Trying to help a young airman put together his dream sheet top 7 career fields to list and would appreciate any insight on ones that translate well to the civilian world when his commitment is done. He's leaning Intelligence field

Enlisted servicemembers can make absurd amounts of $$$ in the outside world if they play their cards right. Any IT/networking job is great. I know (in the Army at least) Cisco systems will take some sergeants and warrants into one of their training programs and get them all sorts of schooled up on networking and IT. They can make well into 6 figures while working a blue collar job.

Appreciate the response. Maybe some Air Force types will chime in here shortly. Didn't realize he turns this list in tonight!

Sounds like I have an active duty AF guy on the line!

Yeah, Im worried about his level of excitement if he picks an office job. What are some categories that would be exciting in addition to Load Master and could that be something he could pursue when done in the civilian side? I see a bunch listed under Airborne Support, Flight Operations and Avionics and Integrated Systems

I'm a pilot and love my maintainers.

Wouldn't push anyone towards that as a career field right now. Very little experience in the field overall right now, long hours, questionable leadership. Which I think is who the avionics jobs you're talking about fit into.

Doesn't really translate that well to the outside from talking to my mechanics unless you go out of your way to get your A&P.

Allegedly sensor operators for drones make good money on the outside. Not my world.

Air traffic control pays well on the outside and I'd hazard a guess his learning curve on a DoD base would be a lot less steep due to less traffic. Then he'd be able to get a higher experience job afterwards at a big airport/control center.

All of the command & control jobs listed on the page you're talking about are boring clerical work with a cool name. The aerospace physiology career field is, for all intents and purposes, helmet maintenance and other oxygen or survival related equipment on jets.

No flying enlisted job translates well (loadmaster, boom operator, etc) just not a civilian counterpart to them.

CharlieBrown17 said:

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I'm a pilot and love my maintainers.

Wouldn't push anyone towards that as a career field right now. Very little experience in the field overall right now, long hours, questionable leadership. Which I think is who the avionics jobs you're talking about fit into.

Doesn't really translate that well to the outside from talking to my mechanics unless you go out of your way to get your A&P.

Allegedly sensor operators for drones make good money on the outside. Not my world.

Air traffic control pays well on the outside and I'd hazard a guess his learning curve on a DoD base would be a lot less steep due to less traffic. Then he'd be able to get a higher experience job afterwards at a big airport/control center.

All of the command & control jobs listed on the page you're talking about are boring clerical work with a cool name. The aerospace physiology career field is, for all intents and purposes, helmet maintenance and other oxygen or survival related equipment on jets.

No flying enlisted job translates well (loadmaster, boom operator, etc) just not a civilian counterpart to them.

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Former maintainer here.

+1 to all of this.

I would add a recommendation for something in IT/Cyber for post-service opportunities. And maybe weather, too?

Sounds like he is hearing from his MTS's dont bother with Aviation related jobs cause they are all almost filled. Hes gonna focus on Intel/Cyber options it appears. Special warfare and combat support stuff are off the table. I just hope its exciting enough for him.

Red Horse Construction. Horizontal and Vertical.
Worked with them a lot over seas. Like Seabees but Air Force. Equipment operations, civil engineering, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, welding.. you name it. Definitely not office work. Officer CEs too.

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Yeah, Im worried about his level of excitement if he picks an office job. What are some categories that would be exciting in addition to Load Master and could that be something he could pursue when done in the civilian side?

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https://www.airforce.com/careers/combat-and-warfare/special-warfare

Don't know how it translates to the civilian world, other than being BAMFs. Air Force Special Ops Airmen are some of America's finest. Another thing - since I went on active duty in 1980, I'm not aware of a period when AFSOC was not logging "combat time." Just something to think about.

I am partial, as I retired from AFSOC, but here is the motivational video...

Good information to pass along to him. Thank you guys for your input!

