Career Advice

Hello Everyone,

New member here, A little background about myself, I am a 25B in the U.S Army currently stationed in Texas and plan on ETSing out of the army in about a year which will make a couple months shy of 6 years. Currently I am a "system admin" doing the basic stuff like remedy, AD, Troubleshooting things. Also there the the tactical side, The CPN stacks where we get to dabble in the cisco networking side of the job which interests me and right now I plan on getting CCENT and then CCNA. Basically if I achieve these 2 certifications what pay would I be looking at coming out of the army? I know I need to start busting my butt getting certified and gaining more knowledgeable in networking. For further reference I do not Have a degree. Thanks for reading.

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CIO

Knowing the city & state you plan on working in will help narrow down the pay to an accurate range

Klein2442

Does not matter to really. Will go anywhere.

cyberguypr

You still need to determine a location. What good does it make to tell you for example, expect $70k if there's no baseline to compare cost of living. BIG factor.

Klein2442

You make a solid point. Thanks for the reply.

Texas or Ohio would be my ideal locations. I'm assuming the job market compared to the two is vastly different.

xxxkaliboyxxx

25B here, I ETS a few months ago, no degree, only cert is Sec+ but I do have 8 years of experience. I'm doing helpdesk for the Army as a contractor and make right under 60k. Is this the norm? doesn't seem like it, I regret not doing more schooling and getting more certification. CCENT won't help much as it is still to low of a level, but I notice if you can talk the talk if actually make it to the hiring manager, experience trumps all.

Also I'm going to be blunt here from a former 25B, you you have massive amount of time to attend boot camps and use your TA, use it! do not waste your GI bill when you can get it paid for without touching your benefits. Your at 5 years? you are not doing anything that intensive where they will not allow you to go to whatever boot camp. I love the Army, but they will not take care of you after you get out. If you were at my unit, you would do maybe desktop support maybe 1 or 2 days out the week. figure out what path you want and realize location does matter after your last military move, guess what? you might be stuck in that area for a while.

When you attend TAP briefing, you are going to get in c9ntact with lots of recruiters that deal only with military, you know why? your military move. just know these are barebone contracts and offer no upward mobility, no benefits and you probably be making less than you do now.

2nd EDIT: please PM or connect with me on LinkedIn (on my profile) I can definitely point you in the right direction and tell you where I made mistakes and what helped.

Klein2442

Thanks for the reply. Very useful information. In my current unit it's impossible to get into classes since I'm the only 25B in my unit who even knows what's going on. That's why my supervisor's never send me because the battalion would fail not to mention being a supervisor for 3 soldiers. Pretty shitty I know. As college goes yes that's my fault and pretty stupid on my part and need to get enrolled ASAP. Have any suggestions?

xxxkaliboyxxx

I used to think like you when I was an E-4 and the only 25B in my unit. My supervisor was a 25U.

1. Are you a E-4? If so, your not a supervisor, your a peer. In reality, it is the responsibility of their first line supervisor (first E-5) to supervised. With that said, no harm in helping and mentoring your peers.

2. No unit will hinder a learning experience from a soldier especially a class that will improve the organization, the team and yourself. Trust me on that, if you let your supervisor know your intention and work your way up to the 1SG and CSM, no one will stop you. You do have to present it properly and do some research on which classes with dates. Boots camps are 1 week, is your battalion going to fall apart the 1 week your gone? They were fine before you and they will be fine way after you.

3. Attend CTC locally and knockout your AA core classes or whatever degree you want to pursuit, start looking 1, 5, 10 years out. You have the advantage of attending CTC locally and since it caters to the Military community, they online presence is very strong. I'm currently enrolled in CTC since they give me the most credits for my military experience.

Ultimately, you are going to have to put some effort in improving yourself to make the transition that much easier, other wise you will play catch up like me.

Cyberscum

Well it depends on what you are looking at for a career. Will u have trouble getting a job, no. Are you going to be making 100+/yr, prob not.

1. Get a degree (WGU seems popular on this site)

2. Get an upper level cert

3. Hold contract jobs to keep your clearance while you knock out the degree

There are always exceptions to everything but you have a good start. Any COMSEC or EMSEC exp? Those seem pretty hot in the TeX area right now.

Klein2442

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess you could say I have decent amount of experience in comsec by using it through the SKL's and Harris 1523's. Kinda a jack of all trades army commo wise. Also uploading the comsec into the KG-175D and configuring it to have neighbors with other KG-175D's. I cannot say I was ever a comsec custodian as that is usually at the brigade level and higher rank than I am. I understand the concept of encryption but never got very deep into the subject.

EANx

Outside the USG, no one knows what a raskal, KG or "pulling tape" is.

