have a strong back, they will be hiring you for your brain. Study hard, get a scholarship and obtain skills.
If you are currently unemployed and disabled use the downtime to study your ass off so that you will be better qualified.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I finally gave up and went into consulting and made a good living through. Ironically 3 of the 10 or so companies I applied for later hired me as a contractor for 1 to 3 months to come in and fix up what the college grads screwed up or to show their teams how to update their technology.
The problem is, as I learned from a former client that was a head hunter, most HR people don't know how to relate military experiance to real world applications and training. The Military gives you a stack of papers with how your various training relates to the real world, but even those definitions fall short of anything a civilian world HR person will understand.
The problem is when the government subsidizes someone who has fewer qualifications, with your tax dollars, to compete directly against you.
It's like Ford being asked to pay for GMs bail-out.
Or renters and home-owners who weren't greedy being asked to bail out under-water home-owners.
If they had been drafted into the military it would be a different situation - as it is, they got the quid pro quo of any other job - salary + on-the-job training and experience.
The IT job market is already lousy for non-qualified people, so shouldn't these subsidies be going to train them for where there's actually a sustainable demand? Or those "green" and "infrastructure" programs being hyped? Or training in home care to reduce the demands on public finances for public medical programs?
Well, no sub is even close to being 1000' long.... ;)
But an oft overlooked factor is the small size of the crews. We operated my weapons system (sixteen Tridents and their control, launching, testing and support equipment) with just eighteen people. There was just no room for anyone that wasn't at least above average. The Missile Techs (which generally came from the bottom third of the rankings in school) even called themselves the "scum of the cream".
The schools were brutal. When I attended SWSEA, the drop rate (I.E. people kicked out of the school) *averaged* thirty percent. My class started with 18 people, and graduated with 12. I was the only person in the class who had never been 'dropped back' (failed a block, and been transferred to a class behind you in the cycle to repeat it), and with a 99.988 average was the *number two* man in the class. Of the 18 people I started with, only 7 of us eventually completed the school and graduated.
Maybe, but he is correct.
You mean Mr. Government-is-bad-unless-it's-mine Paul? Who thinks that government should get out of our lives, but who is strongly anti-abortion? Who wants to eliminate legal tender and let "the market decide" what currencies we're going to use? Who wants to eliminate basically all government agencies, under the premise that businesses will regulate themselves (like the banking industry did), and if some factory causes the Cuyahoga River to self-ignite again, we'll let the "market punish them?"
Wouldn't it be smarter to reward the troops with decent employment, instead of hiring them into mind-numbing dead end jobs? Besides, I'm slightly worried about hiring people who are completely comfortable with guns in the workplace into high-stress positions.
When you are talking about vets or people in the service, people who have actually had to perform professionally and methodically while other people are actually trying to fucking kill you with bullets or IEDs, don't call the nuances of cubicle politics and IT services "high-stress positions." As someone who has done tier II/III IT support getting angry calls at 3AM, yeah, it's stressing... like any other job with a lot responsibilities.
But to call it "high-stressing" specially when referring to military vets (of any country), wondering whether they can keep their cool in the face of your typical office monkey business, that's a little self-masturbatory, e-tarded and disturbing no matter how you cut it.