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Square

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Everything posted by Square

  1. Dumb question on this one--does the color vision test result in a final "overall" score? Or is it each eye, each cone? Just read the waiver guide and the relook memo and didn't see reference there. Thanks.
  2. Going to add one story to Nunya's post. I was doing the guard to reserve (IMA) switch, talking primarily to the reserve recruiter with some minimal interaction with the RIO det. Had the 1288 and memo in to my guard commander in line with the experienced referenced above, and was in the "wait some more mode." One day I tried to log into my .mil webmail and couldn't access and also didn't have access to the AF portal. Something had happened, so I called my guard unit and found out from them looking into my status that I was in the IRR. Apparently I had been separated from the ANG with no unit gain by the AFR. The RIO was able to backdate my association with my IMA unit so no break in participating service, but the whole thing was very strange. Had the backdate not happened I would have had something like a two month break. Had I not called them to ask the question I think I would have cluelessly showed up for Guard drill.
  3. Bringing this thread back rather than posting in the PME and career advice. Just finished the last of the self-paced ACSC courses, just have to register for the last applied class. I see this one is three weeks. Does it differ materially from the others earlier in the program? More or less work? Trying to judge when I should be taking this class around some work/family stuff. Thanks. Looking forward to have the program done and dusted.
  4. Dumb question, but I've gone through vPC-GR and not had much luck finding a straightforward answer. I'm an IMA with no service committments, what would be the process for separating from the ready reserve? When I left active duty I just filled out the form on vMPF self service actions and that was that. Is it this same for reservists? Any limitations for advance notice to separate? For active duty, if I remember correctly, it was no less than 6 months and no more than 12 to establish a separation date. Any other gotchas you all have seen? Thanks much!
  5. Just FYI, I put in a ticket to student services to try to get a list of paper assignments for the balance of the program. Response was to "[r]eview the student handbook to get an overview, but you cannot have access to the material until you are enrolled into the courses." So not all that helpful, given that here I was trying to get a sense of workload down the road in order to plan my life.
  6. I must be missing something on the ACSC blackboard page... can't find which modules require a term paper after the squadron commander interview paper. Are those assignments listed somewhere?
  7. Copy, stay away from the Kool-Aid.
  8. Count the wife and I as two more happy NBoKC customers. Closed within 30 days of our offer being accepted, pretty killer rate, and with Dave Devine had someone who really smoothed the way--we were first time homebuyers. I should also probably add that our realtor and title agent were also super impressed with the folks at NBoKC. We're down in south FL, where there are probably more shenanigans and amateur-hour acts than most real estate markets. It was interesting to hear from the other professionals we were working with (who thankfully were also no-nonsense types) how much they appreciated Dave and his colleagues.
  9. So my guard gig is getting ready to expire due to a unit mission change. I've been hunting for a guard/reserve position close to where I'm living. I've traded emails with the DO of a range ops det, and he's interested in having some IMA support, but currently doesn't have any open positions. He mentioned that he's not really up to speed on getting reserve support. I'm going to get in touch with the IMA coordinator at ARPC (not sure if that's what the position is really called) for this region to see what's what. Have any of you heard of or personally had any success in facilitating the creation of a position, and subsequently filling it? I'm pretty ignorant of the funding side of things--I think I read somewhere that IDTs and AT are funded through ARPC? If I assessed into the reserve could I just work for man-days if the unit was able to come up with that funding somehow? Any input would be appreciated.
  10. Does anyone know generally how long after the ROPMA board meets that results would be released?
  11. I'll pile on some with Mappeby, and provide a little general background, first on management consulting, then a little on finance. If you're interested one of the "baseops.net" equivalents for those industries is a site called wallstreetoasis (dot) com. You have to wade through a lot of crap to get good info, but it's certainly there. So consulting is a pretty broad industry. I'll leave aside engineering, environmental, scientific, and the like and focus on business or commercial firms. Mappleby referenced a few companies called McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group. These three together are sometimes referred to as MBB--they're generally considered the top of the heap in the industry. They are primarily known as strategy firms. After that top tier of firms there are a few others that are big names, some do strategy work and others do what is sometimes called implementation consulting, IT consulting, or operational consulting or all of the above. Some examples here would be Booz and Co (not the same as Booz Allen Hamilton--and also not a stand alone firm anymore), Deloitte, PwC, Accenture, AT Kearney, IBM. A lot of big companies also have internal strategy groups that serve much the same function as these types of firms. There are tons of smaller consulting firms out there. Some do strategy work, others are involved in serving financial firms in doing due diligence prior to an investment. As a whole the industry is undergoing a lot of change, with consolidation between the strategy and implementation sides of the business. HBR had an article about that it a few months ago. Those top tier firms generally are structured very much like a pyramid. They recruit heavily from ivy league type colleges for their analysts. Analysts generally stay for a handful of years and move on to another job, or to grad school, or sometimes rarely get promoted to the associate level. Associates are the next layer in the pyramid. Generally these are