No_Nerd

PM Me if you want 25B Both on the Active and NG side . What do your awards look like ? Team Lead? How many people did you control( Manage)

@=xxxkaliboyxxx

If he was an E4 (P) then it might help some. I agree there will need to be some work put in to be competitive

xxxkaliboyxxx

You know what a E-4 (P) is? A E-4. Now you can definitely leverage your responsibility on a resume and there is leadership qualities that employers value that people in the military have, but for him right now using that as a reason not to be able to attend additional training? only the worst soldiers or the most toxic units won't allow a soldier to improve themselves. Short of being "forced" out, I don't see why he can't attend workshops or training.

No_Nerd

1. Operation Tempo comes to mind.
2. Lack of funding
3. S3 picking up the information late causes the course to be filled to soon.

4. If there is a Priority list i.e. someone who is more senior waiting for a course then he might not get in.
5. We can "what- if " this to death .....
Like pumping an E4 through WLC when there are E5s who need to go.
I am not saying let us make excuses for this guy however.... we can address this from various avenues

BTW kaliboy congrats on the SF selection it is an event....... did you finish or did you get hurt in the process or DOR ( happens a lot)

you can also be a first line sup as a e4 if there are no e5s in the section as I am sure you know

xxxkaliboyxxx

True Larry, we can debate all day, you seem like the type that would, I know I am, but we are here to help a fellow 25B out. We both reached out to him, now let's hope he uses his resources (US) to his advantage.

And selection was a lifetime ago brother. DOR? I'm assuming you mean VDUB/VW (voluntary withdraw). Lol, I definitely wasn't one of them. I made it through. You should try it one day, really shows what your made of, some people just talk the talk. That whole tour was the best time in my life. ahhhh, good times lol.

If you going to look at my profile on LinkedIn, add me, like my post, something lol

Klein2442

EANx wrote: »

Outside the USG, no one knows what a raskal, KG or "pulling tape" is.

Google. But the user asking the question strikes me as having experience in the subject.

Cyberscum

Klein2442 wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess you could say I have decent amount of experience in comsec by using it through the SKL's and Harris 1523's. Kinda a jack of all trades army commo wise. Also uploading the comsec into the KG-175D and configuring it to have neighbors with other KG-175D's. I cannot say I was ever a comsec custodian as that is usually at the brigade level and higher rank than I am. I understand the concept of encryption but never got very deep into the subject.

Are you looking at gov or cont jobs? Also, what area.

Ever worked C&A packages or done EMSEC certs?

skswitch

Klein2442 wrote: »

Hello Everyone,

New member here, A little background about myself, I am a 25B in the U.S Army currently stationed in Texas and plan on ETSing out of the army in about a year which will make a couple months shy of 6 years. Currently I am a "system admin" doing the basic stuff like remedy, AD, Troubleshooting things. Also there the the tactical side, The CPN stacks where we get to dabble in the cisco networking side of the job which interests me and right now I plan on getting CCENT and then CCNA. Basically if I achieve these 2 certifications what pay would I be looking at coming out of the army? I know I need to start busting my butt getting certified and gaining more knowledgeable in networking. For further reference I do not Have a degree. Thanks for reading.

Non-Military but I've worked with a few who were. Couldn't tell you ranks or anything only backgrounds.

My first job was with a System Admin who was retired Army. He didn't have a degree but had A+/Sec+/Sec+ and least 5yrs exp. He said he had a toss up of between a higher paying job that was DoD contract but was afraid of what people mentioned here already, contract disappearing leaving you scrambling. System admin job paid around 50-55k with decent pay bumps. Don't think hes worked on certs or schooling yet either so assuming that's still his range.

Current job I work with two (one former) Air force other Army. Air force guy use to work overseas making 100k+ as a contractor in a NOC. Think it was 4 months on 4 months off back to US. His background is no certs that I'm aware of but has a BA and least 10-15yrs exp. He took this job cause it was for one, safer and also was burnt not having a place to live. Would live out of hotels when back in states. Pretty sure hes making ~70k range now here.

Last guy played his cards right and made some damn smart moves. He started here with highest salary we had (wasn't a cap back then 85-90k) due to 10yr+ exp with BA on top of butt load of certs I couldn't start listing. Used the overnight shift to hammer out CCNP and I believe working on CASP now. Think he was also taking classes to be an officer as well? I don't know how that works sorry ><. He's still active and when he gets deployed banks bonus/pay and buys property back in US. He left here to take a Senior position at another company from my understanding and had no problem securing an offer.

I use these three as examples cause it gets you a mix having certs with no degree, degree and no certs and one with both. It's kinda all over the board isn't it? My advise is there really isn't any mix/match golden ticket. But what I can say is to always work on your Tri-Force (Education - Experience - Certifications)

. This will only increase your chances.

Just cause you got a certification doesn't automatically open a CCNA door to all CCNA jobs. But if you did have one, that allows you to check a toggle mark for a requirement on a job posting. Same with a degree. And that may be the thing you need to get past a filter into a interview.