Guard Hiring Within

Joshrk22

New Member
I know there's quite a few ANG guys on here. How often do your units hire from within? I called some fighter units throughout the midwest and it seemed like most of them hired recent college grads off the street.

I'm a college Sophomore now and have been really looking at enlisting to a) serve my country, b) pay for school (Go BLUE!) and provide opportunities (I don't need this to attend school, I can still pay through other means), c) and get my foot in the door and network.

I recently disenrolled from AFROTC because I feel that the Guard and Reserves fit me better and that's the route I want to take. My mom really wants me to consider enlisting because she's afraid I'll get deployed and have to miss a semester or two of school which will set me back in terms of graduation.

Am I better off to just stick with what I'm doing and focus on my grades and go from there after I graduate? I don't know if my stats will help but here they are..

3.5+ GPA in Computer Science Engineering
AFOQT - 99P, 99N, 99Q, 85AA, 44V (wtf?)
72 hours with PPL (gonna' start instrument)
PCSM ? - yet to take TBAS

As far as LORs, I'm going to ask two Cols. from Army Reserves, a high school teacher/football coach, a family friend, and an employer. I feel that'll get a good spread of people that know me.

Thanks!
 
Wow another ANG/Res post . . . :whatever:

I'm going AD so take my advice with a grain of salt. I don't know a lot about the in's and out's of going ANG/Res, but I do know that your best chance at a pilot slot was with AFROTC. Since you've decided to go ANG/Res I'll say that I've heard of units that primarily hire from within and others that don't. I think getting a slot is all about being qualified first to get your foot in the door and then networking to show the guys that are hiring you that they'll want to be around you and work with you for the next X number of years.

You could be the best applicant on paper but if no one can stand to be around you for more than five minutes and if you don't "fit in" with the people you're going to be working with then you're SOL. I say this as one engineer to another.

Now I'll hand it over the frog_flyer (who claims to be at OTS, but his volume of posts here begs to differ :D), Justin172, mhcasey, and the other ANG/Res members for advice.
 
Your best chance to fly was probably AFROTC. Guard/Reserve units are all different. Being a prior enlisted dude will help you at a lot of units, but it's not necessarily a deal breaker. I got picked up off the street pretty much straight out of school.

I'd say go ahead and enlist if you no want to join the Air Force right now and don't have any qualms with going to the desert. If you really just want to fly, keep your grades up, stay out of trouble, kiss ass wherever you go without being a d-bag, and do some cool with your spare time. Everyone will have good scores and some flight time. If you want in with a guard/reserve unit, you need to stand out some other way.
 
Yes I realized what I was giving up when I gave up AFROTC, but I was okay with that. I'm willing to bust my ass to get into a Guard/Reserve unit. I really want to get in a fighter unit and I feel the Guard would be the best way to do that. With all the cutbacks on AD (yes I know Guard, too...) with fighters and UAVs. Not too mention it's a pretty sweet deal to do the traditional guardsman thing and work a civilian job or go full-time and serve 20 years and not have to move. Guard definitely has its benefits over AD.

Right now I've just been working and trying to get my name out there so hopefully I can get an in with some of these units. Didn't realize how many Guard/Reserve guys I/my family knows until I started looking around.

Also, I don't know if this matters much but does it help being fluent in Arabic or Farsi? Is that something that would help you stand out among other applicants? I know the military is in need of foreign language speakers.
 
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