I would agree with the sentiment above that contracting is probably number one for outside job availability. You can go a lot of places with that experience. Intel is really cool and interesting to a lot of folk, but definitely limits your outside opportunities to three letter agencies and contracting. It really depends on what he wants., so I will leave you with this:

1. If he wants one and done and then a good civilian transition: contracting or civil engineering
2. If he we wants a highly employable, interesting, but limited civilian option career: intel or cyber
3. If he wants to travel, have fun, be a crew dog..get a flying job. See the world, bank per diem, make fun of everyone else.

Hopefully this helps, let me know if I can help any further

There were Navy E-4s working customs in Dubai making more money than me (Army O-3 at the time), while I was living in a shipping container about 15 minutes up the highway at Camp Red Leg. They had nice hotels, not to mention the insane per diem pushes out by living in Dubai. Plus I think their work schedule was alternating day on/day off.

Check out my post a few down about Military Linguists. I'm an Air Force language analyst and I love my job. It's an intel job, but it can translate outside of military service if you pick up a language like Chinese, Spanish, Korean or Arabic because you could then use those to market yourself to businesses that do business in those parts of the world.

I have a son who is AFROTC and was told by some seniors that if he stayed engineering and wasn't able to get a pilot slot that the Air Force would put them in acquisitions carrier field and that other rated flight slots wouldn't be an option.

I understand needs of the Air Force but this doesn't add up for me coming from the Army where there was an OML type system and you put in a dream sheet. So does this add up or is this just seniors who couldn't hack it in engineering and are making up excuses?

What year is your kid?

AFROTC slots commissioning slots prior to field training.

There's 4 categories

Rated/Tech
Rated/non tech
Non rated/tech
Non rated/ non tech

I got a rated/non tech slot as a geography major.

If you attend field training in a rated slot, you'll go to the rated board before any non rated career board.

Rated board goes (or did around the '14-17 period)

Pilot
CSO
ABM
RPA

Basically they rack and stack everyone going to that rated board and decide how many of each slot is need. If they need 69 of every position, the first 69 who are medical qual'ed to be a pilot get pilot slots. Then the top remaining 69 medical qual'ed to be a CSO get CSO etc etc.

After that you do get a dream sheet if you're non rated. I don't know **** about that because it's not my world.

He's a link with selection info. First part is process, bottom is selection stats over the years.

A&M traditionally over performs because of the number of cadets. I know my poor GPA was "hidden" because I was slotted higher in commanders rank so my overall score was higher. ROTC dets sending 10 kids to the board can't do that really.


https://afrotc.info/during-afrotc/rated-board-pilot-selection

Feel free to pass my email along to them if they want to talk real Air Force. The cadet wing is great at some things, bad at others.

charliebrowncrew @ gmail

Thanks for the info, that makes a lot more sense. He's a freshman so I'm not too worried. I'm steering him to talk to his officers and NCO's and not just take cadet rum-int as fact.

1N4 is a great career field with post-career opportunities

Having recently worked for several years as the civilian Environmental Programs Manager in two Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadrons, I'd say that the following CE career areas translate well to careers outside of the military:

Utilities (Plumbers/HVAC)
Electrical
Structures (Carpentry and Construction)
Heavy Equipment (Dozers, Cranes, Backhoes, etc.)
Emergency Management (Growing field in the civilian and local government world)
Surveyor
Planning/Programs (project planning, construction management)
RED HORSE (previously mentioned combat engineers--there's even one airborne Red Horse unit).

One issue for many younger troops, was that they very rarely got to actually do their real job at home station. These are typically tasks that have been contracted out--and CE troops often get stuck overseeing their work/contract compliance. Deployed, however--they did all kinds of stuff and my observation is that (with the right leadership), they did it very well.

CT'97 said:

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Thanks for the info, that makes a lot more sense. He's a freshman so I'm not too worried. I'm steering him to talk to his officers and NCO's and not just take cadet rum-int as fact.

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Sounds like this upcoming year they're removing rated/non rated so it's tech/non tech only.

Don't really understand why but the bobs have to change things to justify their positions. They'll still be taking as many rated cadets from ROTC as the pipelines can support.

But basically my info is dated.