folks who are recruited out of MBA programs or other grad schools. Competition for associate jobs is intense. Most associates also don't stay longer than a few years. The attraction of consulting is the compensation--associates can start north of 110K with sizeable bonuses--the opportunity to see lots of companies and industries, and having the name of the consulting firm on the resume provides great opportunities for the next job. Downside is a pretty lousy lifestyle: being on the road Mon-Thurs week in and week out. These firms do value a military background, but they also have recruiting practices that are pretty set in stone. Getting in from outside of a campus recruiting system could be tough. The place to start would be finding someone in your network at one of these firms and starting a dialog. I know that PwC and Deloitte also have dedicated military recruiting programs, but I don't know if they're for the consulting arms of those companies or more backoffice roles. You may be able to connect with them at a veteran's career fair like Military MOJO or Hiring our Heroes or the like. There's also something like Deloitte's Core Leadership Program (it'll come up if you google it). Not much else is springing to mind to share. Does all that make sense?
  12. Coming, I left active duty back in 2011 and wrapped up an MBA last year from one of the better programs and have many friends who've gone into financial services and consulting. When you say finance what are you thinking? Like banking, trading, FP&A at a fortune 500, or something else? What's your undergrad? I wouldn't think Cameron Brooks is going to be able to help you much if you want to go the direction of professional services. If you can provide a little more detail I can probably help direct you some--you can take it to PM, but I was thinking about starting a thread for discussing transition out of the Air Force into non-aviation industry, so maybe this can be that thread.
  13. Don't think I've seen this posted elsewhere here. Cool Vietnam era video of Robin Olds and crew. http://youtu.be/qDWevnyRtjc
  14. You'd think some defense contractor would see this opportunity and jump on creating a system like you'd describe, a la DTS.
  15. Wasn't sure whether to post this here or in the sequestration thread. Came across these when on the AU page looking for a link to some doctrine documents. Amazing to me that someone took the time to put these together, then post them for the world to (maybe not?) see. http://www.au.af.mil/au/lemay/content/Wheel-of-Doctrine/Wheel.html http://www.au.af.mil/au/lemay/Jeopar-Doctrine.html http://www.au.af.mil/au/lemay/Doctrine-aire_Game.html
  16. This is the issue. Banker's hours are bad. mappleby hit it on the head in terms of expected input... what's also bad is that a lot of those hours are completely out of the control of the individual. Banking is a client service industry, so your time committment can change at the whim of that client, or those in the firm structure above you who're in closer contact to the client. Stories of waiting around until the wee hours of the morning in order to do happy to glad changes to powerpoint decks, or revise punctuation in a document are not uncommon. I should also caveat that by saying we're refering to the big guys on wall street (Goldman, JP Morgan, etc). I'm told some of the smaller, more boutique firms have a little better lifestyle, but that's a matter of degrees. Not that the grass is always greener... if you're founding your own company you're a slave to that enterprise as well.
  17. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're asking if tuition is used by employers to determine the quality of the program? I'm thinking no. From what I've heard--and I'm far from an authority--for the most part business schools are nationally kind of ranked into top two or three, then the next cluster is like down through top ten, then there's another cluster down through the top ~20, then the rest. The numbers I'm quoting aren't exact, but you get the idea. The next consideration then would be if a particular school has a specific geographic or progamatic reason to stand out. What I mean is that UT Austin is overall a good school, but not in the top ten. If, however, you wanted to work in oil and gas then it would move up the curve, if you wanted to end up in silicon valley maybe it'd be harder to get your resume looked at. You need to keep in mind that the value of this MBA thing has an educational component, but then there's also the network component. So maybe SD would be a great option if you wanted to hang around in SD, or maybe there's coursework there that caters to those who're going to focus on the natural gas industry. If not, then the degree would be likely held in the same regard as another program. Edit to add: I've never been in on hiring decisions looking at resumes of MBA grads. You might be better served asking some folks who work in HR.
  18. I'm at a top MBA program now after switching out of AD into the guard as a traditional guy. The $200,000/yr figure is aggressive for a recent grad. Not saying that it doesn't happen... it certainly does, but the folks who're pulling that down at one year out of school are probably getting most of that as performance based compensation and are working in financial services. The really high salaried recent MBA grad is normally someone who's going into very high-end financial services firm, and those firms as a general rule have as their target hire someone who worked for a high-end financial services firm prior to b-school. I'm job searching now and expect that for the type of company I'm looking at for my salary to land in the range of 100-150K. I'd say that's about average for my peers for a first job out of b-school and not going to an investment bank or private equity firm or into investment management. Even for the folks going into banking, they're not making much more for the first couple years, but their salary growth is (right now anyway, who knows where the industry is going) significant, especially if they're able to parlay their banking job into a PE job. In the meantime lifestyle in banking is notoriously shitty. I guess my point is, and has been mentioned further down this thread, that salary data pumped out by schools can be skewed, but not just by a desire to make the school and degree seem more desirable--it's also that the salary stats are pulled up by jobs that the average former USAF-type would have a really, really hard time landing.
  19. Square

