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Highwater FITREP Burden

exNavyOffRec said:
I am in finance and we have been told to look for people with a military background, veteran or reserve.
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Are you front office (i.e., revenue generating roles) or back office (i.e., non-revenue generating roles as IT, risk, security)? I'm on my second financial institution and it's been the same experience: CEO and C-level praises military and wants recruiting, however, many lifer managers do not adhere to or tow the line: your success as a Reservist and employee are directly relation to your manager.
 
bubblehead said:
Are you front office (i.e., revenue generating roles) or back office (i.e., non-revenue generating roles as IT, risk, security)? I'm on my second financial institution and it's been the same experience: CEO and C-level praises military and wants recruiting, however, many lifer managers do not adhere to or tow the line: your success as a Reservist and employee are directly relation to your manager.
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I am in revenue generating roles and work with the revenue generating hiring managers, just had a guy hired yesterday whose second job listed is his Navy Reserve job.

The recruiters I am close to at my company are non revenue generating, one is in fact an IT recruiter the other kind of recruits miscellaneous roles.

We had a senior level sales manager hired last year when she was 8 months pregnant, she basically had enough time to do her onboarding then was out on maternity leave for months, they had a person who was a step down fill the role to get experience.
 
OP, keep in mind the high O-4 selection rates in the past 2-3 years have been affected by at least two major factors:

  1. YG 09 and 10 were wildly undermanned (don't quote me on this, but I think on the order of 40% below expectations) due to the API fiasco that happened back when they were in API;
  2. Airline hiring boom (paused temporarily by COVID but back in nearly full swing as far as I can tell);
and maybe 3: people burnt the heck out with the COVID restrictions and lifestyle that we seem to be in.

When I was in similar shoes as you, I took the time to immediately evaluate what I wanted to do on the outside. I asked for a shore tour that would give me some outside benefits (didn't get it, but asked for it), used TA to get a Master's Certificate (the Navy laughed in my face when I applied for GEV... literally, my detailer responded back with "hahahahahahah I almost just spit out my coffee all over my keyboard - people with your record don't get picked up for this!"), applied to an ANG Unit and an Airline... and then made DH for the above listed reasons at the same time the Guard Unit and Airline rescinded their offers to me due to COVID (the Guard Unit's pilots who were airline guys quickly snapped up the active duty orders and put them above their manning requirement).

With that said, while I'm happy and grateful to be still flying Navy and having a job, I am glad I took the time to figure out what I wanted to do and I proud that I interviewed successfully in a career field I remain interested in.

What Fleet and Fleet Job are you going to? PM me if you don't want to disclose here.
 
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Jim123 said:
I listened to a lot of SELRES' concerns, just as Pags and squorch described, when I was an FTS at a NOSC. Heard it a lot from people in all sorts of employment on the outside (civ and government careers), those are real concerns people have about their livelihoods. It can make things harder but of course lots of decisions in life involve a tradeoff.
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Yep, each person has to make their own value judgement on what works for them. The only hard part is that most of the people who pitch the reserves are guys who are excited about it. I've had lots of people try and recruit me into the reserves because it works for them. But my personal assessment was that it wasn't going to work for me. So I hope I don't come across as poo-pooing the reserves or reservists, I'm just sharing my story and perspective. It seems that the reserves works the best for airline guys and then CSS and GS in decreasing order. I couldn't imagine trying to do startup stuff or personal small business as a reservist.
 
Pags said:
The only hard part is that most of the people who pitch the reserves are guys who are excited about it.
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Yes, I am excited about earning > $3,200 per month in retirement pay for doing very little "work."

Pags said:
I couldn't imagine trying to do startup stuff or personal small business as a reservist.
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People succeed all the time. Where it hurts is if/when you get mobilized, but it's still doable... Recently retired 1835/O6 that I know ran/runs hedge funds.. Another 1835/O6 that I know is a partner at one of the top consulting firms in the world. another 1835/O6 that I know is a partner at a law firm. Another recently retired 1835/O6 that I know is an exec at Microsoft.

I could go on...
 
Pags said:
I couldn't imagine trying to do startup stuff or personal small business as a reservist.
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This I have to agree with. When you're working at a large company, there's enough folks to cover down that you can go on orders or even MOB and things won't go sideways. Much. But as a sole proprietor, business owner, or key member of a small business? Yeah, bad headwork there.

That also goes with folks whose civ paychecks are more than they'd make on orders. CDR nittany03 makes a heck of a lot more as an O5 aviator still in ACIP gates (barely) than Mr. nittany03 the techie does. I don't make the FAANG or MS money, at least not now. If that was different, I might consider angling to the VTU and then the exits. Because that's when a MOB could potentially be a serious hit to the pocketbook, as opposed to a cash windfall at the expense of a small hole in the resume.
 
nittany03 said:
...If that was different, I might consider angling to the VTU and then the exits.
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Angling to the VTU costs you nothing but time, which now consists of telecommuting during each drill weekend. Been this way for > 1.5 years. No 2 week annual orders requirement, no mobs. You are a free agent earning points without the b.s. nonsense associated with SELRES. Easy day.

I've done more meaningful work in the VTU than I have in my entire Reserve career.
 
bubblehead said:
He'e the second flag I know who's made it work... RDML Gene Price is another. I've know him since he was an O6 on the staff at NAVIFOR Region Southeast back in 2009/2010.
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I've run into a surprising number of civilian attorneys who are non-JAGC reservists. Like I can think of at least three aviators: one of my old RAG instructors and two of my SELRES COs.
 
SynixMan said:
This thread has quickly devolved into 13x5 vs xxx5s career expectations, but we’re doing the OP some disservice. They’ve got 5-6 year before this matters.
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Eh. Threadjacks and tangents are a time-honored AWs tradition, and I doubt anyone will object if someone eventually chimes in with a more on-original-topic post. I can split it off if anyone thinks it's a big deal.
 
nittany03 said:
I've run into a surprising number of civilian attorneys who are non-JAGC reservists. Like I can think of at least three aviators: one of my old RAG instructors and two of my SELRES COs.
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Part of this is, possibly, the Navy’s extremely high expectations and low selection rates for reserve JAG accessions. You basically need to be a prior active duty JAG, is what I’m told.

Another factor may be that plenty of civilian attorneys (incl several I know who joined the USNR without having been on active duty previously) are well paid but super bored. They want a “fun” side job that isn’t law.
 
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