Army, IT, Mechanic.

lemonkettaz said:
what are you going in as?

and are you at uni? when did you talk to them? also... what were your choices? what happens after you say your interested?

see, im going to uni in a few weeks... so ill be 22/23 when i finish is that too old for a career as an officer.. like is there a certain age where you can apply once your older?
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Im going in as an Officer (sandhurst september 07 / 08 undecided yet on gap year).

Im at uni (Aberystwyth). Having a degree gets you on a higher pay grade and gets you promoted quicker.

The whole process from initial interest to signing the dotted line takes about 18 months. I talked to them in my first year of university. You have a massive amount of choices available to you but the initial route is the same regardless of which regiment / corps you join.

After you first send off a form to your Army Carrers Advisor(Officier) (ACAO), you will be invited to an interview so they can see if you suit the basic profile . You then will be sent on a variety of Familirisation visits so you can see all the different aspects of the army. They are really good fun lots of activities (e.g if you see the artillery then you go and see the artillery pieces fire...and get to fire them etc). Once you have been on a couple of these you go to something called the Regular Commisioning Board (RCB). This is in two parts the RCB Brief (2 days : Phys, interviews, apptitude) And RCB main board(lots of things). Then sandhurst and on...


The age isnt an issue average age at sandhurst is 23. (Oldest you can be is first day of sandhurst being your 29th birthday).

Any more questions just let me know!
 
lemonkettaz said:
what are you going in as?

and are you at uni? when did you talk to them? also... what were your choices? what happens after you say your interested?

see, im going to uni in a few weeks... so ill be 22/23 when i finish is that too old for a career as an officer.. like is there a certain age where you can apply once your older?
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You want to be a Rockstar in the Army?

Running into battle with a bayonet attached to your Les Paul. :p
 
Depends how institution you want to be, and whether you want a stable home etc... as to whether the army would suit you... if you like institutionalisation then the army will do everything for you, and there are many advantages. But you would have to LIVE it...

IT is white collar work, if you want to work in a office its a safe bet

Being a mechanic should be too bad, and there is always the potential for self-employment...
 
IMO,

Army - trains you for life, why not be a mechanic in the army, training doesnt get much better than that....

IT - High Pay? hmm... Genuine wake up call here, it really really isnt. people claiming 50k starting salarys after a degree in Comp Sci or whatever really need to wake up and smell the bacon, there are VERY few well paid IT jobs, and there is high competition for them all (im about to accept a bloody fantastic job offer in IT, and thats not high pay by any stretch of the imagination) really high pay in IT is either with the side effect of 90-100 hour 7 day, 24-7 on call for life, or because you are a world authority in something. In reality, id say on average post degree you might start on 20k if you dont mind what it is you start on, and then hopefully by the time your 30 you'll be on 35-40k if you do something special and work bloody hard.

Just my 2 pence...

Mechanic - see army
 
do I.T or mechanical in the air force or navy its safer than the army IMO :p

doing the mechanical your always gunna get a job easily when you leave the forces too.

the career offices are always very helful in my expierience
 
Conanius said:
IMO,

Army - trains you for life, why not be a mechanic in the army, training doesnt get much better than that....

IT - High Pay? hmm... Genuine wake up call here, it really really isnt. people claiming 50k starting salarys after a degree in Comp Sci or whatever really need to wake up and smell the bacon, there are VERY few well paid IT jobs, and there is high competition for them all (im about to accept a bloody fantastic job offer in IT, and thats not high pay by any stretch of the imagination) really high pay in IT is either with the side effect of 90-100 hour 7 day, 24-7 on call for life, or because you are a world authority in something. In reality, id say on average post degree you might start on 20k if you dont mind what it is you start on, and then hopefully by the time your 30 you'll be on 35-40k if you do something special and work bloody hard.

Just my 2 pence...

Mechanic - see army
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Depends whether you can face working in the city, personally I love it and I make more than what you're talking about at the lower end of your age range. The jobs are out there, particularly in london. Yeah it's on call for weeks at a time and it's hard but it's worth it.
 
Thanks for all the replys :)

If i go the Army Route i would prefere and probably find it easyer to move up the ranks and into a higher pay bracket by joining the infantry part of it.

IT is just about out of the equassion now, it seems there are too much Varribles for it with getting a good or bad job.

Being a Machenic is still there aswell, i just have the feeling that i might get sick of it rather quickly.

So far the Army is winning.
For dome reasojn i kind of feel obliged to join it
shrug.gif
 
Balddog said:
Army...