    Gun Talk

    My brother works for a dealer's rep in sporting goods. He goes to lots of trade shows, including SHOT, this is what he had to say when I asked about the business.. "They are billed after they ship. If 1/4 of what is ordered by the retailers shipped, it will be a miracle. We did a show for the distributor Big Rock sports the first week of January. The usual total for the show is 30-35 million....this year 300 million was written. There was show for Ellet Brothers distribution in SC last week. They usually write about 250 million at the show. They wrote over 1 BILLION! I will be working the Acusport distributor show in Fort Worth next week, and am expecting much of the same. The shops that get shipped will be rich. The small, newer shops that are lower on the pecking order may go under due to lack of product."
  20. Square

    Gun Talk

    I'm less optimistic about that. You know all the debates we have about careerism, shoeclerkism, etc in the Air Force? You don't think there are the same types of issues in federal and local law enforcement--not to mention that some of those same folks joined up just to be an authority figure? I think there are a lot of those folks who would willingly advance their careers by enforcing new firearms laws--and that doesn't even take into account those who legitimately believe that such new regulations are Constitutional and therefore should be legally enforced.
  21. I'm was a Lt at a base which at the time had very few Lts. As the base we were at had no CGOC, I figured that the three other Lts and myself start a chapter and we'd somehow come up with an officially sanctioned drinking club. I mean, if we were the only Lts around, the flying captain types were cool and incredibly disinterested (in a good way) with the project, it seemed like a win all around. What we naive Lts failed to reckon with was that there were captains in other organizations--comm being the most noteworthy--who weren't as disinterested. Our idea had percolated up through some channels somewhere, got over to them, and was subsequently hijacked. Before I knew it, what was supposed to just be some dudes hanging out LPA style became work, complete with "taskers" coming from the shoe president of the organization. That was the last of that, and now I have to live with the thought that I helped contribute to advancing the career of the shoest of shoes I've ever come across. Lts, let that be a lesson to you about shoeclerkdom.
  22. I tried to get a group buy together a few years back, the restriction was that all buyers had to be military flyers, and at least the lead buyer had to be a pilot. We were going to go with a unit patch, but never got it all together... I think I remember that all of the designs had to be the same, but didn't remember exactly.
  23. Tunes, any word about different back design?
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