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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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
I served 5 years, USN, I would agree with this. A non-perfect way to determine is what they went in for, and how long they stayed. First couple of years, especially if your a grease monkey or infantry type your pretty jaded for the first 3-4 years. Your comments mostly apply to below E-5. The gear that I used (Air Traffic Control) was built in 1973, same year I was born. Ash trays were part of the actual radar gear, so as far as new tech.. Besides some isolated pockets, it's WAY behind. Side note: Loading the ATC software was aluminum punch tape on a spool. So accurate on automated landings, that they had to put in a deviation to keep tail hooks from hitting the exact same spot on the flight deck every time.
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.