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Promotion and PRF Information


Guest e3racing

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3 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

Seems like WotR is reading BODN for articles, or just serendipity that we were discussing this - 

https://warontherocks.com/2018/12/promoting-what-we-value-weapons-school-and-talent-management-in-the-air-force/

Super big fan of Cyber Patches being negatively impacted...again, shows what we value.

I have witnessed several instances where officers with only 4-6 years of active flying were promoted below the zone.  A couple were late rate folks and others had managed to attend multiple special programs that took them out of the jet.  I am not sure how missing out on gate months isn't considered a bad thing.

 

Also...I don't want to paint too large of a picture, but senior leadership tends to promote those that are of similar pedigree.  It's an easy comfortable decision and it self-validates their own career choices. In reference to the article, there are more non-patches than patches so I am sure that is at least a contributing factor.

 

Edited by Jetpilot
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14 minutes ago, Jetpilot said:

I have witnessed several instances where officers with only 4-6 years of active flying were promoted below the zone.  A couple were late rate folks and others had managed to attend multiple special programs that took them out of the jet.  I am not sure how missing out on gate months isn't considered a bad thing.

 

Also...I don't want to paint too large of a picture, but senior leadership tends to promote those that are of similar pedigree.  It's an easy comfortable decision and it self-validates their own career choices. In reference to the article, there are more non-patches than patches so I am sure that is at least a contributing factor.

 

We had an OG/CC who had about 100 hours of combat time.  For contrast, I had over 400 after my first six-month deployment.

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7 hours ago, pawnman said:

We had an OG/CC who had about 100 hours of combat time.  For contrast, I had over 400 after my first six-month deployment.

I was writing PRFs and seen a guy with well over 1K combat hours, yet he had one strat going up for major. Good dude, just has a different view. Like people should be allowed to play cards at work kind of guy.

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3 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

Dumb question, but I thought PRFs went from squadron - group - wing - AFPC. Any reason why your respective numbered AF needs to see your PRF?

Holy hell... You don't know what happens at the MLR, but someone asked you to write a PRF?  I'm feeling slightly better about my own chances, but the guy you were writing for is fucked.

Edited by pawnman
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2 hours ago, pawnman said:

Holy hell... You don't know what happens at the MLR, but someone asked you to write a PRF?  I'm feeling slightly better about my own chances, but the guy you were writing for is fucked.

Jesus...this isn't reddit...calm down. 🤣

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On 12/2/2018 at 1:49 PM, hindsight2020 said:

Your shitty PRF won't be a problem for O-5 in the Reserves, hell we promote convicted deviants. Your lack of ACSC in correspondence however, will 100% guarantee your non-promotion. I'm telling you, it's that binary.

Binary in 2018, yeah, but I'm hoping my laziness combined with the desperation to backfill hundreds of vacant O-5 billets will outlast AFRC's resistance to change. It's going to be a battle for the ages.

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One thing in the PRF discussion that I haven’t seen mentioned yet:  push notes.

For those of you that are wondering/care where you stand in the overall rack/stack, a good way to find out before the PRFs are even signed would be to schedule time with the person directly subordinate to your senior rater.  In most flying organizations, I assume your senior rater is the wing commander and the person immediately below him is your OG/CC.  This needs to be, at a minimum, 6 months before PRFs are due in your wing.  Honestly, to make any sort of actionable difference, it probably needs to be about a year out so that there is time to fix any perceived deficiencies in your record (i.e., get you that upgrade you are missing, that job you haven’t done, or award you haven’t got)...again, assuming you care to do so.  Before that meeting, for promotion to O-5,, if you care about getting promoted and you haven’t received any documented strats in rank/grade categories (as opposed to contrived categories related to jobs/AFSCs), you are probably in bad shape and most definitely not in the running for a DP.  At that point, you are trying to find figure out where you’re at in the pool of other “P’s”.

I’ve been involved in more PRF processes than I care to count, and I can tell you that a critical factor in deciding how strong a middle-of-the-road guy guy gets pushed (or not) comes down to what the OG says to the Wing/CC about that person as the PRFs get sent up for review.  This usually comes in the form of a push note (typically hand-written to accompany the PRF folders) that effectively says anywhere from, “This guy rocks and needs a DP to keep him going” to “This guy shows up and flies the plane well but that’s it.  Solid P” to “While I know you’ll be short on DPs, this guy should be next in line because of such and such.”  Almost without fail, senior raters will go with what their group commanders recommend for a person up for promotion that they don’t personally know.

So, all this to say, if you know ahead of time what your OG/CC plans to say about you as PRFs are coming due, you’re going to know where you sit overall.  Yes, after signed PRFs come out, you have the opportunity to meet with your Wing/CC and find out the rationale of his promotion recommendation and what you can do in the future, but honestly at that point, it is too late.  Much better to find out where you stand early so that you can start planning an exit strategy or work some last ditch efforts to boost your record.

I wouldn’t say that this aspect of the process is intentionally secretive, but it certainly is not well-advertised.

TL/DR: find a way to talk with your group commander well before PRFs are written to find out where you stand in his/her rack/stack.

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I would also add: if you’re IPZ for O-5 and still working below the Wing, this is a good indicator that you’re probably bottom 50%. 

 

YMMV but I know easily a dozen people that never had a wing job but either went to IDE in res or received IPZ O-5 DPs, but I’m sure they were receiving strats in the manner I described above.

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