Will be an amazing experience..and of course you can do either of the other two within the army

If I had my time over, id sign up at uni.
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I'm joining the OTC in September, planning on Sandhurst once I've graduated :)
 
Zip said:
Thanks for all the replys :)

If i go the Army Route i would prefere and probably find it easyer to move up the ranks and into a higher pay bracket by joining the infantry part of it.
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Not sure how it works in HM services, but in the US and Canadian services you couldn't be more wrong. Infantry (generally) is for those not smart enough or motivated enough for anything else.

To give you an example :

One of my friends in the Navy was a Boatswain's Mate (navy equivilant of infantry - the normal grunt). He is retiring this year as a 2nd class petty officer (E-5). He'd been trying for over 5 years to make 1st class PO when he got into trouble and got a reduction in rank. It took him almost 8 years to make it to 2nd class. His case isn't the exception to the rule, but the norm.

I went in as an electronics technician on the weapons control systems (Fire Controlman). Within 36 weeks of graduating bootcamp (basic training) I was a 3rd class petty officer (E-4). I made 2nd class 2 years later.

Many of the specialist jobs in the military are extremely "top-end light" meaning there's not a lot of people filling the higher ranks. Why? Because of the higher pay in the civilian market for the same skills. So people go in, do thier 4 or 6 year enlistment, then get out and go find some civie contract government job doing exactly what they were doing in the military, but not have to put up with the military BS and get paid more.......

The "grunt work" jobs (infantry, boatswain's mate, aircraft handler) people realise there's not much need for them in the civilian world, so they stay in and try to climb the rank ladder. Only to realise after 10 years of doing it that they have to wait on thier superiors retiring before they can move into thier spot!!!

Do yourself a favor and find out what jobs in the military of your choice have a low retention rate. Then try to find out WHY they're so low on keeping people. Is it because the job SUCKS, or is it because people get out and move directly into the civilian market. Here's a hint - Low retention rates = fast advancement.......
 
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Mickey_D said:
(navy equivilant of infantry - the normal grunt)..
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When you say "Normal Grunt" Is that like the Marines? or what ever they they call them?
 
Grunt =

Govt
Reject
Unfit for
Normal
Training


Just kidding. No, when I say grunt I mean your average footsoldier. What I was referring to was the jobs that take absolutely no training at all outside of bootcamp.....
 
Mickey_D said:
Grunt =

Govt
Reject
Unfit for
Normal
Training


Just kidding. No, when I say grunt I mean your average footsoldier. What I was referring to was the jobs that take absolutely no training at all outside of bootcamp.....
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thanks for clearing that up :)

What im looking at is the higher trained regiments and units. Its still all a bit confusing to me at the moment but im slowly learning what career paths to take with it if i can.
 
Electronics will never go out of demand in the civilian market. Same with electrician. Diesel mechanics are always in high demand. Communications fields are always constantly changing (same with IT) so military training in these fields is generally about 10-15 years behind thier civilian counterparts. Heavy equipment operators get paid REDICULOUSLY high wages, and a bulldozer is a bulldozer is a bulldozer. If you're proficient at driving a D9 Caterpillar, you'll be proficient at driving a John Deere equivilant, or a Chase, or a Internation Harvetser, or a etc, etc, etc. So going into the Australian equivilant of the US Navy's Seabees (look 'em up) would be a good one. Some of the best architects in the world are ex-army corps of engineers.....

If/when you do go in, get yourself comfortable with your command, then go about getting certified and signed off on everything you can!! A couple years of hard work while you're in will pay off in spades after you get out.

I never in my life thought that getting cert'd nuke weaps materials handler would ever help me out, but I am the only person on 2nd shift at the company I work for that's trusted to move the finished stoves out to the parking lot with the forklift truck because of it. Kinda' makes me invaluable to the company = job security.

The above is just an example. I could recite off an entire page's worth of little things I never thought would do me any good from the military that have helped me in civilian life......



[ninja edit] Just thought of another one - military fire fighter. There is absolutely NOTHING in the civilian world would even phase a military firefighter in the slightest after fighting a magnesium fire in an ammo dump!! :D
 
Army - when you come out, employers will like you cos you have the discipline to work
....maybe don't do IT, if you think it's boring now then you won't want to read 600 page books about it.
 
Scuzi said:
The best attribute to a career of your choosing will be job satisfaction.

I think you know what job you want to do, go with your heart. Happiness in a job is worth so much more than an extra few grand or a couple of less hours.
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Couldn't agree more. Get a job that you really want to do, and look forward to. If you get paid well that's a bonus.

Nothing worse than doing a job you don't really like, no matter how much you get paid.
 
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