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Why Military Personnel Make the Best IT Pros
Nerval's Lobster writes Every year, approximately 250,000 military personnel leave the service to return to civilian life. When the home front beckons, many will be looking to become IT professionals, a role that, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is among the fastest growing jobs in the country. How their field skills will translate to the back office is something to ponder. With the advent of virtualization, mobile, and the cloud, tech undergoes rapid changes, as do the skill sets needed to succeed. That said, the nature of today's military—always on the go, and heavily reliant on virtual solutions—may actually be the perfect training ground for IT. Consider that many war-fighters already are IT technicians: They need to be skilled in data management, mobile solutions, security, the ability to fix problems as they arise onsite, and more. Military personnel used to working with everything from SATCOM terminals to iPads are ideally suited for handling these issues; many have successfully managed wireless endpoints, networks, and security while in the field. Should programs that focus on placing former military personnel in civilian jobs focus even more on getting them into IT roles?
I haven't had good luck with ex-military I.T. people. They want a manual that they can follow step-by-step for every little thing. "Figure it out" is not something they want to hear.
On the other hand, bad former-military people were cogs in a machine, and don't see past their prescribed task at all.
I don't think that having been military or not really gives much of a sign of how one will work out.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In my field (systems engineering,) discipline, troubleshooting skills and attention to detail are pretty critical. I would think an ex-military person would be the ideal antidote to the cowboy sysadmins you see at a lot of places. Those guys get a lot done, but can cause a lot of damage by not thinking through things to their full conclusion. Good military people (and I'm not one) aren't just rule-followers -- they're good at seeing where they fit in a bigger picture, something that really is lacking in a lot of folks' skill sets.
Ah, but how to tell the good military guys from the ones who have had any imagination or scientific rigor beat out of them? I know a lot of good ex-military IT guys, and a lot of so-so ones that simply repeat what's in the manual because hey, it's the manual, it's never wrong (until it is, and then the manual is shredded since it's worthless if it has even 1 minor mistake in it.) If you have a very rules-oriented IT department then military guys can fit right in, just don't ever think about assigning them to supervise any non-ex-military staff, it will blow up like a claymore.
I am in the military and it is hard to say how I compare to civilians since I haven't had an IT job on the civilian side yet (I did work in manufacturing before I joined). However I can say that in the few short years that I have been in I have worked on a plethora of systems. Possibly more than I ever could have with a civilian job. Furthermore the military can be very demanding and anyone who has been in can tell you that. Also everything you do someone’s life depends on it so it is more stressful than anything I had to do as a civilian. So those few things right there are probably why companies like to hire veterans. Especially when you think about the fact that we have great experience, work like mules, and can handle stress far easier than most of our civilian counter parts.
or Dice Clickbait Cancer
After this comment, there is no further need for discussion.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
We've tried hiring ex-military, and it very, very rarely works. If somebody's fresh out of the military, then they're not even considered. If they're not completely brain dead, then they tend to have an attitude of needing everything to be done for them.
A coworker's son was a medic embedded with a squad or something along those lines doing forward patrols in our current theatres of war, and he literally had to save lives while bullets were flying. He can't get a job as an EMT because the rules say that he's not qualified becuase his Army credentials don't translate into the civilian world.
Even if they do train you, that training might not be recognized or valued.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I am less worried about the 'cog' people since they probably will not get very far in IT due to lack of, well, being useful..
The military people I have had trouble with in the past were ones who had really internalized hierarchy and protocol then have trouble when others do not fall into line with their expected behavior and deference.
Systems are delivered ready-to-use, and the military personnel are there to follow the book to keep them running
Not even close. Former Marine, and current defense contractor here. DoD systems need constant work, and work-arounds. Finding ways to get things done, despite the systems provided, is part of daily military life.
Military branches are generally conservative in nature because they must stick with what works
Not in today's world. What worked in the last war won't work in the next one, and everyone recognizes the need to innovate and be flexible.
Theirs is not develop new doctrine, but to follow the existing doctrine until it's replaced for them.
Doctrine is ever changing, and if it doesn't work, it's abandoned.
You clearly have zero experience with the military. We'd all appreciate it if you just kept quiet instead of using your outdated stereotypes and things you've seen in the movies.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
This.
Unfortunately, most of the vets that I've interviewed or worked with were NOT well-suited to the types of fast-paced environments I work in. Maybe I've had experience with a bad sample.....
so government accessories to murder aka accomplices.
As former military, can I just please have you BLOW ME you ignorant little leech on the ass of my country?
People who go into the military with the idea that they want to meet interesting people AND KILL them usually get weeded out in basic training/boot camp. If not, they get weeded out in AIT (occupational training). People like that simply aren't stable enough to get through training in the modern army.
Nobody else really goes into the military with the notion that they want to go out and kill people.
The military's a place to serve one's country, get some occupational training, and rack up money for college. Maybe even find a lifetime career.
There are over 1.4 million people on Active Duty with another million in Ready Reserve (includes National Guard).
The vast MAJORITY of those troops are in military occupational specialties (MOS) that are NOT front-line combat (infantry).
Nobody wants to have to be out there killing people. That usually means that pretty much every other option for negotiation (other than outright appeasement, and Vichy showed us how well THAT went over), has pretty much FAILED. And, even then, the objective of warfare by modern doctrine is NOT about body count. It's about removing the tools and resources necessary to successfully wage warfare against us.
Does that mean we, eventually, wind up killing people?
Yep!
But better them than us.
If YOU, in particular, don't happen to like it, TOUGH FUCKING SHIT. Find some way to serve this country that minimizes the future need for armed conflict and deployment of soldiers into combat that doesn't involve bending and spreading for a bunch of delusional fanatics. I can GUARANTEE you that the very FIRST people stepping up to thank you for your contributions will be the people you've just put out of a job.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The best IT guy I've ever known was an Air Force guy in Saudi Arabia who managed our UNIX servers from a tent on a desert base. I'm embarrassed to admit he could also code circles around me, and often fixed bugs in my code while I slept.
For every anecdote, there's a counter-anecdote.
After this comment, there is no further need for discussion.
The article is dumb. It is asking "why" something is true, yet providing no evidence that it actually is true. I have worked with lots of ex-military, and am one myself, but I have never seen any reason to believe they are better or worse than anyone else at anything. I haven't even found them to be particularly good at "following orders". Well, I suppose I could beat most of my co-workers at field stripping a machine gun, but that is not a useful skill in most civilian occupations.
Most Irak and Afgan combat footage show more of a "spay and pray" [correct this time] rather than "one shot, one kill" mentality...