The weight of "Government Experience" with potential employers.

earonw49

Merry Christmas Eve forum! I hope everyone is having a blessed Christmas Eve so far!

I just wanted to ask a question I have been wondering about for a few months now:

How much "weight/power" does government experience bring to a potential employer? :

Indeed there are many factors that attribute to that question however if anyone can give me a brief summary and/or opinion on this (personal experience preferred), that would be appreciated.

In case anyone wondering, I work for the State of Tennessee as a Traveling Desktop Support "Engineer" / Jr. System Admin. I currently support over 650 users PC's, Tablets, Laptops, VoIP Phones (Cisco Voice), Fax and Network printers (Lexmark and Canon).

Thank you very much! Merry Christmas!

Danielm7

I'm sure it depends what sort of government experience you're referring to and what sort of job you're going for. If I'm looking for a security person and I see they have a few years at the NSA it might be interesting. But, if you mean really local government, around me anyway, all the people I've know in those departments were really lazy and slow. They would hire consultants for EVERYTHING, no one ever wanted to update anything and they wanted to say in the same position/role until retirement. So, in those cases, I'd rather see someone who has progressed upwards in regular corporations. Obviously this varies by location and personal experiences.

lsud00d

Unless you're going into another government position, it won't be a big factor.

What's more important is your duties, your successes, and if you're trying to move into a bigger shop...how many devices/endpoints you managed and what you subsequently did with them.