CharlieBrown17 said:

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I'm a pilot and love my maintainers.

Wouldn't push anyone towards that as a career field right now. Very little experience in the field overall right now, long hours, questionable leadership. Which I think is who the avionics jobs you're talking about fit into.

Doesn't really translate that well to the outside from talking to my mechanics unless you go out of your way to get your A&P.

Allegedly sensor operators for drones make good money on the outside. Not my world.

Air traffic control pays well on the outside and I'd hazard a guess his learning curve on a DoD base would be a lot less steep due to less traffic. Then he'd be able to get a higher experience job afterwards at a big airport/control center.

All of the command & control jobs listed on the page you're talking about are boring clerical work with a cool name. The aerospace physiology career field is, for all intents and purposes, helmet maintenance and other oxygen or survival related equipment on jets.

No flying enlisted job translates well (loadmaster, boom operator, etc) just not a civilian counterpart to them.

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You must be a pilot of a C-130

C-17s

My experience seems pretty ubiquitous talking to my bros from pilot training spread across the flying community.

CharlieBrown17 said:

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I'm a pilot and love my maintainers.

Wouldn't push anyone towards that as a career field right now. Very little experience in the field overall right now, long hours, questionable leadership. Which I think is who the avionics jobs you're talking about fit into.

Doesn't really translate that well to the outside from talking to my mechanics unless you go out of your way to get your A&P.

Allegedly sensor operators for drones make good money on the outside. Not my world.

Air traffic control pays well on the outside and I'd hazard a guess his learning curve on a DoD base would be a lot less steep due to less traffic. Then he'd be able to get a higher experience job afterwards at a big airport/control center.

All of the command & control jobs listed on the page you're talking about are boring clerical work with a cool name. The aerospace physiology career field is, for all intents and purposes, helmet maintenance and other oxygen or survival related equipment on jets.

No flying enlisted job translates well (loadmaster, boom operator, etc) just not a civilian counterpart to them.

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FYI: I did 25 years as an ABM 13BX in CONUS Sector Control, Ground Based Air Defense, JSTARS, Mobile TACS, AOC, Numbered AF and MAJCOM HQ,

Depending on what you want out of the AF, this is not necessarily true. 1C5X career field is an operational one in tech systems MX/operations in both airborne and ground environments, as well as Weapons Control in Mobile TACS, Sector Air Defense and probably JSTARS/AWACS in the future (if not already cause my info is old as well). As you get more experience there is also planning and ops execution experience in the AOC environment (cause you can't play forever). The larger crews and teams in the different 1C5X environments also provide opportunities for leadership positions of significant numbers of airmen.

IC5X1

The technical experience that 1C5s get has application to the real world, but usually in a narrow area of Defense Industry companies. For example, DATA Link Techs were in high demand not long ago and they made huge amounts of money as contractors.

One correction; No PURELY flying enlisted job translates well (loadmaster, boom operator, etc) just not a civilian counterpart to them.

I'll freely admit I was unaware of that 1C shred.

But most of the C2 enlisted dudes are answering phones and updating GDSS. Mainly taking about 1C3.

I'd also wager there's more 1C3s running around than 1C5 by a large factor since every base has a command post manned by 1C3 and then the overbloated yet somehow always undermanned TACC full of them

As an individual AFSC, that may well be so. But, there are large numbers of 1C4xx (TACP) and 1C5xx (ABM OPS). They would not be hard to be an AFSC of choice if one wanted.

...and a hell of a lot more exciting and fun than a CP or TACC.

I did 22 years in the medial field in the AF as a combat medic. Unfortunately, you don't get to use all of your skills on the outside. However, I do have a son that went into MRI in the AF and got out making 6 figures. My oldest son is an AF pilot as well.

I always told my Airmen that the job will be what you make of it. There are plenty of education opportunities while you are in. Take advantage of the tuition assistance and GI Bill and you can do anything you want when you get out. Just make sure you are advancing yourself while you are in so that when the time comes to re-enlist, you have all the control and can stay or go, depending on whatever you like.